Atriya Sen

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Atriya Sen is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and moral philosophy. His most celebrated work, "Real robots that pass human tests of self-consciousness" (2015, 84 citations), challenges conventional boundaries by proposing that self-awareness is not merely a biological trait but a functional requirement for moral competence in social agents. Sen argues that a robot capable of self-consciousness—understanding its own obligations and intentions—could achieve a form of moral agency previously reserved for humans. This provocative contribution has sparked widespread debate in AI ethics and cognitive robotics, influencing how researchers design autonomous systems for complex social environments. Beyond this landmark paper, Sen’s work explores the computational underpinnings of self-reflection and ethical decision-making, bridging gaps between engineering and philosophy. His research has been cited in discussions on machine consciousness, robot rights, and the future of human-robot interaction. For students and scholars, Sen offers a bold vision: that the path to truly intelligent machines may require not just smarter algorithms, but machines that can say “I ought.”