In silico Consciousness: The Goal of Ambient Intelligent Computing

In the ambient intelligent computing environment (AmI) consisting of peers (agents or other intelligent devices), a basic requirement for in silico consciousness is context-awareness. Consciousness is vital to offer intelligent services for various applications. Context management is an important first step in realising conscious machines. Here, we describe a contract-based workflow paradigm to provide context awareness among the devices and people in AmI. This paradigm provides for software contract to design conscious software to deal with the uncertain nature of connectivity of ubiquitous devices and networks,and the trial-error (subjunctive) nature of the processes used in interactions among devices and people in an unpredictable environment.