Can the internet evolve into a lifeform?

Some think that sentience could emerge from any sufficiently complicated system. By the way, you're reading this on a massively-crosslinked network built from millions of routers, allowing any of a billion individual units to access, modify and reply to the others. Interested?

here is the linkLink

I read this article somewhere and it sounded really cool.

Think about it. The internet is MASSIVE and is an extremely complex system made up of millions of computers.
What are the chances of a 'Ghost in the shell' kind of event happening for real?

For example if you are the only person using your personal computer chances are you have certain habits and gestures that get recorded and make your computer
respond to you in the way you like. Defragging files to suit the way they are accessed.
If you sit on a friend's computer or a public computer, chances are it will feel sluggish or different because it is not used to the way you react and neither are you used to the way it reacts.
If you agree with that, think of the size f the internet. The sheer amount of data flow is bound to leave some form of imprint.
Who knows? a system as advanced as this just might 'evolve'

As AI algorithms get more and more complex there's a chance that one of them, or a combination of these algorithms is designed to learn and evolve on its own. The internet could indeed be considered a lifeform; vast amounts of information are transmitted daily and most of it is automated in the sense that there are inputs and it produces outputs with little human interference. I believe the more relevant question is "Could the Internet become self-aware?"
I believe there's a good chance that this could happen if self-learning and evolving algorithms are introduced into the internet. There's an even wider question to be asked. If several of these 'entities' become self aware and start growing to make parts of the web integral to their existence and if they continue to expand, what happens when two or more of these entities meet?

I`m not so sure...

I`m a IT technician and I know that almost all networks are made up out of routers and servers, some more complex then others. Now the point is that these all work by protocols, certain 'rules'.
This is called TCP/IP and tcp stands for Transport Control Protocol. These protocols are devoloped by the IEEE

Abbreviation of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, pronounced I-triple-E. IEEE is an organization composed of engineers, scientists, and students. The IEEE is best known for developing standards for the computer and electronics industry. In particular, the IEEE 802 standards for local-area networks are widely followed.

So a network really needs these protocols and these can`t be ignored or bypassed, otherwise the hardware can`t communicate...

What I can see happening though is that a new super computer that is already been programmed as a brain becomes 'self aware' and tries to manipulate or communicate with everything it connects with. For example, the internet...

Link

"Recently, Blue Gene/L was in the news when scientists ran a cortical simulator as complex as half of a mouse brain which is thought to have about eight million neurons with each one having up to 8,000 connections with other nerve fibers. When not mimicking half of a rodent’s brain, Blue Gene/L is being used mainly to simulate biochemical processes involving proteins..."

A terminator style doomsday anyone ?

I was thinking the other day...what if the data from collections of various webpages viewed in binary where used as software.

The binary data of this thread/page could contain bits of data that form part of a larger software (program). Sort of like a P2P system.

Which lead me to wonder, could an AI store itself in this manner? Since the data is stored on a range of machines, it would not need it's own storage and if a page with bits where changed or removed, there are cache servers all over to recover those required bits of data.

Interesting stuff for sure.

[edit on 11-6-2009 by warrenb]

reply to post by HiranMaya


The thing is self learning nd evolving algorithms do exist.
Viruses can evolve and change their code.
Neural networks are used all over the place.
The real question is if the internet is 'alive' does it have a soul?
do we have to treat it with the same respect as other life forms?
How intelligent is it?
ans is it aware of us?

reply to post by warrenb

Which lead me to wonder, could an AI store itself in this manner?

I think so. Remember all web pages you view are downloaded to your pc.
A larger program in theory can store data on users hard drive and access it later.
Just like skynet, the program could be the entire internet.
Although i dont have a lot of info on protocols so i do not know how this would work.
Can anyone tell me if this is possible?

Since internet is mostly made of porn and 4chan, I do not think this new entity would be something to worry about.

reply to post by Jigore


Actually that would be something to worry about.

reply to post by Jigore


Does anyone remember that little bit in Revelation about the image that was created for the beast? That the image was given the ability to speak and that everyone was forced to worship it or die? That is what I believe will come online soon. A supercomputer with the ability to watch every move we make so we can work toward its goal. Check this out.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

no because its not organic. nor is it born, nor does it have self awareness, nor can it think.

reply to post by MR BOB


Does all life have to be 'organic'?
how do you define organic?
If you mean carbon based i believe there are speculations of silicon based micro organisms as well.

reply to post by jackflap


I think the internet does watch over a lot of your moves already.
Everytime you check your mail 9Gmail) you see ads in the sidebar on similar topics as your mail.
You plot your course on a gps downloading maps from the net.
Some people also put up their day to day lives on blogs.
Think about it.

