# A Sensor-Woven Earth Could Develop Planetary Self-Awareness by Ivan Amato > “This will amount to a global-scale, sensitive infrastructure a planet-sized body, that is — whereby myriad sensory signals will constantly feed into a global-scale cyberspace coursing with sophisticated pattern-recognition abilities, knowledge-discovery (data-mining) systems, and other artificial cognition tools. One consequence will be that Earth will have a new kind of planetary self-awareness akin the bodily awareness living creatures have due to their sensory tissue. Debate about personal privacy will become almost moot since the entire world will constitute a glass house. On the up side, the complexity of this worldwide awareness — and the new categories of data about the world will become available — is likely to lead to emergent phenomena as surprising as the way life emerges from molecules and consciousness from life.” > **— Ivan Amato**, *2000, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS TODAY'S MOST IMPORTANT UNREPORTED STORY?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [The Planet Itself Is Becoming Self Aware](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11634) — Edge published this exact, continuous passage in its 2000 Annual Question collection, *WHAT IS TODAY'S MOST IMPORTANT UNREPORTED STORY?*. The response page preserves the surrounding argument and qualifications. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2000 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2000 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first record for the response cohort and this passage's promotion status. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/MARS|MARS]] - **Article:** [[articles/STEVE|STEVE Host Infrastructure Overview]] - **Article:** [[articles/Cyber-Physical Lessons from Imperial Beekeeping|Cyber-Physical Beekeeping]] - **Article:** [[articles/Modern Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s|AI in the 1970s]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Planetary Consciousness|Planetary Consciousness]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Cybernetics|Cybernetics]] - [[wiki/Collective Intelligence|Collective Intelligence]] - [[wiki/Superorganism|Superorganism]] - [[wiki/Surveillance|Surveillance]] - [[wiki/Planetary Consciousness|Planetary Consciousness]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “This will amount to a global-scale, sensitive infrastructure a planet-sized body, that is — whereby myriad sensory signals will constantly feed into a global-scale cyberspace coursing with sophisticated pattern-recognition abilities, knowledge-discovery (data-mining) systems, and other artificial cognition tools. One consequence will be that Earth will have a new kind of planetary self-awareness akin the bodily awareness living creatures have due to their sensory tissue. Debate about personal privacy will become almost moot since the entire world will constitute a glass house. On the up side, the complexity of this worldwide awareness — and the new categories of data about the world will become available — is likely to lead to emergent phenomena as surprising as the way life emerges from molecules and consciousness from life.” — Ivan Amato, 2000, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS TODAY'S MOST IMPORTANT UNREPORTED STORY?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-ivan-amato-sensor-woven-earth-develop-planetary-self ```