Creating Internet Intelligence: Wild Computing, Distributed Digital Consciousness, and the Emerging Global Brain

by Ben Goertzel

Creating Internet Intelligence is an interdisciplinary treatise exploring the hypothesis that global computer and communication networks will one day evolve into an autonomous intelligent system, and making specific recommendations as to what engineers and scientists can do today to encourage and shape this evolution. A general theory of intelligent systems is described, based on the author's previous work; and in this context, the specific notion of Internet intelligence is fleshed out, in its commercial, social, psychological, computer-science, philosophical, and theological aspects. Software engineering work carried out by the author and his team over the last few years, aimed at seeding the emergence of Internet intelligence, is reviewed in some detail, including the Webmind AI Engine, a uniquely powerful Internet-based digital intelligence, and the Webworld platform for peer-to-peer distributed cognition and artificial life. The book should be of interest to computer scientists, philosophers, and social scientists, and more generally to anyone concerned about the nature of the mind, or the evolution of computer and Internet technology and its effect on human life.

346 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2001

Reviews

[Antonin Tuynman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I ever read. Not only does Ben Goertzel define intelligence in the most pragmatic and sensible way, he also shows how pattern and emergence are the hallmarks of arising self-organising complexity. Starting with a philosophy of meta-system transitions, Goertzel rapidly develops these notions in the design of artificial intelligence structures which could integrate the internet to form a true global webmind. Wholeheartedly recommended!