Maybe you don't need to write your own AI program and it will somehow create itself out of the gene pool of the combined web?
The physics of the Web is an interesting article about the structure and dynamics of the web. In that context you could think of viruses as little programs sent out to discover this new world and, perhaps, reform it more into their world vision, or at least turn it into something where they have a better chance of propogating. In other words, what would happen of all of the viruses were given free reign? Would they soon start attacking or abbetting each other? Kind of like core wars with the net and viruses.
Artificial Intelligence (Ai) - Creating a new form of life
challenge. Well, you don't actually create in the darwinian sense, but instead use your programming skills and mental prowess to come up with a program that can play a game...a game that it doesn't know the rules to.