[ExI] Strong AI and sleeping bees

[Stuart LaForge]

So it turns out that most animal species need to sleep. Surprisingly,  
this includes invertebrates like honey bees. It has been  
experimentally shown that sleep deprivation affects the precision of  
honey bee waggle dances, relearning, and memory consolidation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3012459/
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/22/i.1
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/22/3981

The question I pose is this: Is sleep fundamentally necessary for  
consciousness such as in a general AI? or is it instead strictly a  
biological foible? Why do you think so?

Stuart LaForge