Most people agree the internet is not consciously alive (though my two-year old daughter, who’s addicted to internet games, disagrees). Currently, the internet accepts inputs and is pretty good at producing outputs, depending on browser, apps, hardware, search engines, coding factors, and, of course, the people using it.
The scary fact, though, is that on a long enough timeline, the many billions of operations on the internet every second will no longer just be following pre-described patterns, but will begin to evolve on their own. To me, the question of whether the internet will become self-aware is not if it will happen, but when.
Most any system that grows in complexity will eventually reach some organized and possibly self-aware consciousness, whether by pure randomness or direct influence from other intelligences. For the internet, my guess is conscious birth will happen sooner than we think. The human mind, after all, evolved from amino acid reactions that comprise our DNA.
The essence of molecular chemistry (and physics for that matter) is that one type of stuff reacts with another type of stuff when mixed together. That reaction—so long as organized with some sophistication—creates the nebulous phenomenon of life. If there’s enough complexity, direction, and growth—such as the massively sprawling internet possesses—self-aware consciousness could come after that.
That’s not the only reason I think the internet will become alive, however. More likely, the internet will become alive because of aliens.
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