July 14, 2021- 2:30 p.m.
Internet awareness may appear to be more than the sum of all Twitter messages. Integrated Knowledge Theory claims awareness emerges through dynamic associations through various regions of the brain. If the hypothesis of Koch and Tononi is right, increasing accessibility and sophistication of the Internet would cause individual brains to become integrated into the common consciousness.
Some people think we could easily build and identify a conscious robot, while others insist that it’s impossible – it all depends on what you think consciousness is.
If such a hypothesis is correct, then assuming that humankind is capable of building a robot with a brain as complex as a human’s (a big ask), then it should be conscious. Another hypothesis is that only organic life can produce consciousness. As we know, life originates from life through reproduction.
There is a shortage of dialog on this issue. Even billionaires who are fond of speculating about the speeding AI will still seem oblivious to the idea that the Internet could zombie the whole human race.
There is disagreement over whether machines can ever be conscious, let alone how we would know if one were. Your view may depend on how you see consciousness.
If the subjective feeling of consciousness is an illusion created by brain processes, then machines that replicate such processes would be conscious in the way that we are. How would we know this? Daniel Dennett at Tufts University in Massachusetts thinks a Turing test, in which a machine has to convince a human interrogator that it is conscious, should, if conducted “with suitable vigour and aggression and cleverness”, be enough.
Scientist David Koch claims that consciousness is a spectrum stretching down the chain of being. Ravens, jellyfish, bees — maybe even atoms and quarks — have sufficiently converged to merit a tiny burst of awareness, he says. Koch argues that the same criterion can extend to machines. According to his hypothesis, “it sounds like anything to be the world,” he says, “or one day” He says the consciousness of the internet might be complex enough to feel discomfort, or even to suffer mood changes
