Abstract
The vision of self-managing software systems was proposed in the past two decades. We argue that to be able to realize such vision, a suitable machine consciousness computational model must be incorporated into the software design, as it will be responsible for all cognition, thinking, learning, planning, and decision making tasks. Currently, there exist many general computational models for machine consciousness that could be adopted. They differ in their complexity and their definition of what consciousness is. Therefore, in this paper, we propose to offer machine consciousness as a service (MCaaS). This enables any software system to become “self-managing” by loosely coupling itself with the MCaaS service via a suitable management interface. We propose a roadmap for building such MCaaS service as a composite web service, adopting the Starzyk–Prasad machine consciousness computational model.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmad, S., Hawkins, J.: Properties of sparse distributed representations and their application to hierarchical temporal memory. CoRR (2015). arXiv:1503.07469
Aleksander, I.: The potential impact of machine consciousness in science and engineering. Int. J. Mach. Conscious. 01(01), 1–9 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793843009000037
Aleksander, I., Dunmall, B.: Axioms and tests for the presence of minimal consciousness in agents. J. Conscious. Stud. 10, 7–18 (2003)
Andersen, R.A., Cui, H.: Intention, action planning, and decision making in parietal-frontal circuits. Neuron 63, 568–583 (2009)
Bhatia, A., Maly, M.R., Kavraki, L.E., Vardi, M.Y.: Motion planning with complex goals. IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag. 18, 55–64 (2011)
Chalmers, D.J.: Facing up to the problem of consciousness. J. Conscious. Stud. 2, 200–219 (1995)
Chella, A., Manzotti, R.: Machine consciousness: a manifesto for robotics. Int. J. Mach. Conscious. 01(01), 33–51 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793843009000062
Cui, Y., Surpur, C., Ahmad, S., Hawkins, J.: A comparative study of htm and other neural network models for online sequence learning with streaming data. In: 2016 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), pp. 1530–1538 (2016)
Elgedawy, I.: On-demand conversation customization for services in large smart environments. IBM J. Res. Dev. (Special issue on Smart Cities) 55(1/2), 5:1–5:14 (2011)
Elliott, D., Hansen, S., Grierson, L.E.M., Lyons, J., Bennett, S.J., Hayes, S.J.: Goal-directed aiming: two components but multiple processes. Psychol. Bull. 136(6), 1023–44 (2010)
Gamez, D.: Progress in machine consciousness. Conscious. Cogn. 17(3), 887–910 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2007.04.005
George, D., Hawkins, J.: Towards a mathematical theory of cortical micro-circuits. PLoS Comput. Biol. 5(10), e1000532 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000532
Graham, J., Starzyk, J.A., Ni, Z., He, H., Teng, T.H., Tan, A.H.: A comparative study between motivated learning and reinforcement learning. In: 2015 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), pp. 1–8 (2015)
Gupta, K., Majumdar, A.: Sparsely connected autoencoder. In: 2016 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), pp. 1940–1947 (2016)
Haladjian, H.H., Montemayor, C.: Artificial consciousness and the consciousness-attention dissociation. Conscious. Cogn. 45, 210–225 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.08.011
Hawkins, J., George, D.: Hierarchical temporal memory concepts, theory, and terminology. In: Technical report, Numenta
Hawkins, J., George, D., Niemasik, J.: Sequence memory for prediction, inference and behaviour. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B Biol. Sci. 364(1521), 1203–9 (2009)
Kephart, J.O., Chess, D.M.: The vision of autonomic computing. Computer 36(1), 41–50 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2003.1160055
Loar, B.: Phenomenal states. Philos. Perspect. 4, 81–108 (1990)
Mirabella, G.: Should I stay or should I go? Conceptual underpinnings of goal-irected actions. Front. Syst. Neurosci. 8, 206 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2014.00206
Müller-Schloer, C.: Organic computing: on the feasibility of controlled emergence. In: Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE/ACM/IFIP International Conference on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis, pp. 2–5 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1145/1016720.1016724
Purdy, S.: Encoding data for htm systems. CoRR (2016). arXiv:1602.05925
Reggia, J.A.: The rise of machine consciousness: studying consciousness with computational models. Neural Netw. 44, 112–131 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2013.03.011
Rogers, T.T., McClelland, J.L.: Prcis of semantic cognition: a parallel distributed processing approach. Behav. Brain Sci. 31(6), 689–714 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0800589X
Searle, J.R.: Mind: a brief introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2004)
Starzyk, J.A.: Mental saccades in control of cognitive process. In: The 2011 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, pp. 495–502 (2011)
Starzyk, J.A., Graham, J.T., Raif, P., Tan, A.H.: Motivated learning for the development of autonomous systems. Cogn. Syst. Res. 14(1), 10–25 (2012)
Starzyk, J.A., Prasad, D.K.: A computational model of machine consciousness. Int. J. Mach. Conscious. 03(02), 255–281 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793843011000819
Tamborello I., F.P.: A computational model of routine procedural memory. Ph.D. thesis (2009). https://search.proquest.com/docview/304989696?accountid=13014
van der Velde, F., de Kamps, M.: Neural blackboard architectures of combinatorial structures in cognition. Behav. Brain Sci. 29(1), 37–70 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X06009022
Wang, W., Subagdja, B., Tan, A.H., Starzyk, J.A.: Neural modeling of episodic memory: encoding, retrieval, and forgetting. IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst. 23(10), 1574–1586 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1109/TNNLS.2012.2208477
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Elgedawy, I. Machine consciousness as a service (MCaaS): a roadmap. Iran J Comput Sci 1, 19–30 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42044-017-0002-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42044-017-0002-1