Do you believe it is possible to make a computer program that is self-aware?

Question

Or at least, a computer program as complex as say, an ant's brain? To precisely emulate an ant's behavior? What about a human-being's?

Answer 1

No I don't.

There are programs which are written which simulate self awareness out there though, but to emulate self awareness, they must have many programs and sub-programs installed.

This takes a lot of years of trial and error just to have , say a simple self diagnosis program which can ask and answer questions in what humans consider a logical manner.

There are robotic computer programs for the new robot helpers for homes (experimental) which, after 20-30 years, appear fairly and simply self aware, but the technology still isn't quite ready for release just yet.

Some day, the programs may appear to be self aware, but actually, they will just be a compilation of programs and sub-programs which are simply accessed in the same way your PC is accessed and responds to you.

No thoughts of it's own, which is the basis for self awareness, but with enough input, they will be able to emulate self awareness.

Answer 2

Every software gives a response to some action that is originated from a user. Even if the computer is self-aware it will respond to a user action. Today we have sensors which can help with the "aware" situation and if you program it right, with a lot of AI and neural-networks (a little bit more advanced than AI) you can create a program that will work with the behavior that you desire.

Take a look on AI systems, you might find interesting.

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Answer 3

Every computer software behaves like a function (or series of functions) which return an output in response to a specific input. AI is pretty much the same thing, but with a much bigger function that takes the input, breaks it down into categories, and hands it down to its sub-functions which return a result based on some pre-programmed algorithm. Most new advancements in AI result in new ways to capture input.

So... no. A computer program is only so much aware as its designer creates it to be.

Answer 4

Self-awareness is not a sterile concept and computers only understand sterile concepts.