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The 5 senses that humans have (touch, taste, smell, hear, sight) are also thought to contribute to having an overall sense of consciousness.  Humans use these features frequently in daily life.  However a problem for robot consciousness is that robots are not thought to possess these senses.  But there have been recent examples of robots with the capacity for touch, taste and sight.

The NEC System Technologies have designed robots that are able to taste.  This has been done by placing taste cells on the tongue which are able to sense sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness and tastiness.   After having been given the food the robot conducts an analysis and estimates the quantities of sugar, fat, etc.  Robots can now make informed decisions on which food or drink tastes better.The development of this robot can be compared with the development of planes.  Planes received their design by imitating the shape of birds in flight, whereas the robot is imitating what goes on in the human mouth when it eats food.  This experiment has lead to robots being able to recognise both food and wine.

Furthermore the University of Nebraska has developed a nano-particle device which has touch sensitivity likeable to a human finger.

The sensitivity in the finger can be used in conjunction with other senses to help the robot work effectively.  For example a robot without this sensor would take a long time to differentiate between objects because it would need to look at it from all angles.  Now however with the sensory device it can detect edges and curves of an object.  This technology is once again mimicking the biology of humans; nonetheless it is important to point out that although human features are being used as a basis for technology they are not being replicated exactly.  Does this provide proof that consciousness is not something which can be manually created?

As humans we use our senses as guides and this leads us to think and make decisions, but can robots do the same?  According to the Carnegie Science Center

“A robot is a machine that gathers information about its environment (senses) and uses that information (thinks) to follow instructions to do work (acts)”.

Looking at these three terms closely it is difficult to see that a robot does actually do all of them.  For sensing we have already seen evidence that robots can have the technology to feel, taste and look, however the problem arises when it comes to using this information in the future. 

Humans have knowledge of experience and therefore they are able to convert information and make it useful to them.  However the most powerful tool a human has is the gift of intuition. They are able to act on a gut feeling they have, but robots cannot.  It is not possible to programme instinct, it must be built up.  On the other hand as we have previously seen communication can be evolved, so what is stopping robots from creating their own form of intuition through social interaction?

As for acting out these decisions, robots lack the capacity to multi-task.  A human can perform more than one job at once, but robots can only perform one action at a time.  For example in order to perform 2 tasks at the same time, 2 separate robots would be needed.  This highlights that although robots can take in information they are unable to manipulate it to suit their needs.  Therefore does this mean that robots do have a form of consciousness, but on a lower scale than that of humans?

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