Abstract
Sooner or later, machine consciousness will have to address the elusive notion of free will either to dismiss it or to produce a machine implementation. It is unclear whether freedom and consciousness are independent aspects of the human mind or by-product of the same underlying structure. Here, the relevant literature is reviewed focusing on the connection between determinism and freedom—usually explored by compatibilists. Eventually, a tentative model for machine free will is outlined.
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Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Antonio Chella for his support and encouragement on various challenging and demanding topics in AI and Cognitive Sciences as well as for his many observations on an earlier version of this paper.
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Manzotti, R. (2011). Machine Free Will: Is Free Will a Necessary Ingredient of Machine Consciousness?. In: Hernández, C., et al. From Brains to Systems. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 718. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0164-3_15
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