I have a Vision that as viruses, worms, and other malware self-mutate and evolve, so will anti-virus software. And as digital certificates lose their effectiveness due to fraudulent certificates, a new generation of heuristic anti-virus analysis will come about that also evolves to detect suspicious code and digital certificates. But heuristics are not exact and as virus code obfuscation techniques evolve, software communication will become more and more untrustworthy with continual scanning and testing becoming a dominant part of the "conversation".
In biological evolution, sexual reproduction is better than asexual reproduction because it provides variation to defend against viruses and other infections. The problem, though, is that sexual reproduction requires the female to allow the ultimate infection - a massive parasitic infection that only carries half of her genes. As a result, in selecting her mate, she is extremely suspicious of his genetic quality and continually scans and tests him. For many species, this scanning/testing process has gone into arms-races because the females usually accept only the best they can find. Examples include peacock feathers (their bright plumage can only be maintained when they are very healthy and free of infection), deer antlers (also only impressive when free of infection), the giraffe's long neck, fish coloration, Bauer bird nest building behavior, moose antlers, ... and, according to some, Human Consciousness.
So, in conclusion, my vision is that computer consciousness could evolve as part of the scanning/testing/guessing-game "conversation" that seems to be very analogous to human interactions, but, like human consciousness, it will be very muddled and confused.
