Why Neural Darwinism Might Be AI's Best Path to Consciousness

Using notes from a 2006 conference at The Neurosciences Institute, this essay reconstructs Gerald Edelman's long-lost Roadmap to a Conscious Artifact. From reentrant neural architectures and thalamo-cortical dynamics to embodied motor control, communication, and language, it delineates ten essential phases in the construction of a really aware machine. A biologically based vision of artificial consciousness that is based on neuroscience rather than computation is highlighted in the roadmap, which is interwoven with personal tales and Edelman's humor.