Consciousness is key to understanding what makes humans human. And in the 70 years since artificial intelligence first emerged as an academic pursuit, scientists have attempted to synthesise sentience. Now a Columbia University project has broken new ground in the search for artificial intelligence, after building a self-aware robot arm.

Columbia University scientists have built a robot arm capable of construct an image of itself from scratch.

Everything the robot arm does exactly parallels how the human body controls an arm Columbia University phd student Robert Kwiatkowski

And this ability is framed as a significant step toward building truly self-aware machines. Robert Kwiatkowski, a phd student at Columbia University’s prestigious Creative Machines Lab, has exclusively revealed the robot arm’s AI capabilities. He said: “We have built a robot arm and we let it move around randomly to collect causal information in relation to itself. READ MORE: Scientists probe supermassive BLACK HOLE to disprove Einstein theory

AI robot arm: A significant step towards building truly self-aware machines has been made

Artificial Intelligence: Columbia University has built a 'self-aware' robot arm

“So it learns what happens to itself when it moves. “And it uses this information to allow it to learn ideas about what it is and an awareness of self. “The robot knows what happens to the arm when it does something.” And what makes the robot arm project truly ground-breaking is how it can learn despite beginning with literally no assumptions about the world. READ MORE: Mars Deep Drill: NASA plan to dig 10km hole in ALIEN LIFE search - REVEALED

Mr Kwiatkowski said: “The robot at the start had absolutely no information about anything. “It had no assumptions about physics, body structure, nothing. “And the only information it receives is information from the world. “We, as programmers, are trying to move away from a paradigm where programmers tell the robots who they are and how they work. READ MORE: Oumuamua interstellar object ‘COULD be alien ship’, claims Harvard Professor

Artificial Intelligence: The robot learns despite beginning with no assumptions about the world

AI robot arm: A Columbia University project has broken new ground in the search for AI

“We are moving towards a paradigm where robots figure out what they are and how they work, so we can streamline their efficiency and allow them a little bit of autonomy.” The Columbia University Creative Machines lab researchers were able to engineer the self-awareness by using deep learning, a fancier, new iteration of machine learning. Machine learning is a system that adapts to new data and improves with access to new information. Deep learning, meanwhile, uses fancy linear algebra and matrix multiplications to attempt to mimic how nerves operate in the brain. READ MORE: Hunt for aliens ‘only just BEGINNING’ says top scientist

Mr Kwiatkowski explains: “Everything the robot arm does exactly parallels how the human body controls an arm and understands how this control works.” And Mr Kwiatkowski, who works on the project under legendary Columbia University robotics engineer Hod Lipson, believes his robotic arm will have profound implications in the search for AI. He said: “Robots currently run on hand-crafted human simulators, taking hours upon hours of trial and error and iterative developments to try and get them to work in a similar way to how a brain works, often using complex maths and programming. “And we are aiming to do two things: accelerate improvements and allow the robot to build a model of itself using self-awareness, as if modern encoded simulators have been used.

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