Will the Internet Become Conscious?

Image Source: BBC.

BBC has interviewed Jeff Stibel about how the Internet is showing the earliest signs of consciousness, because it involves a pooling of human intelligences, with the Internet the crucial tool for making that pool work as a larger brain:

The internet is a new lifeform that shows the first signs of intelligence. So says brain scientist and serial entrepreneur Jeff Stibel. He argues that the physical wiring of the internet is much like a rudimentary brain and some of the actions and interactions that take place on it are similar to the processes that we see in the brain. At the same time, he says, it is forcing us as humans to interact and think in new and different ways. But, he tells BBC Future, this is just the beginning. The internet is only going to become more and more intelligent, changing humans and society in ways which we are not yet able to understand.