Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent
A Case Study
Mark Solms (University of Cape Town)
St John Grimbly (University of Cape Town)
Bruce Bassett (University of Cape Town, University of Witwatersrand)
Evert Boonstra (University of Cape Town)
Rowan Hodson (University of Tulsa)
Nicolas Kuske (University of Cape Town)
Kival Mahadew (University of Cape Town)
Benjamin Rosman (University of Witwatersrand)
Charel Van Hoof (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
Jonathan Shock (National Institute for Theoretical & Computational Sciences, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, University of Cape Town)
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Abstract
Creatures that display ‘hedonic place preference behaviour’ are thought by many scientists to experience feelings, on the assumption that their attraction to pleasure-producing substances which lack nutritional value (e.g. cocaine, morphine) cannot easily be attributed to unconscious instinctual behaviour. In this paper, we discuss how a simple artificial agent that instantiates attributes of an affective system engaging in felt uncertainty about its intrinsic needs in relation to environmental resources can similarly display hedonic place preference behaviour — through an apparently subjective form of information processing — while simultaneously being entirely deterministic. We outline some implications of this artificially engineered behaviour for our understanding of the physical basis of consciousness and the experience of free will.
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