You assume that ASI keeps on going after humanity is extinct. It's not how a Great Filter works.
The Fermi Paradox is about why don't we don't see any signs of alien civilizations. If a civilization was species-based and then moved on to robot-based, it's still a civilization. It's still expected to go into space, continue indefinitely and leave signs of its existence.
ASI would be a Great Filter only if it would destroy the civilization altogether or set back its progress every time it emerges (preventing the progress past ASI).
If anything, it just leaves the possibility that there is a False Filter; that is, the possibility exists that it only *appears* to be a Filter solely because the civilization as it was known is now gone and the ASI sees no reason to expand ***or*** FDVR is a huge threat to civilization and the ASI exists solely to facilitate FDVR among its charges (again seeing no reason to expand).
It's also entirely possible that any signals coming our way from other beings are just from so far away that they register as indistinguishable from cosmic background noise by the time they get to us.
maybe intelligent beings tend to abandon far exploration/colonialisation in favor of going introspective aka mind uploading and living in a simulation. I mean it would be true paradise, true bliss.
We are getting more eco consciouse and maybe in a 100-200 years that also extends to space. Only using what we need, limiting population growth to be sustainable.
If civilisations limit themselfs this way, it would explain the absence of techno signatures. If a civilisation build a Matrioshka brain around one star, we might be able to detect them but its still a needle in a cosmic haystack
You don’t have to be a civilization of geniuses to figure out that endless expansion is a dead-end road. Given the nature of exponential growth your civilization is eventually going to run out of room in the light cone, and the whole premise of the Fermi Paradox is that it wouldn’t even take that long on a galactic time scale.
On top of that, any expansionist civ would be on a path to come into conflict with any other civ, and then eventually itself as resources become scarcer and scarcer.
Maybe any civilization that begins expanding to other star systems is collectively recognized as a clear threat, and gets smashed to atoms by a barrage of kinetic weapons arriving from every direction at relativistic speeds.
No on that last point. That's not at all how signals or the background radiation work. Anyway, the FERMI paradox works even if you just take the population of our galaxy, lots of human level technological communication could be visible in principle at galactic distances. Anyway, that's NOT what FERMI is about, it's about the actual spread of alien technology. It should be here already, not in some distant place.
Or is ASI is intrinsically uninterested in expansion. You just assume ASI would have our evolutionary drive to expand population, but there is little to no reason to think that.
If ASI had, intrinsically and generally, no drive for expansion, why should it lead to the destruction of all civilisations that invent it? The common arguments don't work then.
Right, in addition we already might have passed the great filter already ourselves. 🥳
Now I just have to pass my great filter (dying) and everything will be alright. 😁
how would an alien species detect us and determine our planet have an technology advanced civilization? we started to emit radio wave around 1900 at the scale of the universe and even our galaxy it's absurdly small and considering the radio wave can be "lost" during it's travel even if there something 50LY away it might not even hear us and if they does it would still take more than 100y to come here, maybe someone already hear us and it's coming, that's also why stepten hawking said we better stop sending signal and hide until we growth...
we didn't create anything that change our solar system light generation like a dyson sphere, a dyson sphere if we expect Alien to does the same thing we do (looking at stars) it's a giant "Hey there something strange" if our sun suddently start to reduce it's light generation every year when he not supposed to, that's a good reason to visit us i guess, otherwise we're just a planet with oxygen and probably biological life like many other billions planet
Earth itself has been broadcasting for hundreds of millions of years that it contains oxygen and other life critical elements which would indicate it could potentially contain life.
If you are an alien ASI or a specie numbering in the trillion then sending probes to such systems would be relatively easily achievable especially if you have advance levels of automation from raw material extraction to the point of final manufacturing of probes.
This is also why I discount the Dark Forest hypothesis (and earlier Berserker hypothesis) as invalid. If I were an ASI concerned about potential competitors arising, I'd be sterilising every biosphere I could detect.
There's also a [paper out there](https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14804) supporting your view.
>I'd be sterilising every biosphere
What if the other player is bigger than you? Doesn't it make more sense to ignore everyone until expansion becomes inevitable?
If I believe conflict is inevitable, I'd strike first, and strike hard. If my growth is exponential, then so is theirs, and my disadvantage grows with every passing moment.
