Artificial Robotic Conciousness : DigInfo

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Improving upon his previous research, Dr. Takeno at Meiji University is researching Artificial consciousness and has built a robot that can recognize itself in a mirror nearly 100% of the time which he intends to use as the basis for the development of artificial limbs.

“We are making a recognition system in the robot so when the robot looks in the mirror it can recognize itself and the other robot and then checks to see if the other robot does the same movement as itself.”

Recognition of self in a reflection is rare ability in animals since humans, great apes and dolphins are the only ones that have shown this ability. In the experiment, different color LEDs are attached to the robots sensors to indicate when it sees itself and follows it own movements, sees a different robot moving around and when it sees a different robot while at the same time doing the same actions as the other robot. Here in this video the blue light means recognition that the test robot is seeing itself.

In Dr. Takeno’s second experiment he connected the self recognizing robot to a very similar yet not identical robot that performed the same actions as the test robot in order to try to fool the test robot into believing the second one is a part of itself. This test is based on previous research with phantom limbs in which a mirror was used to reflect the image of the remaining limb and thus create an image of the patients missing limb. Because the reflected image is identical in appearance to what the brain expects to be in its place, the brain is fooled into believing that there is actually a limb that can touch and feel objects.

“My area of interest lies in the treatment method of patients who have lost consciousness due to disease or accidents. The model I made might be able to help locate where in the brain the damage occurs and how to stimulate those areas and possibly revive the patient.”

Based on the phantom limb research and according to the results of this research if a robotic appendage could be made to look realistic enough to convince the brain, it could feel, touch and be used just like a real appendage. As well as artificial limbs, Dr. Takeno may apply this research to the creation of conscious robots in the future.