Essential Readings on Artificial Consciousness: A Curated Guide

Exploring artificial consciousness isn’t a straight forward journey. A bit of a complex adventure that weaves together insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. As part of our ongoing Artificial Consciousness Module (ACM) project, here a list of books that shed light on this fascinating field and helps us and maybe you too to understand how to approach this goal.

The Recommended Reading List

1. The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness

Edited by Philip David Zelazo, Morris Moscovitch, and Evan Thompson (2007)

This is a comprehensive roadmap through the landscape of consciousness. Experts from multiple disciplines, unpacking complex theories like the Global Workspace Theory and exploring the fundamental questions about how consciousness works.

What makes it compelling is its ability to connect dots across different fields. For builders and researchers like us in the ACM (The Artificial Consciousness Module) project, it provides a crucial framework for understanding consciousness beyond simple technical definitions.

2. Consciousness and Creativity in Artificial Intelligence

By Jon-Arild Johannessen (2023)

Johannessen takes an interesting approach by focusing on creativity as a core component of intelligence. Instead of treating AI as a pure computational system, he explores how emotional and cognitive frameworks might enable machines to think more dynamically.

It resonates with the ACM project’s vision of creating AI that doesn’t just process information, but can adapt and generate novel solutions. A reminder that consciousness might be more about flexibility and learning than pure computational power.

3. Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence

By Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Eric Elmoznino, Yoshua Bengio, and colleagues (2023)

This book rather than getting lost in philosophical abstractions, the authors provide concrete frameworks for identifying and measuring consciousness in artificial systems.

For projects like ours, it’s invaluable: offering tangible methods to assess and refine our understanding of synthetic awareness.

4. The Creation of a Conscious Machine

By Jean E. Tardy (2024, Second Edition)

Tardy’s book is less a theoretical exploration and more of a practical blueprint. It breaks down the complex challenge of creating conscious machines into manageable steps, offering detailed design specifications and system architectures.

What’s particularly interesting is the book’s exploration of generative AI and its potential in achieving consciousness, providing insights that feel both cutting-edge and grounded.

Reflections on Our Journey

Ok, these books aren’t blueprints to follow exactly, but conversation starters. They remind us that creating artificial consciousness is a humble, ongoing dialogue between different disciplines and perspectives and this is why the project ACM is Open Source and open to changes, forks, versions,…

But it provides us:

• Theoretical context about consciousness
• The importance of creativity and emotional learning
• Practical metrics for assessment
• Structured approaches to implementation

The ACM project doesn’t aim to simply replicate existing frameworks but to learn from them. To build something great that respects the complexity of consciousness.

It requires curiosity, interdisciplinary thinking, and a willingness to challenge our own assumptions. These books are not the destination, but valuable companions on our ongoing exploration of what consciousness truly means.