[md224]

Has anyone considered the idea that perhaps this "AI" has already arrived in the form of the collective intelligence of the Internet? That perhaps the "Singularity" is simply a shift of scope in terms of consciousness from the individual to the group? Much like multicellular organisms evolving from single-celled creatures?

I just think this makes a lot more sense than the whole "we will build a conscious robot" thing, especially since many of the innovations that are used as evidence of an approaching singularity have helped human beings become ever more tightly interconnected.

[sskates]

This isn't quite the feedback loop that the AI singularity folks talk about, but the Internet is one heck of a positive feedback loop, much much tighter than technological progress feedback loop before it. Makes me excited for where we'll be 5, 10, 20 years from now as the rate of acceleration speeds up.

[lukifer]

I don't think this started with the internet; the internet just made collective consciousness vastly more efficient. Just as information is processed algorithmically within the brain, information also passes from person to person via language, print, technological invention, etc.

We all want to believe that our consciousness is fully independent, but it's pretty hard to separate from our memetic history. Perhaps someday we'll be able to wire our brains together physically via wetware, and our philosophical questions about individually will take on a whole new level of complexity.