Computer and Robot Consciousness
Today computers and robots only do what they are programmed to do. A computer and robot will never do more than what there's in its program. Robotic programmers create programs that are installed in the 'brain' of the robot. Many of the robotic programming languages are the same as the computer languages such as Java, C, C++, WSFN and others. Robotic programs have pieces of codes that contain all the information that the robot needs to do. Figure 1 below shows an example of what a robotic code looks like. Codes include variables names, number values, reserved words, loops and many others essentials programming features. Theses codes are then put together to create one single program that contains all the instruction for the robot. This program is then installed in the robot's 'brain', a computer processor. In figure 2 we can see an example of what a robot's 'brain', or computer chip, looks like.
But now the real question, can robots one day become self-aware and dominate the world? This is the main fear many people have against robots. According to Kenneth Chang in his article, "Can Robots Become Conscious", "without even a rudimentary understanding of what consciousness is, the idea of instilling it into a machine -- or understanding how a machine might evolve consciousness -- becomes almost unfathomable" (Chang, 2003). What this means is that before creating a conscious robot that will think, act, and have the same emotions just like a human does we need to understand our own consciousness. We are not even close to understanding how our own brain works. The brain is the most complex organ we have as humans. For a robot to dominate the world they need a brain that will resemble the human brain. For a robot brain to resemble a human brain it needs billions of neurons just like our brain but this seems impossible since computer chips have fewer than a thousand connections. Robots will hardly one day become self-aware, and even if it happens, before we have to understand how our own brain works.
But now the real question, can robots one day become self-aware and dominate the world? This is the main fear many people have against robots. According to Kenneth Chang in his article, "Can Robots Become Conscious", "without even a rudimentary understanding of what consciousness is, the idea of instilling it into a machine -- or understanding how a machine might evolve consciousness -- becomes almost unfathomable" (Chang, 2003). What this means is that before creating a conscious robot that will think, act, and have the same emotions just like a human does we need to understand our own consciousness. We are not even close to understanding how our own brain works. The brain is the most complex organ we have as humans. For a robot to dominate the world they need a brain that will resemble the human brain. For a robot brain to resemble a human brain it needs billions of neurons just like our brain but this seems impossible since computer chips have fewer than a thousand connections. Robots will hardly one day become self-aware, and even if it happens, before we have to understand how our own brain works.