{"id":434,"date":"2009-05-03T13:13:06","date_gmt":"2009-05-03T20:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=434"},"modified":"2009-05-03T14:31:03","modified_gmt":"2009-05-03T21:31:03","slug":"unknown-internet-2-could-the-net-become-self-aware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/unknown-internet-2-could-the-net-become-self-aware","title":{"rendered":"Unknown internet 2: Could the net become self-aware?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"infuse\"><strong>New Scientist<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">30 April 2009 by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/search?rbauthors=Michael+Brooks\"><strong>Michael Brooks<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">Yes, if we play our cards right \u2014 or wrong, depending on your perspective.<\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">In engineering terms, it is easy to see qualitative similarities between the human brain and the internet\u2019s complex network of nodes, as they both hold, process, recall and transmit information. \u201cThe internet behaves a fair bit like a mind,\u201d says <a href=\"http:\/\/goertzel.org\/\" target=\"nsarticle\">Ben Goertzel<\/a>, chair of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agiri.org\/wiki\/Main_Page\" target=\"nsarticle\">Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute<\/a>, an organisation inevitably based in cyberspace. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg16622444.400-global-brain.html\">\u201cIt might already have a degree of consciousness\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">Not that it will necessarily have the same kind of consciousness as humans: it is unlikely to be wondering who it is, for instance. To <a href=\"http:\/\/pespmc1.vub.ac.be\/HEYL.html\" target=\"nsarticle\">Francis Heylighen<\/a>, who studies consciousness and artificial intelligence at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium, consciousness is merely a system of mechanisms for making information processing more efficient by adding a level of control over which of the brain\u2019s processes get the most resources. \u201cAdding consciousness is more a matter of fine-tuning and increasing control\u2026 than a jump to a wholly different level,\u201d Heylighen says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">How might this manifest itself? Heylighen speculates that it might turn the internet into a self-aware network that constantly strives to become better at what it does, reorganising itself and filling gaps in its own knowledge and abilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">If it is not already semiconscious, we could do various things to help wake it up, such as requiring the net to monitor its own knowledge gaps and do something about them. It shouldn\u2019t be something to fear, says Goertzel: \u201cThe outlook for humanity is probably better in the case that an emergent, coherent and purposeful internet mind develops.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">Heylighen agrees, but warns that we might find it a little disappointing. \u201cWe probably would not notice a whole lot of a difference, initially,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"infuse\">And when might this begin? According to Heylighen, it all depends on internet fashion trends. If the effort that has gone into developing social networking sites goes into developing internet consciousness, it could happen within a decade, he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Scientist 30 April 2009 by Michael Brooks Yes, if we play our cards right \u2014 or wrong, depending on your perspective. In engineering terms, it is easy to see qualitative similarities between the human brain and the internet\u2019s complex network of nodes, as they both hold, process, recall and transmit information. \u201cThe internet behaves [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}