How to Give A.I. a Pinch of Consciousness

In 1998, an engineer in Sony's computer science lab in Japan filmed a lost-looking robot moving trepidatiously around an enclosure. The robot was tasked with two objectives: avoid obstacles and find objects in the pen. It was able to do so because of its ability to learn the contours of the enclosure and the locations of the sought-after objects. But whenever the robot encountered an obstacle it didn't expect, something interesting happened: Its cognitive processes momentarily became chaotic. The robot was grappling with new, unexpected data that didn't match its predictions about the enclosure.