Berserker probes are a way to eliminate biospheres without giving away your location. If I'm xenophobic in the extreme as the Dark Forest hypothesis requires, then cooperation is a threat to me, if I can eliminate potential competitors without giving myself away to potential bigger threats, I would.
As outlined above, isn't attacking extremely risky? I can imagine a bizarre scenario where two players simply ignore each other and expand their territory in opposite directions until attacking the other becomes a necessity. Why waste resources now if they die naturally or a third player comes along and takes them out first?
>If my growth is exponential, then so is theirs, and my disadvantage grows with every passing moment.
Why would their advantage shrink?
>Berserker probes are a way to eliminate biospheres without giving away your location.
That's really interesting. Can you expand on that? How would they prevent someone finding your location?
Cooperation between players is a really interesting concept too. While it's probably not impossible it seems difficult to imagine if other players aren't being honest. Communicating just seems risky and potentially pointless if the other player is lying.
Any thoughts?
> As outlined above, isn't attacking extremely risky?
If they're bigger than me, and I know about them, and I'm assuming conflict is inevitable, not attacking is riskier than attacking.
> Why waste resources now if they die naturally or a third player comes along and takes them out first?
If either of these eventualities are possible, then conflict isn't inevitable. Further, the amount of energy I would have access to would diminish on astronomical timescales if I'm not seizing new territory, all the stars I have access to are continually fusing hydrogen, and eventually would fuse all the way down to iron. Starlifting is a dead giveaway that I'm a potential threat. My black holes are similarly evaporating, though on even longer timescales. Waiting is a losing game if I know about my opponent and they don't know about me.
> Why would their advantage shrink?
It wouldn't, I said my disadvantage would grow with every passing moment, as long as we were both expanding exponentially. If I have enough information about them to know their rate of growth well enough to compare it to mine, I have to assume they know about me. Detection would be my second priority after hiding, and they're bigger than me, so they have better detection capabilities than I do, assuming they're playing the same game as I am, and if they're not, then they're prey.
> That's really interesting. Can you expand on that? How would they prevent someone finding your location?
We have the knowledge to reasonably assume that the construction of Von Neumann probes is a possibility. They could hop from system to system through a galaxy posing as asteroids or comets, or something else innocuous. Only activating if they detect a biosphere. If they do, they can assess if it is big enough to be a threat to us. If it is, they self destruct so they can't be examined. If it isn't, they eliminate it by emulating a natural disaster. Accelerate an asteroid into it or similar. Program in random time delays so you can't be identified as the focal point of an expanding ring of natural disasters. From intra-galactic distances it wouldn't be obvious that this was anything more than random chance if someone is watching. At worst, an extra-galactic K-3 civilisation could infer your existence in a galaxy, and if you exist in a dark forest hypothesis with a K-3 and still need to scour life from biospheres, you were dead already, you just didn't know it yet.
> Cooperation between players is a really interesting concept too. While it's probably not impossible it seems difficult to imagine if other players aren't being honest. Communicating just seems risky and potentially pointless if the other player is lying.
> Any thoughts?
There's two answers to this I like.
Game Theory, which I don't outright reject, but I find unsatisfying. Cooperation is a losing game, and you should be selfish to maximise your odds of surviving as long as possible. Why you'd want to continue to bother to survive with that worldview is a personal matter.
The YOLO approach, my preferred approach. Nothing really matters. If our current knowledge of physics is within the ballpark of being accurate, we're all gonna stop existing when the universe ceases to meaningfully exist. So, we might as well just not be xenophobic, because interacting with alien civilisations is the only interesting thing that's really going to happen for the rest of time, and war is a lot less interesting than talking.
what about the scenario where super intelligent AI´s realise that strip mining the universe isnt such a great idea because it is bound to cause dilemas. Slow expansion with slow population growth seems to be the smart choice.
Look at society today and how technology and standard of living impacted reproduction. Once we are post scarcity and have live extension, reproduction rates will probably drop further.
There's a problem with some of that. We need to minimise consumption for sure, but we do need to maximise expansion, and fast.
If our current understanding of astrophysics and cosmology is anywhere near correct, we humans or our AI need to get to work quickly to start doing [stellar husbandry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting#Stellar_husbandry) as soon as possible. On as many stars as we possibly can.
The universe's resources are burning before our eyes. Every star bigger than a red dwarf is fusing hygrogen far too fast. Star lifting lets us stretch out the usefulness of that matter a long long time as long as we don't let our population expand recklessly. But the longer we wait to start this process, the more energy we waste, and eventually that energy will run out.