I figure that the consciousness of the internet will evolve from super computers powered by AI that the government uses to monitor the internet.

It's impossible. The internet is just a bunch of cables connecting computers together. It doesn't have "intelligence" however some government server could one day sap all of the knowledge of the internet and be programmed to be intelligent.

reply to post by shinjiikari2839


The human brain is just a seemingly random collection of neurons and nerve fibers just like the internet.
Think about this. We are a collection of millions of cells( all of which can be loosely defined as individual life forms).

It it then impossible for the same thing to occur on a much larger scale?


[edit on 11-6-2009 by raptorinvictus]

I think the Internet could be used as an environment for programs to form intelligence. I guess that depends on your definition of intelligence as well.

Ants individually are not that intelligent, but the colony as a whole exhibits a greater intelligence (basically a super-organism). When a forager finds food it leaves a pheromone trail back to the colony. Ants will follow that trail when they come across enough foragers at home, and will strengthen the pheromone trail. When the food is gone, they stop leaving the trail. A simple process. But ants are full of small processes like this one, which when put together form intelligence.

Similarly, all the cells in our body work together and follow simple processes to perform complex tasks.

The Internet can be thought of like a 'world' for web applications. Maybe with enough communication and processes, a really complicated system of applications might seem to have a type of intelligence. Really, they wouldn't be thinking for themselves though, the same way ants don't think for themselves.

I think more likely and scary is a virus written with the ability to adapt and communicate with copies of itself. When a programmer successfully writes a program that can learn, then we'll have our work cut out for us.


[edit on 11-6-2009 by Nickmare]

reply to post by Nickmare

Ants individually are not that intelligent, but the colony as a whole exhibits a greater intelligence (basically a super-organism).

Can all complex organism be described as some form of super organisms?
Like i said before we re all collections of cells as well.

Similarly it might be possible for the internet to form some form of intelligence.

It might not be life as we know it but could be a life form nonetheless.
I think we will soon reach a point where this would be very hard to ignore.

Who knows? True A.I. might not be created by us but it my evolve on its own in an environment we created.

I DO think that it could be POSSIBLE. ANYTHING is possible.

I have done a lot of research into ways to improve my memory so I could do Math better than the very basic simple 10th grade math that I struggled through in High School.

What I have learned in my exploration about memory and specifically HUMAN memory and how we process information is REMARKABLE!

How it has been said that the human mind works is that when you go to say, Ride a Bike your thoughts are along the lines of possibly THOUSANDS of different thoughts all coming together at once. There is one section of your brain that stores information on bike safety, another section that stores information on weight shifting, another section of the brain that stores information on what your bike looks like, another on how it operates mechanically, another section that has information on wind resistance against different types of clothing that you have worn when riding a bike etc. etc.

All of this different information is compartmentalized, kind of like a web page. When you go to ride the bike somehow it all gets "pinged" and accessed and sent to a central processor that sorts it and compiles it all in such a rapid speed as to be unnoticeable!

What is creepy is when you consider the thought of yourself.

You, yourself as a thought are composed of thousands of different thoughts of yourself. What your appearance is, what your Body Odor is like, your preferred clothing dress style, your food tastes, your possessions, your preferences in politics, relationships. All of these thoughts of yourself are again compartmentalized and when you THINK of yourself you are accessing thousands of different thoughts of yourself instantly and putting them together into one single coherent thought.

There are estimates anywhere from 10-100 BILLION Neurons all connected together in a miniature brain interwebs.

Maybe if we had 100 billion computers all connected together with a central computer processing all of the web pages together with the right set of programming on the super computer we could mimic Human Intelligence.

reply to post by raptorinvictus


I do think any animal can be thought of as a 'super-organism'. Every person is basically just a collection of smaller organisms working together. Our thoughts themselves come about from other organisms.

Like you say, maybe it will form on its own. Makes you wonder how it would start off considering some of the most common things you find on the net...

If for instance a bunch of spam programs begin working together to form a super organism to intelligently spam us, that would suck. But if a search engine is formed that can follow web links to find us the information we are after, intelligently, that would be nice.

Well- what would be the trigger? And why isnt it already triggered so? Isnt there enough information?