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Embodied Artificial Intelligence pp 37–53Cite as

The Future of Embodied Artificial Intelligence: Machine Consciousness?

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3139))

Abstract

The idea that internal models of the world might be useful has generally been rejected by embodied AI for the same reasons that led to its rejection by behaviour based robotics. This paper re-examines the issue from historical, biological, and functional perspectives; the view that emerges indicates that internal models are essential for achieving cognition, that their use is widespread in biological systems, and that there are several good but neglected examples of their use within embodied AI. Consideration of the example of a hypothetical autonomous embodied agent that has to execute a complex mission in a dynamic, partially unknown, and hostile environment leads to the conclusion that the necessary cognitive architecture is likely to contain separate but interacting models of the body and of the world. This arrangement is shown to have intriguing parallels with new findings on the infrastructure of consciousness, leading to the speculation that the reintroduction of internal models into embodied AI may lead not only to improved machine cognition but also, in the long run, to machine consciousness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, CO4 3SQ

    Owen Holland

Authors
  1. Owen Holland
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Informatics, University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15, CH-8050, Zurich, Switzerland

    Fumiya Iida  & Rolf Pfeifer  & 

  2. VUB AI Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Luc Steels

  3. JST ERATO Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project,  

    Yasuo Kuniyoshi

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Holland, O. (2004). The Future of Embodied Artificial Intelligence: Machine Consciousness?. In: Iida, F., Pfeifer, R., Steels, L., Kuniyoshi, Y. (eds) Embodied Artificial Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3139. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27833-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27833-7_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-22484-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-27833-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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