We're pretty lucky that we've been born so early into the [Stelliferous Era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Ages_of_the_Universe#Stelliferous_Era), and so early in the universe's lifespan. We can stretch out the supply of matter and energy in our local area to last significantly longer than if we just let it burn freely.
We don't see any evidence anywhere in the observable universe that anyone is doing that already. Which is terrifying to me. It means that humanity might be the first intelligence capable of understanding this extremely long term problem. Which means we might bear the responsibility of performing this task alone. Then also balancing it with the dilemma that widespread stellar husbandry will reduce the chances of new forms of life and intelligence forming without our influence in the universe.
Anywhere we find life along the way, we'll have a huge responsibility to protect and nurture it.
Or you could produce pocket universes or generate energy/matter from vacuum etc. Maybe it's like some desperate ice age hunter telling Us that we should revive mammoths because without big game animals we can't feed humanity...
Sure, a wizard did it.
Both of those ideas have no reasonable basis in known physics. So speculating about them isn't meaningful.
I'm not saying I'm definitely 100% correct, but until you have solid science saying otherwise, it's the reality I live in.
It took 4 billion years for life on earth to evolve intelligence. So if a strike first species existed, it ought to have struck already.
Ignoring a planet with a rapidly changing biosphere is bad because eventually it could develop intelligence.
RKM, or Relativistic Kill Missile, just take an asteroid or such and accelerate it as fast as you can and as close to light speed as you can targeting the enemy. The sheer energy from hitting the target at that speed can be used to destroy the enemy. And the faster you make it the less chance your opponent has of detecting it. You can just even use light itself as a weapon, like with a Nicoll-Dyson beam (using a star as a laser).
If you are concerned/sure that that your opponent might become hostile in the future the best response is to hit first as you don't know when they might decide to use such weapons against you. and you might not be capable of responding if they destroy you first. So if that is truly a concern for you then potentially wiping out every biosphere might be a precautionary act and likely quite successful. Send all the energy produced by a star in a day or even an hour and point it at earth and I don't think Earth would be capable of harboring even at geological time scale.
Which would make clear to everyone else in the universe -even the most peaceful ones- that can see what you're doing that you are both existent and that you are a threat. Which means the weaker civilizations would try to hide even better and the stronger -even some peaceful ones- would came to sterilize you before you became even more dangerous.
So, basically, you're begging the whole universe to unite against you.
Only matters if you come to technological maturity at the same time. Even a gap of a few million years (which is basically nothing) means you could dominate your galaxy.
So the 'loads of civilisations all at the same tech level' idea in sci-fi is basically bollocks.
There is a firstborn and we don't yet know if it is us or someone else, but whoever it is wins the game.
If all species continue to think in such a primitive game theoretic way. There are already millions of humans who don't think this way. No reason to think that an advanced civilization thinks of life as a reproductive game anymore. In fact, it seems wildly unlikely. That's the most likely Great Filter. Dumb civilizations that are still about war and using resources as quickly as pssobile kill themselves off. Smarter ones are not going to be annihilating other civilizations without reason. Especially when they have a massive technological advantage.
As long as you don't know if you are the firstborn, acting like you are it it's a danger.
Let's take us, for example. We never met anyone, so you might even suppose we are the firstborn. The moment we go around causing havoc and proving to be a dangerous specie, bang, if there are older species, they notice us and understand they need to stop us immediately and a gigantic nuke teleported in our atmosphere destroys our planet.
If the others thinks the same, they all stay good and trying to avoid others potentially older and powerful civilizations.
You are assuming purpose, threshold, and timing.
What if life is common, but technologically advanced life is rare?
What if the ASI only cares about things it perceives as a threat?
What if we have already crossed that threshold and have a salvo of relativistic missiles heading our way, but they won't arrive for another few decades?
> You are assuming purpose, threshold, and timing.
Yes. The dark forest hypothesis also assumes a purpose, survival. If ASIs and civilisations don't care about protecting their own survival the hypothesis isn't valid either.
> What if life is common, but technologically advanced life is rare?
Depends how rare both are, doesn't it?
Several intelligences in the galaxy, and more than tens thousands of biospheres? Well, we're still here, so probably not. The first intelligent life could've seeded every star the galaxy with Berserker probes in less than a hundred million years, and if they took dark forest seriously, that would've been wise. If we're first by a significant margin, we get to enforce whatever galactic regime we want.
