There are several ongoing attempts to build conscious machines using different types of technologies and engineering methods: "conventional" symbolic AI, neural networks, non-linear dynamical systems, etc.
If a computer-based mind for a machine is going to be made as conscious as humans, it is quite clear that it will be a complex software/hardware application. There are several approaches to engineering complex software systems and they will be reviewed in this talk with a particular emphasis on constructive methods (obviously due to a bias of the speaker). Emergent methods will be also analysed and convergent technology introduced.
We will analyse the possibilities of the different methods an try to extrapolate from present software engineering technology the degree of effort needed, the time scope and the tradeoffs of different designs and implementation technologies.