Self-Aware Machines: Do They Already Exist?

Consciousness Creep

Our machines could become self-aware without our knowing it. We need a better way to define and test for consciousness

George Musser | February 25, 2016

Usually when people imagine a self-aware machine, they picture a device that emerges through deliberate effort and that then makes its presence known quickly, loudly, and (in most scenarios) disastrously. Even if its inventors have the presence of mind not to wire it into the nuclear missile launch system, the artificial intelligence will soon vault past our capacity to understand and control it. If we’re lucky, the new machine will simply break up with us, like the operating system in the movie Her. If not, it might decide not to open the pod bay doors to let us back into the spaceship. Regardless, the key point is that when an artificial intelligence wakes up, we’ll know.
But who’s to say machines don’t already have minds? 

A Vision for the Self-Aware Machine. Source: http://blogs.parc.com/blog/2013/12/a-vision-for-the-self-aware-machine/

<more at https://aeon.co/essays/could-machines-have-become-self-aware-without-our-knowing-it; related links and articles: http://www.sciencealert.com/a-robot-has-just-passed-a-classic-self-awareness-test-for-the-first-time (A robot has just passed a classic self-awareness test for the first time. It thinks, therefore it is. July 17, 2015); and http://longbets.org/15/ (The Arena for Accountable Predictions. A Long Bet: BET 15, DURATION 48 years (02002-02050). “By 2050 no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware (ie. will become conscious).”)>