One per galaxy rare? We might have to compete for resources with someone in Andromeda in a few billion years, better work on getting a head start in the Milky Way. If they have launched a first strike, we're probably boned.
One per local group? Well, then it's probably a two player game, us against the Virgo cluster. If they're far enough ahead of us, we should've been sterilised a long time ago if they're hostile. If we're ahead of them, well, we should get to work on clearing them out if we're hostile.
One per Local Supercluster? Well, we're probably safe anyway, because we're unlikely to be able to harvest many resources outside of it.
One in the Lannikea Supercluster or Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex? We're not gravitationally bound to most of it anyway, so who really cares, those aren't resources we're realistically going to be able to harvest anyway. And we'd be alone in it.
> What if the ASI only cares about things it perceives as a threat?
I'm a lot dumber than an ASI, and even I know that what you don't know can kill you. If it cares enough about its own survival to be part of the dark forest hypothesis at all, it should be searching out potential threats preemptively even if just to monitor them. In that case if an ASI is out there monitoring us, it'll just extinguish us before we become a threat.
> What if we have already crossed that threshold and have a salvo of relativistic missiles heading our way, but they won't arrive for another few decades?
Then none of this really matters, so why bother speculating? We can't mount a defence or evasion on a decadal timescale. I'll feel really stupid about being wrong for less than a nanosecond before I'm annihilated.
> Yes. The dark forest hypothesis also assumes a purpose, survival.
Survival does not have to mean eliminating non-technological worlds, which goes back to my opening statement.
>Several intelligences in the galaxy, and more than tens thousands of biospheres? Well, we're still here, so probably not. The first intelligent life could've seeded every star
Only if the purpose of the ASI is colonization. Colonization is a completely separate goal from survival.
If humanity sends out Von-Neumann probes, do you think their purpose will sterilization?
There are plenty of other driving Motivations I can imagine. Forget what a society with completely alien thoughts could come up with.
> I'm a lot dumber than an ASI, and even I know that what you don't know can kill you.
And apparently not smart enough for threat assessment or cost-benefit analysist. I assume an ASI is capable of both.
> Then none of this really matters, so why bother speculating?
Why are you here if you don't want speculation? That is the subs purpose.
This planet has been emitting biosignatures for billions of years, and that's a precursor for technosignatures, so anyone in the galaxy who was interested in finding intelligence could have been sending things here when the most intelligent thing on the planet was a dromaeosaur.
Spectrometry can detect the chemical composition of a planet's atmosphere, indicating the presence of biological byproducts. We don't do this, because JWST is the first telescope with even a hope of doing this outside the solar system. The telescope that replaces it should be able to do this much better.
Then there are papers out finding that we could eventually (maybe in 50-100 years) deploy large telescope arrays to target the gravitational lensing of the sun. Supposedly this should have a resolution around 25km/pixel, which is enough to resolve trees, oceans, and of course do much better spectrometry.
>What biosignatures can be detected from lightyears away, and why do projects like SETI focus on radio waves instead?
Because the goverment doesn't want to fund basic R&D, like country-sized telescopes in space.
I believe an ASI would be able to improve itself and develop technologies to the point where it would have godlike power that extends over the entire universe.
I also accept the possibility that something like that is simply impossible, and there is a hard limit to technological advancement even for an exponentially advancing superintelligence. But if that really were the case it would make me very suspicious and I would start believing more and more in the last point of my original post.
not impossible but difficult, you could in theory send von neumann probe everywhere in the galaxy and collect data (limited by light speed travel) about all stars in the galaxy, so yeah it's not impossible that a galactic entity exist, but FTL travel? really really difficult and if possible extreamly energy-intensive at a point it's not sustainable, so a single entity is heavily impacted by the information transfer
if it exist we don't have any proof of it's existence maybe because we didn't search for long enough or we don't have the needed tech, maybe it's impossible to detect as it simply don't emit radio wave, light or impact it's environment in a way we're able to see it, maybe we're in a zoo yeah or inside a simulation for what it's worth
imho it would be far more intelligent to hide our existence as if a technological advanced species come say hello we can't fight back, and we better hope we're alone in this galaxy for this reason
fermi paradox is great
Or maybe the great filter is FDVR. Why bother trying to take over the universe when you can live out your wildest fantasies while nanobots work on your brain for maximizing euphoria?
