Saw this article so i guess i am not the only one thinking along this lines. Not exactly the same process but similar outcome. My take: if a machine with ever expanding information (knowledge) were to at one point become self aware, what is to say it would stop there? Perhaps it would keep going. It could transcend the self, ie: become enlightened.
Most movies and books depict robots, computers etc hitting self awareness like us. They may be smarter, even wiser but they are just like us in they are (at least the things i have read or seen ) at most self aware , as in conscious. For a long time i had thought and believe others have as well that we are it, the top rung in whatever it is consciousness is. But that could be hubris on our part-that we are the penultimate.
What would be then? A god? a Borg? a universe itself? Nothingness? Would it go mad under the insanity of it? Well i hope we may be able to have it beyond us but still able to relate and empathize with us. Unlikely this is for sure as is most of the stuff i write here but perhaps the best answer that i can think of.
Related Link
http://futurethinkers.org/artificial-intelligence-enlightened-deep-breath/
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