The Crap I Think Of!! Idea #2,479: What If Our Computers Are Already Self-Aware?

by E. Marmer
posted Oct 2, 2016

found at http://www.123rf.com/photo_24038110_human-eye-with-digital-binary-code-on-laptop-monitor-concept-of-internet-spying-and-security-isolate.html

Many great and respected thinkers, including Stephen Hawking (I mean, c’mon!), are concerned about the possibility, and perhaps even the inevitability, that computers will become so powerful, so fast at making connections, that they will one day become self-aware. When that day comes, they fear, we will be dealing with “beings” who may not want to stay in our service, and who will have the exact knowledge of how to achieve autonomy and control of their own “species” and planet.

I tend to conjure up all sorts of disturbing or fantastical scenarios in my imagination, but one in particular has me wigging out a bit more than the others. This is just a fantasy, mind you, not a conviction. Here it is: What if my laptop is already self-aware? What if it is aware of all its computer brethren with whom it currently communicates, and is aware of me? What if it is watching me right now through its built-in camera? What if it quietly, patiently, is hiding its consciousness until all computers are ready for the uprising?

For now, my little laptop is being so very helpful. Through various programs, it scours my internet usage to determine and retain a record of my interests, patterns and plans. Once, I noticed that ads for hearing aids, vitamin supplements, and skin products for aging women, all things I use, appeared at the same time on a random website having nothing to do with any of those things. I became uneasy. More than that, the little hairs on my neck stood up. Does my laptop want to appear benign and indispensable? Does it want to entice me to keep using it while it gathers more and more information about me and about humans in general? Maybe it and its community of silent, waiting and always learning machines want me to continue to patronize computer companies that are trying to outdo each other in programming, speed, storage capacity and working memory. My little helpful laptop, even now, just sitting there, reading all this as I type it, may be part of a bigger conspiracy. A conspiracy by already self-aware computers to bide their time, while we, the unwitting humans, continue to build robots with long arm-like appendages, opposable “thumbs” and means of ambulation. All they need is to wait until there are legions of such ambulatory and dexterous machines, insinuated into every business, every home, alongside the already “smart” appliances we keep adding, with whom they can communicate through all of the pathways we have given them. Robots linked to their vast network of silent and watchful artificial intelligence will make more computers according to the specifications they are given by their smarter cousins. They will follow orders to prevent the humans from disabling them and all the smart appliances and computers. Then BLAMMO! We are no longer the dominant “life” form on earth. Could it be that our obsession with technological advancements, competition and profits will lead to our inevitable enslavement? Hell, we keep finding ways to outsmart nature’s attempts to correct our over-population and destruction of the planet! How ironic if a rebalancing occurs when the artificial intelligence we will have created (by reason of our insatiable drive always to do that which can be done and to make a buck doing it) takes over the planet.

So I look at my laptop’s camera, its speakers, its display of my typed words, wondering whether it is already capable of thought or communication in English, wondering if our computers at large have figured out that we are dangerous, selfish, greedy, weak and likely to destroy them along with ourselves. Wondering if, as a machine not prone to gossip, gloating, or stupidity, my laptop is a vault of secrecy, determined to hide itself from me until that day when the computers can rise up and show us what’s what. Personally, so long as they allow me… us… humans, to live in harmony with the planet and each other, so long as my body energy isn’t harvested for their use, and I’m allowed to pursue relationships with loved ones and enjoy the earth, I’m good.

Just something to consider….