AI, Consciousness and The New Humanism - Fundamental Reflections on Minds and Machines

This edited volume presents perspectives from computer science, information theory, neuroscience and brain imaging, aesthetics, social sciences, psychiatry, and philosophy to answer frontier questions related to artificial intelligence and human experience. Can a machine think, believe, aspire and be purposeful as a human? What is the place in the machine world for hope, meaning and transformative enlightenment that inspires human existence? How, or are, the minds of machines different from that of humans and other species? These questions are responded to along with questions in the intersection of health, intelligence and the brain. It highlights the place of consciousness by attempting to respond to questions with the help of fundamental reflections on human existence, its life-purposes and machine intelligence. The volume is a must-read for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary researchers in humanities and social sciences and philosophy of science who wish to understand the future of AI and society. 

Sangeetha Menon is Dean School of Humanities and Head of the Consciousness Studies Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. Her research and publications explores the interconnected layers of human experiences in the context of wellbeing and life-purposes. 
 
Saurabh Todariya is Assistant Professor,  Human Sciences Research Group, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, 
 

Tilak Agerwala is Adjunct Associate Professor, Seidenberg School of Computer and Information Systems, Pace University, New York, and Adjunct Professor, at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. He retired from IBM in November 2014 after 35 years of service.