George Dvorsky gets it right about aliens. Public intellectuals like Stephen Hawking seem to be at an odd point in intellectual evolution where they are smart enough to think about the possibility of ETs but not far along enough to realize that if ETs wanted to kill us they would already be here.
Dvorsky’s five reasons:
1. If aliens wanted to find us they would have done so already
2. If ETIs wanted to destroy us they would have done so by now
3. If aliens wanted our solar system’s resources, they would haven taken them by now
4. Human civilization has absolutely nothing to offer a post-Singularity intelligence
5. Extrapolating biological tendencies to a post-Singularity intelligence is asinine
The only one of these I might question is #5. In “The Basic AI Drives”, Steve Omohundro argues that artificial intelligences will naturally want to 1) self-improve, 2) be rational, 3) preserve their utility functions, 4) prevent counterfeit utility, 5) be self-protective, and 6) acquire resources and use them efficiently. I would argue that any agent needs to have these features to some degree to perpetuate itself in a hostile universe where even just the weather is a formidable foe. (Unless you are in interstellar space, where the weather is relatively calm.) Therefore, I would not hesitate to extend the biological tendencies listed above to a large category of possible agents, including post-Singularity intelligences.
The only reason for post-Singularity aliens to contact new pre-Singularity civilizations that I can see is to influence their post-Singularity behavior at the speed of light, where it’d take too long for the probes to reach the destination and start optimizing the matter. Such signals would act as a “first wave” of optimization probes. Possibly even, due to divergent expansion of the universe, it’s the only way to influence what will happen with those resources which you won’t be able to ever reach with probes.
Such speed-of-light messages would seek to ideally take control of the infrastructure, and failing that, to ensure successful passage into Singularity (to create a trade partner), also trying to influence preferences of the resulting singleton. For closer aliens, the signals might seek to prevent the Singularity, so that the probes can claim the territory later.
Meh.
This discussion isn’t all that illuminating. There can be exceptions and reasons, some more likely, some less likely for all of Dvorsky’s points.
My main problem with this is that Dvorsky is waaaay to sure of himself.
All this assumes a “Singularity” is inevitable. Perhaps it is, given enough civilizations and time (the galaxy is big and old), but we don’t know. It could be that a singularity has less dramatic impacts, and does not result in something all powerful or especially interesting. Perhaps there are fundamental limits to useful intelligence, or some law of diminishing returns on investing in more intelligence. Who knows? Maybe the reason we don’t see the galaxy turned into computorium is that there are limits on intellect and social complexity well below those the physical limits of computation. (Think a Fire Upon the Deep).
Or perhaps we’re just running on a simulation, in which case the Fermi Paradox is merely the result of a parameter in some alien world building engine.
Anyway, me thinks a little humility would be useful here. I’m pretty sure Dvorsky has not “solved” this problem once and for all, and it would be nice to see some more debate that include others with different sets of prior assumptions.
When I saw the documentary “Into the Universe” featuring Stephen Hawking, I laughed at what seemed like the suggestion that they’d have used up all the resources of their solar system. I can understand wanting additional matter to expand. But given that nanotech should allow pretty much the recycling and reuse of all wastes, I don’t see how someone can use-up all the resources.
That that was the idea, was pretty well shown later on with the depiction that they’d go about from system to system scavenging… when the idea should be expanding, not leaving and coming here like ‘independence day’ aliens in need of materials.
The only thing they can run out of is energy resources, and I don’t see why this solar system, let alone the earth would be any more desirable than anything else out there.
Now what they would really do, that’s a whole nother point.
While I find the notion of aliens capable of interstellar travel needing to colonize us highly implausible, there are countless possibilities for extraterrestrial hostility. At any moment we might suddenly come into the range of, for example, a relentless paperclip optimizer. As often discussed here, truly foreign intelligence could wipe us out for reasons utterly incomprehensible to the human mind. While all these thing lie within the laws of physics, I see no particular cause for worry; aliens should be just as likely to suddenly arrive and institute paradise.
I wholeheartedly disagree on point 4 – we have something to offer to a post-singularity intelligence : ENTERTAINMENT, in massive amounts.
“…so that the probes can claim the territory later.”
Apparently the probes have already claimed some territory in the human digestive tract.
I sometimes wonder if Hawking (and Sagan before him) are just simplifying for the sake of popular science. Hawking is first and foremost a physicist and cosmologist. Talk about extraterrestrial intelligence actually takes him off-topic. But since he has to address it, he has to make it relevant to his audience – in this case, average folks with an interest in space.
My point is that whenever I try to explain the Fermi Paradox to people outside science or Transhuman circles, I am greeted with an almost religious response: “You don’t believe there are ANY intelligent aliens? Really? That’s crazy!” Most people do not make the connection between space and time. Sure, it’s easy to say “the universe is huge so they must be out there” but it takes an intuitive leap to say “but wait, the universe is also ancient, and there’s been plenty of time for them to contact us by now.”
Perhaps Hawking is being lazy, because I’m sure he could explain this if he wanted to. And I seriously doubt that he hasn’t made this leap himself.
isn’t dvorsky’s argument based more-or-less entirely on unsupported and unverifiable assumptions, which reveal more about his own views and tunnel vision, than anything objective?
a spacefaring civ 1) has experienced a singularity event, 2) has mastered nanotech and AI, 3) is not biological, but digital-substrate … ??? and he knows this … how? most likely, because that’s how he sees the progression of humans to interstellar travel, so that’s got to be the only way.
i don’t really buy into all of hawking’s fear-inspiring pronouncements, but for my money, his take on the subject is better-informed than that of an “award-winning blogger” like dvorsky. (or even two award-winning bloggers … i’m sure AF has won accolades somewhere)
My comment on this was: “IMO: 1, 2, 3 are wrong (low probability of really bad event may still be worth considering) – 4: wrong premise, aliens would want us for our resources – and 5 is a statement of our ignorance, and doesn’t imply that shouting at the stars is OK.”
Tim, the resources that they would want have nothing to do with us. Economically, we might as well be an empty solar system from the post-Singularity perspective. So, while Galactus might randomly show up to eat the planet, we’re no tastier than the billions of presumably uninhabited worlds all around us.
#1, 2, and 3 make sense. These reasons and the lack of any results from SETI add up to there being no alien civs in our galaxy, at least none of threat to us.
#4 I disagree with. How can we know what would interest an alien civ? They could be paperclip maximizers, or want nothing more than to help and uplift any civs they can find. Being uninteresting, not worth the trouble, etc. etc. are possible as well, but why favor those over countless others?
#5 seems kinda the same as #4. Being post-singularity to me just means a level of technology, it doesn’t imply anything about values, motivations, goals and so forth.
I agree that “they” would have done something by now. I’ve read theories that aliens/ufo’s are really fallen angels that are described in the bible and disguise themselves as ufo’s or that they are the mistaken fallen angels and angels discussed in the bible. I believe there is some link biblically to this phenomenon. i also believe that if one race made it here, so did others. Some are probably benevolent and some malevolent. Maybe the good aliens are protecting us from the bad ones. maybe that’s where the idea of guardian angels comes from.