Stimulating reading: Collective Intelligence 2.0
Also worthwhile is an article referenced in the above post: Kevin Kelley's We Are The Web.

UPDATE: I was originally going to limit this post to nothing more than the links,  but just can't resist commenting a bit more.
I really enjoyed reading both of these articles. However, in my opinion, anyone writing about the development of consciousness in machines or in the Web, should have their own deep experiences beyond waking-state consciousness over a period of many years (and preferrably in the context some kind of established, proven framework). Unfortunately, many people working at the leading edge of AI don't seem to understand the full range of human consciousness.
Physical changes happen in the brain as a result of exercising these higher states of consciousness, and just like with weight lifting, one builds power gradually over time. That's why I feel that a person claiming authority in this area needs many years of experience at using more than, say,10% of the brain's potential.
Anyone who doesn't have this level of experience is probably not qualified to be an authority on developing consciousness in machines - because they have not experienced the process of developing greater levels of their own human consciousness. One should to be intimately familiar with consciousness before one starts architecting humanity's future along the lines of a global nervous system.
At the moment, I don't have any articles to recommend from such a person. And even if I did have links to such articles, I wonder how many people would find them appealing. For example, has anyone here read any of Peter Russell's stuff? (Not that he is an authority on machine consciousness, but he did write on this subject a long time ago.)