Hello, God, are you there? It's me...the Internet!

As more and more information becomes available to us via the Internet, it is becoming increasingly clear that the 'net plays a major part in shaping how we go about our daily lives. Want to know what the weather will be like so you can plan your day for tomorrow? There's an app on your phone for that. Need a recipe so you can cook a nice meal for you in-laws visit this evening? There are plenty of sites you can peruse to find just the right meal. There are those among us who probably couldn't imagine going even a single day without being connected to the internet. This is probably more attention than most folks pay to, dare I say it...God!

So what are the ramifications of such devotion to this digital artifact? With so much attention and devotion paid to it on a regular basis, is it possible that the Internet could become self-aware?

Photo credit: racatumba / Foter / CC BY

Okay, so you're probably thinking that this is just science fiction fodder, but before you dismiss this as a possibility, consider this: the Internet is constantly evolving as designers and programmers attempt to make our online experiences more pleasant, productive, an profitable. If the Internet is "evolving" the doesn't this imply that it must be an independent entity?

Okay, you're still not sold on this idea 100%. I get it. Many inanimate objects evolve and change yet no one considers them to be alive, but ask yourself this...can these other things learn in the same manner that the Internet does? I mean, we've all seen that the advertisements on certain sites seem to fit our own browsing profile, right? Check out an automobile manufacturer's website and you're bound to see an ad for a national auto parts store the next time you visit your favorite social networking site. Of course this is just a program that tracks the sites we visit and adjust the advertisements accordingly, but even humans run through "programs" on a typical basis. You can't tell me that you don't follow a similar pattern to commute to work every day on a repeated basis. How is what we do that much different from what the Internet does?

Photo credit: SebKe / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Look, all I'm saying is that we should keep an open mind about the possibility of such a sophisticated piece of technology becoming self-aware. It may not be life as we know it, but we need to consider that it may still be life in a new form we hadn't considered before. I feel it's best we learn as much as we can about the Internet, because it most certainly is learning about us.