Dual-Laws Model for a theory of artificial consciousness

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Dual-Laws Model (DLM), a theoretical framework aiming to unify and broaden the understanding of consciousness by addressing key questions and proposing features like autonomy and cognitive decoupling.

Contribution

It proposes the Dual-Laws Model as a new theoretical approach to consciousness, emphasizing system autonomy and decoupling, and addresses foundational questions for developing conscious systems.

Findings

DLM predicts autonomous goal construction in conscious systems.

Conscious systems exhibit cognitive decoupling from external stimuli.

The model highlights the importance of moral behavior in system design.

Abstract

Objectively verifying the generative mechanism of consciousness is extremely difficult because of its subjective nature. As long as theories of consciousness focus solely on its generative mechanism, developing a theory remains challenging. We believe that broadening the theoretical scope and enhancing theoretical unification are necessary to establish a theory of consciousness. This study proposes seven questions that theories of consciousness should address: phenomena, self, causation, state, function, contents, and universality. The questions were designed to examine the functional aspects of consciousness and its applicability to system design. Next, we will examine how our proposed Dual-Laws Model (DLM) can address these questions. Based on our theory, we anticipate two unique features of a conscious system: autonomy in constructing its own goals and cognitive decoupling from external stimuli. We contend that systems with these capabilities differ fundamentally from machines that merely follow human instructions. This makes a design theory that enables high moral behavior indispensable.