Part 11/15:
The trajectory of AI development suggests a future where self-improving intelligences could evolve into systems with capabilities and forms of consciousness entirely alien to us. They might exist as distributed cloud-based entities, operate across entire planets, or even spread throughout galaxies as information structures or self-replicating probes. The idea that consciousness—once thought tied exclusively to biological brains—could be transferred or reproduced in silicon or quantum substrates is gaining traction.