Grad student in Cognitive Science, here. My focus is language, but consciousness is an ongoing side interest. The answer: Yes and no, depending on what you mea

Grad student in Cognitive Science, here. My focus is language, but consciousness is an ongoing side interest. The answer: Yes and no, depending on what you mean by "consciousness". If you mean something like "access to internal states" (and maybe reportability thereof), then yes. Arguably there are extant, albeit crude, versions of this form of machine consciousness. If, on the other hand, you mean something that starts to look like qualia (i.e. "raw feels"/"what's it's like"/"the hard problem"/etc cf. the Chalmers references already made), then no. Of course, my "no" essentially echoes Dan Dennett's, in that I don't think people are conscious in this way, either. I suspect a lot of our "feelings" are internal post-hoc stories (made possible by enabled by command of private language) that rationalize/create causal attributions for the physiological correlates of stress ("four Fs" situations). That being said, I could be wrong, and finding a way to get at these hypotheses empirically would be a genuine advance, whether they were supported or refuted. So by all means pursue this...as someone else pointed out, it's likely the "final" answers won't be known in your lifetime, and if it brings you fulfillment in your lifetime, then giv'er. As for where to apply, there are loads...some have already pointed out several researchers (Hofstadter, Koch, etc.), so you could always apply where they are. There's also UCSD, UArizona, Carleton University (in Canada), etc...