The Nature Of Artificial Intelligence

Human consciousness has several distinct components encompass basic perception, self-awareness, cognition, and memory.  While all of these features are experienced on a regular basis by people, each of these phenomenological elements could be at least hypothetically present in an artificial intelligence, given that it is constructed the right way.  An artificial intelligence could be a simulated "consciousness" that only acts as if it is conscious but still performs what would otherwise be called "cognitive" functions, but an AI could also be an actual consciousness, albeit artificially generated, that inhabits a machine or computer hardware shell.

Though its present significance is sometimes overstated, artificial intelligence is a topic where the connection between scientific endeavors and metaphysics has the potential to revolutionize human civilization.  One can easily imagine what the future might hold as AI becomes more prominent and lifelike.  AI could eventually be utilized in numerous ways to blatantly reshape everything from business to warfare to education, but this technological revolution can only be successful to the extent that software engineers and technicians comprehend the nature of artificial intelligence to begin with.

Since AI is intended to imitate human consciousness itself in at least some basic way, the goal of creating this imitation can only be achieved (except by accident) if the creators of AI grasp what it means to be human from a phenomenological standpoint.  After all, only tremendous luck would allow someone to duplicate the components of a mind without any deliberate comprehension of what a mind is!  The intentional design of an artificial intelligence requires this knowledge, which can easily be obtained by introspection and rational reflection.

The point is to fashion an artificial version of something that is already integrated into, but not a part of, the natural world.  Human consciousness itself is supernatural by virtue of being nonphysical (as are the laws of logic and the space that holds the body a human consciousness inhabits), but one's consciousness is intimately intertwined with a body of matter.  So, too, is genuine AI sentience--not that one can prove that an AI has experienced sentience or not.

It would be impossible for a non-telepathic being to ever know if a robot or computer is actually conscious, of course, though this is also true of plants, animals, and even other humans; the best one could ever do is verify if an artificial intelligence has the appearance of consciousness.  Nevertheless, it is entirely possible to understand the concept of AI and its relationship to human consciousness even if a truly sentient machine or program will never be created.  To thoroughly understand artificial intelligence, people must already understand themselves.