The computer subconscious

Abstract

One thing which distinguishes people from computers and from one another is variously called creativity, the right brain, or the subconscious. Computers are designed to be fast, almost‐error‐free rule followers. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been based on computers and their rule‐following skills, e.g. expert systems. Yet we do not value Mozart, Einstein, Van Gogh, etc. for their rule following skills. In order to understand our own creativity we must model our subconscious. Once we model it, we can learn more about it by building a computer subconscious. Shows how a multiple‐module Darwinistic model can account for the human subconscious and how such a system can be emulated in a computer. For a quantum computer, perhaps the only technological computer fast enough to make computer creativity interesting, the results are also unpredictable in principle. Computers will differ in personality, skill and interests just as people do even if they start off identical.

Citation

Caulfield, H.J. (1995), "The computer subconscious", Kybernetes, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 46-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684929510089349