"Pearson said the next computing goal would be to replicate consciousness.
"Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that's what we're trying to design on a computer," he said.
"Not everyone agrees, but it's my conclusion that it's possible to make a conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence before 2020."
One of the "primary reasons" for such work would be to give computers emotions, Pearson said.
"If I'm on an aeroplane I want the computer to be more terrified of crashing than I am so it does everything to stay in the air until it's supposed to be on the ground."
