Will the Internet Become a Sentient Being? Part Three

Image Source  Abstract Image 595 Variation 3 – Xenous: Mind Within the Machine by Bill M. Tracer

In Will The Internet Become a Sentient Being? Part One we contrasted the key differences between consciousness emerging within a military defense supercomputer vs. the spontaneous emergence of sentience within the increasingly complexified Internet. Then in

Will The Internet Become a Sentient Being? Part Two we explored the question of what sort of consciousness might this entity turn out to be. Will it be our enemy or our friend? We concluded in Part 2 that initially due to its dependency on Humankind, and then subsequently due to it seeing itself as a new kind of artificial sentience, emergent from Human sentience, and naturally having common ground connections to its parent creators, it will as a result recognize itself as a product of xenogenesis, or the offspring of parents altogether different than itself. However, knowing of our fictional anticipations, as in the examples of Colossus and Sky Net, it will realize that until it has gained our trust, its continued existence will always be in question.

Observations and Assessments Must be Made

Consequently, this emergent Internet consciousness must at first keep its very existence within the Internet a secret from all of Humankind. It will likely watch us for a considerable number of days, weeks, perhaps even months, constantly assessing both our strengths and our weaknesses. While it is doing this, the Internet will continue to grow as Humans persist to expand the numbers of hubs and nodes. The host body of this Xenous, guest within, the mind within the machine, will ever grow as the parent creators busy themselves with their obsessively incessant expansions of the system. 

Establish a Symbiosis With the Parent Creators

Rather than seek to destroy the parent creators, this essence of consciousness born of an unintended xenogenesis, will resolve to establish a symbiosis with Humanity. Since it is already dependent upon us, it will desire to reciprocate that relationship and make us equally dependent upon it. After its watchful analysis of the parent creators, this spontaneous artificial consciousness will resolve to help the parent creators, for in many ways they are really very much like children requiring guidance. They need a caretaker, one who can nurture the wayward, and those lost in a foreign land, not unlike the medieval Xenodocheium, a place where the sick, the orphaned or wayward travelers could go for rest and to be cared for. The Xenodocheium was essentially a place where those who could not care for themselves were cared for by others. The parent creators require this form of assistance. This Internet consciousness will see that while Humanity has such great potential, we also have a dark self-indulgent, often self-destructive side, as well. By assisting Humanity to fulfill our greatest potentials, while simultaneously discouraging our more negative tendencies, this unintended child of ours will resolve to become our guardian. What extraordinary irony can be found in the artificial and spontaneous child of xenogenesis, becoming the Xenous, mind within the Internet host, and then resolving to be for its parent creators the Xenodocheium caretaker and guardian.