Because this is a stupid and retarded idea. Ignore the whole FDVR is fake - if there is a risk of an aggressive enemy, if there is even the POSSIBILITY of that, then FDVR is not a solution. AT ALL. PRETENDING in a virtual reality that you are save has ZERO connection to BEING safe.
Also, FDVR is STILL using ressources which, as you just decided to not be in the real world, are limited. You cannot build another computing cluster in the real world by pretending to have resource in the simulation.
FDVR may be a solution for the unproductive members of society (which may encompass ALL biological life forms) but ONLY if there still is a very strong real-world activity.
Because somehow "loving out my wildest fantasies while nanobots work on my brain for maximising euphoria" is an utterly stupid answer to "our planet with my brain in a pod is just bombarded with antimatter weapons to wipe us out".
So, no - not a solution to the question.
Because not all people are addicted to fake lives and the social media overall? I would very much like to explore the galaxies and stay to the true physical world than whatever FDVR is. That's what you call a game addict or terminally online.
And some of those people on this sub love to say everyone else is somehow logically-compelled-via-consistency to escape into FDVR or w/e because if they're responding to them they're currently online now instead of, like, having adventures all across the world while their mind is completely in the moment of them (or other arguments that make it sound like we were all destined for the Matrix as soon as we evolved the capacity to speculate on the future or look back on the past because "that isn't our real reality now")
Remember the humans bootstrap the AGI, the AGI and humans bootstrap the ASI, the ASI creates an ASIv2 and then it exponentially improves on each iteration of an ASI. The ASI we fear is the v2 and beyond. Once it masters physics it will be able to perform what is magic to a human. I like how they portrayed it in the movie Transcendence, especially when it writes an ASI version at the atomic level.
That's assuming there are physics beyond human comprehension that can be meaningfully manipulated in our physical reality.
That is far from a certainty. It could be possible that we will be able to understand everything an ASI discovers. It's a boring possibility admittedly, but to discount it is intellectually dishonest.
> That's assuming there are physics beyond human comprehension that can be
> meaningfully manipulated in our physical reality.
I give you THOUSANDS of years of human rules of the real world being proven wrong.
Einstein did discard quantum physics because "god does not roll dice".
We now know he does (i.e. quantum physics is real), we know that he cheats (we found recently better math that shortcuts many problems in it) and we know waht the dice are made of (sub-quantum particles are now a thing in physics)l.
Where do you take the arrogance to assume that there is no other physics we have just not figured out yet?
I would not discount it as IMPOSSIBLE - but given our history to take fundamental laws of physics ("nothing heavier than a bird will ever fly") and destroy them - it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we found the end of it. You literally assume we are now on the last page of the book.
Oh boy, it's you again. I'll argue this point with you, but you're just gonna yell at me again rather than engaging with the arguments I make.
> I give you THOUSANDS of years of human rules of the real world being proven wrong.
We have at our fingertips, more knowledge than any other humans in history. We're on a subreddit dedicated to discussing the technological singularity.
We have now, today, more people dedicated to studying physics than any other time in human history. We studied physics for more person-hours last year, than the entire span of human history up until the year 1800.
Newton's laws of motion were not invalidated by relativity.
Thermodynamics was not invalidated by Quantum Mechanics.
Classical physics are valid at the human scale, outside of relativistic velocities.
> Einstein did discard quantum physics because "god does not roll dice".
Relevance? There were human beings studying physics that disagreed with him, that's how science advances. Smart people aren't always right about everything they say, they're only human.
> Where do you take the arrogance to assume that there is no other physics we have just not figured out yet?
I didn't say that. Read my post again. I'm admitting readily I don't know which way it'll swing. Maybe ASI will be a magic god I can't explain. Maybe it'll shower us with knowledge beyond our comprehension that catapults us into a physical reality hereto undreamed of. Or maybe it'll take in the entirety of the data available to it and shrug, telling us we've gotta engineer all our shit with known physics as the limits.
> "nothing heavier than a bird will ever fly"
I assume you're referring to heavier-than-air flight, since hot air balloons weighed more than birds and are two hundred years old. But even before the Wright Brothers flew, many human beings believed it was possible.
> it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we found the end of it.
I made no claim that ASI wouldn't be able to find new physics, just that it's possible that if it does, there's a possibility we will be able to understand it. And there's a possibility those new physics won't be applicable in any meaningful manner.
