Is artificial consciousness theoretically possible? Is it plausible? If so,
is it technically feasible? To make progress on these questions, it is
necessary to lay some groundwork clarifying the logical and empirical
conditions for artificial consciousness to arise and the meaning of relevant
terms involved. Consciousness is a polysemic word: researchers from different
fields, including neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and
philosophy, among others, sometimes use different terms in order to refer to
the same phenomena or the same terms to refer to different phenomena. In fact,
if we want to pursue artificial consciousness, a proper definition of the key
concepts is required. Here, after some logical and conceptual preliminaries, we
argue for the necessity of using dimensions and profiles of consciousness for a
balanced discussion about their possible instantiation or realisation in
artificial systems. Our primary goal in this paper is to review the main
theoretical questions that arise in the domain of artificial consciousness. On
the basis of this review, we propose to assess the issue of artificial
consciousness within a multidimensional account. The theoretical possibility of
artificial consciousness is already presumed within some theoretical
frameworks; however, empirical possibility cannot simply be deduced from these
frameworks but needs independent empirical validation. We break down the
complexity of consciousness by identifying constituents, components, and
dimensions, and reflect pragmatically about the general challenges confronting
the creation of artificial consciousness. Despite these challenges, we outline
a research strategy for showing how "awareness" as we propose to understand it
could plausibly be realised in artificial systems.

人工意识是否理论上可行？是否可信？如果是，技术上是否可行？为了在这些问题上取得进展，有必要奠定一些基础，明确人工意识产生的逻辑和经验条件以及相关术语的含义。我们的首要目标是回顾人工意识领域中出现的主要理论问题，并在此基础上提出在多维度模型中评估人工意识问题的建议。尽管面临诸多挑战，我们概述了一种研究策略，展示了我们提出的 “意识” 的可行性在人工系统中得以实现。