The Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) is a simple theoretical model designed to explore consciousness from a Theoretical Computer Science perspective, emphasizing simplicity and understandability rather than mimicking the brain. Its design draws from neuroscience and psychology, and it offers a novel guide for creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The CTM contains many powerful processors, some specialized and others unspecialized but capable of developing expertise. It efficiently utilizes processors with the necessary knowledge, ability, and time to address problems, even without awareness of which processors are suitable.
A theoretical computer science perspective can deepen understanding of consciousness. The Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) is a simple, substrate-independent computational model for defining and exploring consciousness, analogous to how the Turing machine models computation. The CTM is not a model of the brain or cognition but offers a framework using computational complexity theory and machine learning. This paper introduces the approach, demonstrates its possibilities, and aims to stimulate research on consciousness from a theoretical computer science viewpoint.