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The biggest advance of science in the AI field so far is the transfer of the neuronal brain structure to the computer level. Thanks to the computing power available today, it is thus possible to feed machines with large amounts of data and use neuron-based algorithms to solve problems that are already surprisingly close to a fantasy movie (chat GPT, Siri or Alexa).

What is still missing for machine consciousness and what constitutes it at all remains to be clarified. While there are schools of thought such as the Turing Test, which test the functionality of AI against a human, it cannot be a test for consciousness. The biggest criticism of the Turing Test is that it measures a human's susceptibility to deception rather than the machine's functionality.

In addition to classical prediction algorithms such as neural networks from the deep learning area, reinforcement learning has established itself as a further branch of AI with the availability of computing power. Reinforcement learning lets an actor (machine / robot) learn desired actions in a measurable environment (game or reality). The goodness of the actions or problematic due to wrong decisions is evaluated in the learning process with the so-called reward/penalty function. If the experiment is allowed to learn long enough with well thought-out reward/penalty function, i.e., iterate the process and store which actions were punished or rewarded accordingly in which environment, an AI can be trained. For example, board game algorithms or autonomous driving were developed this way.

Reinforcement learning and the drive for reward is seen by critics as a potential dystopia of AI, as it could know no mercy in a potential resource competition with humans if trained carelessly or even uncontrollably.

Whether machines are capable of imitating or acquiring human consciousness is a question we cannot answer. If the theory is correct that human consciousness and emotions arise from ad-hoc information processing and short-term predictions of environmental conditions, then a solution to the question may not be too far off. Indeed, this is precisely the point where machines are already superior to the human brain due to their immense computational capacity. In particular, the AI field of predictive modeling is advanced, its application areas limitless and, through Ainovate, accessible to you as never before.