Scientists are actively trying to build conscious robots

Hod Lipson, the mechanical engineer in charge of Columbia University’s Creative Machines Lab in New York, is developing a machine with “consciousness on par with a human,” outperforming “everything else we’ve done.”


Lipson believes that sentient robots may be able to cure cancer.

Consciousness is one of the most disputed issues in artificial intelligence, but aside from the technological obstacle of accomplishing this aim, the term itself is conceptually imprecise and subjectively defined.

According to The New York Times, scientists are attempting to link consciousness to specific brain functions but have come up empty.

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Lipson defines consciousness as the ability to “imagine yourself in the future”.

He has tried to create adaptive machines with general intelligence that can learn to evolve by machine-learned natural selection and adjust to changing circumstances, faults, or injuries within the mechanical body.

Machines will be able to envision how to better evolve rather than simply learning and correcting themselves.

While people anthropomorphize non-humans, particularly machines, researchers expect that robots will be able to absorb human traits and qualities, thereby projecting humanity onto conscious machines.