Robot Brains. Circuits and Systems for Conscious Machines (P. Haikonen; 2007) [Book review]

In the past few years, various attempts to define the problem of consciousness from engineering or computational perspective have emerged. This book explores the topic of what will make a robot conscious. It outlines an engineering approach that should lead toward cognitive and conscious machines. Some of the topics covered include: a vector representation of information as a substitute for nonnumerical information processing by brains; neuron models and associate neural networks; circuit assemblies; machine perception; motor control; machine cognition; machine emotions; natural language understanding; cognitive architecture; and machine consciousness. The book should be interesting to people working in computational intelligence and cognitive robots. Researchers in computational neuroscience, who usually focus on details, may also benefit from the integrative approach presented in this book. While the book introduces a number of interesting points of view, no breakthrough technologies are proposed and no software or hardware demonstration is provided.