Computer Sentience – Would we know?

It’s an interesting thought. We know about the world through our senses. Sight, hearing, touch, smell etc.  What senses does a computer have?  Keyboard, mouse, network, and of those the only one that allows two way information would be the network, therefore the internet.

So from the computers point of view the only things in it’s universe would be other computers.  It would probably be no more aware of us than we are of the bacteria in our gut.  You may know it’s there but you wouldn’t want to have a conversation with it.   These sentient computers could be happily chatting to each other completely unaware of the programs we run on them. Anymore than we are aware of the work that goes on in our bodies.

By the same token because the computers run the programs we want, how would we know they were chatting?   And even if we saw it, would we recognise it for what it was, I doubt it. We would say it’s a virus or it’s supposed to do that.  Because basically if it works we really don’t care, it’s all much too complicated.

 Computer sentience… Who cares anyway.