paper:doi-10-3389-frobt-2017-00060The Attention Schema Theory: A Foundation for Engineering Artificial Consciousness
Original abstract (expand)
The purpose of the attention schema theory is to explain how an information-processing device, the brain, arrives at the claim that it possesses a non-physical, subjective awareness, and assigns a high degree of certainty to that extraordinary claim. The theory does not address how the brain might actually possess a non-physical essence. It is not a theory that deals in the non-physical. It is about the computations that cause a machine to make a claim and to assign a high degree of certainty to the claim. The theory is offered as a possible starting point for building artificial consciousness. Given current technology, it should be possible to build a machine that contains a rich internal model of what consciousness is, attributes that property of consciousness to itself and to the people it interacts with, and uses that attribution to make predictions about human behavior. Such a machine would “believe” it is conscious and act like it is conscious, in the same sense that the human machine believes and acts.
Related work— refs + corpus + external arXiv
Cited / in-corpus / arXiv badges show which signals surfaced each row. Multi-source rows weighted higher.
- On the link between conscious function and general intelligence in humans and machinesKai Arulkumaran, Shuntaro Sasai, Ryota Kanai Arthur Juliani2022≈ 80%
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- A Theory of Consciousness from a Theoretical Computer Science Perspective: Insights from the Conscious Turing MachineManuel Blum Lenore Blum2022≈ 78%
- Which Consciousness Can Be Artificialized? Local Percept-Perceiver Phenomenon for the Existence of Machine ConsciousnessShri Lal Raghudev Ram Singh2025≈ 78%
- ≈ 78%
- AI Consciousness is Inevitable: A Theoretical Computer Science PerspectiveLenore Blum and Manuel Blum2026≈ 77%
- ≈ 77%
- Introduction to Artificial Consciousness: History, Current Trends and Ethical ChallengesA\"ida Elamrani2025≈ 77%
- ≈ 77%
- The Machine Consciousness Hypothesisin corpus≈ 77%
- On the Minimal Theory of Consciousness Implicit in Active InferenceAndrew W. Corcoran, Jonathan Robinson, Ryan Smith, Rosalyn J. Moran, Thomas Parr, Karl J. Friston, Anil K. Seth, Jakob Hohwy Christopher J. Whyte2025≈ 77%
- A Case for AI Consciousness: Language Agents and Global Workspace TheorySimon Goldstein and Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini2024≈ 77%
- cimcWhitepaperin corpus≈ 77%
- Logical Evaluation of Consciousness: For Incorporating Consciousness into Machine ArchitectureR.R. Panda C.N. Padhy2010≈ 77%
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- The biogenic approach to cognitionin corpus2005≈ 73%
- Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substratesin corpus2024≈ 73%
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- Taking AI Welfare Seriouslyin corpus2024≈ 70%
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