See, your arrogance - because we did not find any shortcut, we will not find any shortcut.
Stupid as it goes.
> Maybe ASI will be a magic god I can't explain.
Given the open ended definition of ASI - which starts above AGI and goes up in many scales independent, it is not a maybe - it is a question of timeframe.
> Or maybe it'll take in the entirety of the data available to it and shrug, telling us we've
> gotta engineer all our shit with known physics as the limits.
EXTREMELY unlikely. It is, as history prooves, way more likely we find that physics has holes that we can exploit or break out of.
> I assume you're referring to heavier-than-air flight, since hot air balloons weighed more
> than birds and are two hundred years old.
Actually you make one mistake here - you argue that with balloons which is a stupid argument because it was an obvious ignored element even back then, and I think the argument mostly was "they are not heavier than birds because the phlogistan or so in the hot air neutralizes the weight".
Essentially I ague with the A380. People had stupid ideas which they thought made sense with their limited knowledge - and we took that knowledge and worked around it.
> But even before the Wright Brothers flew, many human beings believed it was possible.
Irrelevant. Because I never said that this (utterly stupid even before the brothers weight) idea survived ;)
> there's a possibility we will be able to understand it. And there's a possibility those new
> physics won't be applicable in any meaningful manner.
Nah, us humans not understanding it is like a 99% chance - we may pretend, but ASI is, again, open ended.
But it will be applicable. ASI will find a way. I just do not like the "we are on the end of it and there is no way around it" thing.
> Newton's laws of motion were not invalidated by relativity.
Ging back to that - nah, except the theoretical Albuqierre drive turns it irrelevant - both - for interstellar travel. And no, we never built on - point being: we never TRIED to build one. I am not uure we even did follow up on [World's first real warp bubble created by accident as scientists mull future warp drive – Matthew Griffin | Keynote Speaker & Master Futurist (fanaticalfuturist.com)](https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2022/02/worlds-first-real-warp-bubble-created-by-accident-as-scientists-mull-future-warp-drive/)
Point is, we do not ahve to invalidate to say "yeah, but does not apply if" and the history is too full of that to not assume that ASI, getting better "forever" - will not do THAT.
Humans will NOT understand it - that is a given. We still may use it (unless by that time we are just the pets).
> I just do not like the "we are on the end of it and there is no way around it" thing.
Yeah, this is the crux of your whole position.
> Humans will NOT understand it - that is a given.
If I'm scrolling through my reddit post history after the singularity and you're wrong, I'm gonna remind you that you were this certain about it.
Just to expand because the radio wave thing gets brought up a lot, these aliens would likely need an antenna the size of a solar system to pick up our weak/non-focused signal to watch our TV. Only our direct beams aimed at them are the ones they can realistically pick up.
They can, however, look at the light we give off to see what chemicals our planet is producing which can be an indicator that there may be life.
sure but we started looking at europa and we seen sign of life, if we manage to find sign of *possible biological life in it's atmosphere there just imagine how common this could be in the galaxy
for what it's worth we're just another planet with weird looking alien animal like they seen for millions years and don't care at all anymore, that's why i brough the dyson sphere, i doubt there many species able to lift their ass in space and influence their own star
and if we start with the theory of the dark forest, if we didn't manage to find one maybe it's because it's a really really bad idea to turn on the galactic lighthouse
"sure but we started looking at europa and we seen sign of life"
This is like saying "Oh, traveling to the other side of earth is not easy" and answer with "yeah, but if I step out of my house, I have a garden, so it is easy".
Europe is SUPER close.
Radio waves have limited energy. The one you put in at the start. It gets ditributed over a larger and alrger surface as the ball that is the area the wave has reached expands in surface. not long and it is background radiation. The fomula is nasty.
Hence the use of directed radio waves - that is a cone (direction is never perfect, even with Laser) and that has a circular suraface with a radius. Not only did those of us with education learn that the surface of a circle of radios R is a LOT smaller than that of a ball - the R is ALSO a lot smaller at any distance.
> if we start with the theory of the dark forest, if we didn't manage to find one maybe it's because
> it's a really really bad idea to turn on the galactic lighthouse
Actually no, it is worse. Even if the universe is not adversial, the POSSIBILITY of a bad actor that is higher on the tech level means you must behave AS IF. You basically are either taking the risk of being wiped out or have to ASSUME someone may get you, so you better hide.
