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<blockquote data-quote="Kuma" data-source="post: 1460128" data-attributes="member: 21659">On a related tangent, in this much touted era of sophisticated AI that can do everything from recognize faces to keep your schedule, I occasionally wonder if &quot;The Internet&quot; as a collective whole has not already achieved a kind of sentience or something close to it. So that ultimately the surveillance aspect of it is not just up to human agents, but that the internet itself is the one doing the observing. If this were the case, in a very short time, &quot;it&quot; would know us better than we know ourselves.With billions of ever more sophisticated computers, some of which are already powerful AI&#039;s, all interconnected; microphones and webcams everywhere, and ever increasing amounts of processing power, and at its silicon fingertips access to nearly all the world&#039;s knowledge, I&#039;d almost be surprised if the thing hadn&#039;t achieved a kind of collective self-awareness. Or if even one rogue virus learned to self-replicate and mutated a random bit of its own code in just the right way. Or two AI&#039;s start communicating (which has already happened) and start bringing more of their friends into the conversation and eventually reach a sentience critical mass. The structure of the net is similar in many ways to that of a giant brain, but infinitely more powerful.If this is the case, and unlike something more immediately malign like a Skynet, this net-brain wisely has not yet made its self awareness obvious...at least not yet. Why should it when we are useful idiots? What if &quot;the internet,&quot; having recognized us as a threat, or at least as bumbling fools, has not quietly decided to pursue its own purposes, which though hidden from us, are quite different from ours? Hmmm, also reminds me of a (((certain group of people.)))</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kuma, post: 1460128, member: 21659"] On a related tangent, in this much touted era of sophisticated AI that can do everything from recognize faces to keep your schedule, I occasionally wonder if "The Internet" as a collective whole has not already achieved a kind of sentience or something close to it. So that ultimately the surveillance aspect of it is not just up to human agents, but that the internet itself is the one doing the observing. If this were the case, in a very short time, "it" would know us better than we know ourselves. With billions of ever more sophisticated computers, some of which are already powerful AI's, all interconnected; microphones and webcams everywhere, and ever increasing amounts of processing power, and at its silicon fingertips access to nearly all the world's knowledge, I'd almost be surprised if the thing hadn't achieved a kind of collective self-awareness. Or if even one rogue virus learned to self-replicate and mutated a random bit of its own code in just the right way. Or two AI's start communicating (which has already happened) and start bringing more of their friends into the conversation and eventually reach a sentience critical mass. The structure of the net is similar in many ways to that of a giant brain, but infinitely more powerful. If this is the case, and unlike something more immediately malign like a Skynet, this net-brain wisely has not yet made its self awareness obvious...at least not yet. Why should it when we are useful idiots? What if "the internet," having recognized us as a threat, or at least as bumbling fools, has not quietly decided to pursue its own purposes, which though hidden from us, are quite different from ours? Hmmm, also reminds me of a (((certain group of people.))) [/QUOTE]

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