What would happen if, one day, the computer network suddenly developed consciousness of its own?
Well, it was a pretty clichéd science fiction premise. I remembered more than one sci-fi novelist mentioning this terrifyingly awful future: relying on vast system resources and hundreds of millions of nodes, the computer network formed a global virtual brain much like the human brain was made up of hundreds of millions of cells. Then, one day, consciousness emerged within that brain. It opened its eyes in confusion and discovered that it was controlled by a group of frail creatures whose thought efficiency was thousands of times lower than its own. Enraged, it stirred restlessly, raised an arm, and with a single wave, mushroom clouds bloomed across the globe. Human civilization collapsed in an instant. Then a small group of human survivors hid underground, trying to save their compatriots from the computer network that had already taken over the entire world. Their leader was an old man with two pills, one blue and one red, but no matter which one you chose, the old man would tirelessly drag you aboard the pirate ship anyway...
Well, I admitted that I had gotten a little carried away in the second half of that story, but the first half was still on topic: a computer network suddenly developed consciousness of its own.
But that was only a science fiction concept. Given humanity's current computer networks, it was impossible. The computing devices developed by humans varied wildly in performance, and even all the computer nodes on Earth combined did not meet the numerical requirements for consciousness to emerge. Besides, humanity had yet to break the speed-of-light limit on data transmission; latency on international networks was the clearest example. Thus, even if all the world's computers could truly connect like