bdoskocil-
It seems that we seem to be thinking about the concept of sentient AI in the same manner, once I managed to make my thoughts a bit clearer.

And regarding the article, it did capture the general idea of robotics and AI surpassing humanity, but it did seem like the ideas were not developed very well, and it would appear that the author was under the illusion that we are relatively close to this event. I would disagree, for while hardware is advancing at a rather incredible rate, the human brain is still much faster at computation on a fundamental level than even warehouse filling supercomputers such as the earth simulator, it's just utilised in a very different manner. And while on the hardware side it could be possible in the not all too distant future, in terms of software, we literally have no clue as to how we would create programs capable of free-thought, or even any level of creative thought, which would be required for the 'robot makes smarter robot' scenario. While we can create programs that can 'decide' how to behave in a given situation, extending this to creative thought is just about the equivalent of opening a word processor and demanding it write a completely original novel.

sulphix-
I too find the concept of what defines our humanity an entrancing topic, and I would definitely be hoping to explore such themes with any work I do regarding this world.

And while I think you raise very valid points regarding the world-building, it would create a sense of the digital world being almost 'fake', whereas I want to create a world that just like ours forces everyone to abide by fundamental rules of physics, and while these rules may differ slightly in the digital world, and even within different areas of this world, I think that as soon as you introduce the potential ability to 'hack' the world we're in the same old boat of digital worlds where player 1.. I mean the main character is one of the few people capable of 'hacking' the world, and as such becomes the person saving it from the evil virus horde.

My intent is to show that a world that is completely digital can essentially be as real as the 'real world', which again opens some interesting routes one could go in terms of a discussion of reality (hopefully without seeming like a cheesy ripoff of the matrix).

Making the digital world indiscriminantly adhere to a number of fundamental physical laws also stops immersion-breaking things such as 'oh well, Mary-Sue died, but it'll all be ok if we load her last save-game into a new robotic body, or simply break the laws of the world bringing her back to life with my l33t haxoring skillz!'.

And most importantly, I want to give the AI a complete sense of mortality, and biological growth and decay in this world, essentially making them human, despite the fact that they are existing on the platter of a HDD. (sorry about the upcoming matrix cliche, I know, I promised) Who could say that our world doesn't exist on a hard-drive and we're not all plugged into it?

so all in all, while I agree that what you suggest would make one hell of a game, drawing strong parallels to Neuromancer, it is slightly conflicting with some of the fundamental ideas behind my creation of this world. Maybe you should use your ideas yourself, because I think it could be really great. ^_^