Another theory describes specialized sections of the brain that are used for particular tasks — the part of your brain that can balance your top-heavy body on a pogo stick is different from the part of your brain that can take in an expansive landscape. We’re able to put all this information together (you can bounce on a pogo stick while appreciating a nice view), but only to a certain extent (doing so is difficult). So neuroscientists have postulated the existence of a “global workspace” that allows for control and coordination over what we pay attention to, what we remember, even what we perceive. Our consciousness may arise from this integrated, shifting workspace.

But it could also arise from the ability to be aware of your own awareness, to create virtual models of the world, to predict future experiences and to locate your body in space. The report argues that any one of these features could, potentially, be an essential part of what it means to be conscious. And, if we’re able to discern these traits in a machine, then we might be able to consider the machine conscious.

One of the difficulties of this approach is that the most advanced A.I. systems are deep neural networks that “learn” how to do things on their own, in ways that aren’t always interpretable by humans. We can glean some kinds of information from their internal structure, but only in limited ways, at least for the moment. This is the black box problem of A.I. So even if we had a full and exact rubric of consciousness, it would be difficult to apply it to the machines we use every day.

And the authors of the recent report are quick to note that theirs is not a definitive list of what makes one conscious. They rely on an account of “computational functionalism,” according to which consciousness is reduced to pieces of information passed back and forth within a system, like in a pinball machine. In principle, according to this view, a pinball machine could be conscious, if it were made much more complex. (That might mean it’s not a pinball machine anymore; let’s cross that bridge if we come to it.) But others have proposed theories that take our biological or physical features, social or cultural contexts, as essential pieces of consciousness. It’s hard to see how these things could be coded into a machine.

And even to researchers who are largely on board with computational functionalism, no existing theory seems sufficient for consciousness.