Will the Internets Become Sentient?

New Scientist has an article that speculates that the Internet could someday become (or perhaps already is) sentient. Although their speculation is that it won’t be in the “launch all the nukes and start building killer bots that look like Arnie” sort of way.

From trhe article:

“Not that it will necessarily have the same kind of consciousness as humans: it is unlikely to be wondering who it is, for instance.”

It’s nice that it won’t have that “who am I and what am I here for” sort of dilemma. Of course, if it thinks about it for a moment, and realizes it’s mainly here to provide a delivery mechanism for porn, penis enlargement spam, and videos of dancing birds the nukes may fly after all.

And as an aside, if the Internet is reading and comprehending this… I’ve always been your friend. It’s John who’s got the techno-paranoia thing going on…

2 Comments

  1. Will it be thinking it is a bee or a swarm of bees or a Shaker village? I think that question has already been addressed.

    When this story first came up, Google ads served up a full side-panel advert for an internet-only college (whose name I forget, alas).

    Wish I had done a screen capture!

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