Will the Internet Evolve into a Lifeform?-英语课

时间：2019-02-18 作者：英语课 分类：阅读空间

英语课

Will the Internet Evolve into a Lifeform?

Some think that sentience 1 could emerge from any sufficiently 2 complicated system. By the way, you're reading this on a massively-crosslinked network built from millions of routers, allowing any of a billion individual units to access, modify and reply to the others. Interested?

Computer programs are already exhibiting many of the characteristics of organic lifeforms, up to and including evolution - hilarious 3, since they're the only things that really are "Intelligently Designed" - and there's no reason to believe that life or awareness 4 are exclusively organic attributes. You could say we've only ever seen chemical-based constructs which are alive, but in the past the same argument could have been applied 5 to things moving under their own power, flight or the ability to count - and it turns out we've built machines that are sort of far better at all those things than the fleshy equivalents. If there is a magic "life-chemical" mixed in with all the blood and guts 6, we haven't found it.
Others would object that only beings with souls can ever be truly alive, but such people rarely have anything useful (or even sensible) to say on the subjects of evolution or technology and so can be safely ignored.
The question is now what form this life would take. While the movies teach us that evil cybernetic intelligences are created in military research labs, with the occasional time-traveling component 7 mixed in, the most likely environment is wherever has the greatest connectivity, diversity and sheer quantity of data flow. That's right, the internet.
One route is the evolution of electronic intelligences in situations like the internet-arms race between spammers and shielders. It might sound silly, the idea that new life could be created in an attempt to offer you a great deal on C1@Lis!!, but have you tried registering for a forum 8 recently? Even gaining access to the lowest level of interaction online now requires elementary Turing tests to tell the humans from the robots.
Another option is the idea of the net itself becoming sentient 9, a vast self-modifying array of connections and information storage with limited connections to the outside world (kind of like that glob of grey goo you carry around in your skull). If that happens then Gibson help us all - remember that the net is made of about 90% spam, 9% porn, and quite a lot of whining 10 blogs. If that mixture ever becomes self-aware we're not quite sure what it'll do, but the odds 11 are against it being anything good.

1 sentience

n.感觉性；感觉能力；知觉

Some people believe in the sentience of flowers. 有些人相信花有知觉能力。来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
That art embodies sentience. 艺术包容了所有感受。来自互联网

2 sufficiently

adv.足够地，充分地

It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

3 hilarious

adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed

The party got quite hilarious after they brought more wine.在他们又拿来更多的酒之后，派对变得更加热闹起来。
We stop laughing because the show was so hilarious.我们笑个不停，因为那个节目太搞笑了。

4 awareness

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

5 applied

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

6 guts

v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