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What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
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Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#12I don't think life can survive itself in order to become super-intelligent. It's easy to see why we have the Fermi Paradox. Homo Sapiens have been around for say 100,000 years yet the last 200 years, as we have become technological, we have basically destroyed our environment. I think any intelligent lifeform would have a similar path; where the social intelligence lags behind the technological intelligence. We are n…
Maybe the problems of today will be solved with the technology of tomorrow.
As far as nuclear bombs, we don't really seem to be using them much anymore. They are just trump cards in the mutual assured destruction game.
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#13It seems strange to make a distinction between organic and created by organic. At an advanced enough stage, couldn't any AI look organic to us? My take... 1) Over the span of our development, our technology development would look like uncomprehensable magic to someone 1000 years ago. Our ancestors from 100,000 years ago would find us uncomprehensible. Galactic time horizons are billions of years. The odds of our find…
My thoughts exactly. How do we even define "Artificial"? Heck, we can't even define "consciousness" properly.
Is a turtle artificially intelligent? What if a Chimp had titanium atoms instead of carbon? Would that make it AI?
Overall I think it's an absurd question because right now the definition of "AI" is something that we/humans have created. Everything else is natural intelligence.
A question of vernacular.
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#14Really doubt any extraterrestrial beings would be willing to make contact with us in our current state of development. Maybe if we could go a century without wars or genocide or other atrocities. Honestly unless they want to guide us (ala Childhood's End) I doubt we have anything to offer.
Yes, it would be like the ants on the other side of my yard waiting for me to come over and have a conversation with them.
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#15Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#16I don't think life can survive itself in order to become super-intelligent. It's easy to see why we have the Fermi Paradox. Homo Sapiens have been around for say 100,000 years yet the last 200 years, as we have become technological, we have basically destroyed our environment. I think any intelligent lifeform would have a similar path; where the social intelligence lags behind the technological intelligence. We are n…
Maybe the problems of today will be solved with the technology of tomorrow. As far as nuclear bombs, we don't really seem to be using them much anymore. They are just trump cards in the mutual assured destruction game.
Any technical solutions to the global issues we face will be thwarted by sociological factors due to our immaturity as a species. Climate, for example, requires cooperation on a global level and all populous industrialised countries must participate. China, for example, may decide to not participate for any number of economic or political reasons. What then? They would be further destroying the planet. Should we force them to participate since their decision is adversely affecting other nations?
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#17Really doubt any extraterrestrial beings would be willing to make contact with us in our current state of development. Maybe if we could go a century without wars or genocide or other atrocities. Honestly unless they want to guide us (ala Childhood's End) I doubt we have anything to offer.
Unless maybe we taste good?
If anything it would just be one of their Von Neumann probes looking to fuel up, probably from Jupiter or Uranus. Maybe it would send some pics of us back to the home world where they might say "oh, those guys look neat, add that one to the inhabited planet catalog"
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#18It seems strange to make a distinction between organic and created by organic. At an advanced enough stage, couldn't any AI look organic to us? My take... 1) Over the span of our development, our technology development would look like uncomprehensable magic to someone 1000 years ago. Our ancestors from 100,000 years ago would find us uncomprehensible. Galactic time horizons are billions of years. The odds of our find…
Or, as Terry Bison put it in "They're Made of Meat" - http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html :
> ... "They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
> "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
> "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
> "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat." ...
> "Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
> "First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
> "We're supposed to talk to meat." ...
> ... Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
> "I was hoping you would say that."
> "It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
> "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' ...
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#19I think emergence of life is a start of a ticking time bomb. If someone would look at earth from afar and observe the changes on a compressed time scale, one would see the earth 'lighting' up a bit as soon as intelligent life emerges.
Life emerging on a planet is like a bomb's fuse getting lit. The bomb in this case being earth itself with its unique chemical composition. It is only a question of time when this bomb goes off and destroys all life in the process. Maybe the purpose of life is to accelerate and magnify that explosion to achieve the highest possible cosmic reduction of entropy.
Some people argue against this by citing how earth has become relatively peaceful over the last century. I think this is a false belief - earth is in a local minima of violence bought about by the emergence of nation states and nuclear weapons.
The next level of evolution of intelligent life, which will most likely be AI, will bring with it a new wave of violence. First, when AI takes over and fights the humans for dominance, and next if there are multiple AI which emerge and fight over the resources of this solar system.
Re: What if the aliens we are seeking are AI?
#20I think emergence of life is a start of a ticking time bomb. If someone would look at earth from afar and observe the changes on a compressed time scale, one would see the earth 'lighting' up a bit as soon as intelligent life emerges. Life emerging on a planet is like a bomb's fuse getting lit. The bomb in this case being earth itself with its unique chemical composition. It is only a question of time when this bomb…
> It is only a question of time when this bomb goes off and destroys all life in the process.
Or it only affects the planet enough to destroy civilization, and not all life. Or only all high-order life, leaving insects and fish behind. Etc, etc.