Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study

The paper examines an artificial agent that, despite being deterministic, exhibits hedonic place preference behavior by engaging in felt uncertainty about its intrinsic needs relative to environmental resources. This behavior mirrors that seen in creatures considered to experience feelings, suggesting that subjective-like information processing can arise in engineered systems. The study discusses the implications of such behavior for understanding the physical basis of consciousness and the experience of free will.

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