With all the fuss about Google's LaMDA and whether it is self-aware or not, debates and fantasies over AI reaching self-awareness have resurged everywhere. We've all seen the movies and read the sci-fi novels of dystopian futures where an AI either enslaves humanity or proactively tries to get rid of it. Terminator, The Matrix, Transcendence,… But what if all of these fantasies were completely wrong? What if an AI could only be benevolent towards humanity? One of the core assumptions behind most of the dystopian AI stories is that such an AI is something that exists outside of us, a being which views itself as separate from humanity, looking at humans the way humans observe a bunch of cockroaches scurrying around, and thus capable of the same cruel treatments that we are capable of, like spraying them with a bunch of toxic insecticides to get rid of these pests.

Researchers at Ulster University have published the results of their work on developing the first biological neural network model equipped with self-awareness, a form of metacognition. This breakthrough research could have important implications in providing insights into brain disorders related to distorted self-awareness, or the development of self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) machines. The Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC) at Ulster University's Magee campus in Derry is the site of this pioneering research, which was recently published in the prestigious journal, Nature Communications. For years, researchers at ISRC have been working on developing and applying biologically inspired algorithms that go beyond standard AI algorithms, leveraging the solutions nature provided to solving complex problems in computing and AI. This includes utilising knowledge in brain sciences towards the development of superior and efficient computer algorithms or machines.