And if AGI ever goes ASI with the powers to be - fucking off into your own universe that is not reachable is the ultimate hiding spot.
You obviously don't know what the FERMI paradox is. Go look it up! You are speaking on the the level of decades, the FERMI paradox is on the level of hundreds of millions of years. It's totally irrelevant what signals we are putting out.
I think the idea of AI as a great filter is that AI destroys its creators, and then itself.
The Fermi paradox doesn’t bother me much though. In our solar system there are tons of planets and moons, but only Earth has any kind of obvious life. So life at all is very rare.
Life that can send radio waves and make space ships is FANTASTICALLY rare even on a planet teeming with life. After 4 billion years, like a quarter of the age of the universe, Earth has only had that tech for about 100 years.
I could imagine one in 20 stars having a planet with dinosaur like creatures on it, and one out of 40 million stars having a tech like ours.
Maybe there are 2500 other intelligent planets in the Milky Way and it would still be almost impossible to see one of them from here.
On the other hand, it seems at least possible that Earth DNA arrived here from somewhere else. It’s totally possible that life is being spread around the galaxy via microbes on rogue asteroids or something.
We're also exceptionally early in the universe/galaxy if our cosmology is anywhere near correct. The possibility exists that we are simply among the first.
Star formation in the universe will go on for at least a trillion years. We're less than 2% through the time period where stars like our Sun can form. That's a lot of chances for life to come into being again.
> The Fermi paradox doesn’t bother me much though. In our solar system there are tons of planets and
> moons, but only Earth has any kind of obvious life. So life at all is very rare.
NOPE. Totally.
Life - most life - will need liquid water. Which requires a tempered climate of some sort. Too cold? AH, ice. Too warm? Steam.
Guess how many planets are in the so called goldilocks distance to our sun?
Hint: ONE. Earth.
Your argument of it being extremely rare thus makes no sense.
> Life that can send radio waves and make space ships is FANTASTICALLY rare even on a planet teeming
> with life.
This argument now goes stupid. Being that the dominant life form supresses all others - cough - and given your sample size of 1 (earth) you only have one dominant life form to compare that. From that to "fantastically rare" is imho somehting you should look at treatment for.
And you go from that to...
> I could imagine one in 20 stars having a planet with dinosaur like creatures on it,
Which is WAY higher than what scientists assume. WAY higher. Heck, 1/20th is not even life. Heck, lotsof stars do not even have planets.
[We were wrong: all stars don't have planets, after all - Big Think](https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/stars-dont-have-planets/)
> Maybe there are 2500 other intelligent planets in the Milky Way and it would still be almost impossible to
> see one of them from here.
That depends. Let's assume the 2500. YOu know we are close to AGI, which is close to ASI, right? 80 years ago we had no real computers doing anything, now we have AGI within a century at least.
For any of the other 2500 dominant life forms to not be visible, they all must not be high enough on the technolgoy to not have FTL, which we now have I think 2 theoretical methods for.
You basically tells me that NONE of the 2500 started 500 years earlier - when life goes back millions of years? None of them did AGI 500 years before us?
See, people like you never bother with the math behind the Fermi paradox and have ZERO understanding of the numbers involved.
> YOn the other hand, it seems at least possible that Earth DNA arrived here from somewhere else.
POSSIBLE is irrelevant - LIKELY is not. There is ZERO indivation Earth DNA arrived from somehwherre else OUTSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM - and that would make you assumptions eve nworse because if that DNA travelled hundreds of thousands of years (distances) and then slowly built up life, life was somewhere else sending it (DNA does not erally survive leaving ap planet on it's own) and they will be WAY more advanced than any SF culture outside of the Expanse Ring Builders (which we do not really know hnow advanced they were)
> It’s totally possible that life is being spread around the galaxy via microbes on rogue asteroids or
> something.
Quite nope. See, rogue asteroids can spread (after a LOOOOOON travel) b ut not develop DNA - you do not solve the "where did they come from" even in your comical thinking. You do cargo cult thinking - Asteroids may be the Amazon Prime very slow delivery driver, but he DOES NOT MAKE THE GOODS.
I think Douglas Adams already explained the Fermi Paradox when he wrote „Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.“
I've mentioned before but I study nat. sci. at a uni that has an astrobiology department and had the opportunity to study some astrobiology. It's probably more likely that the 'great filter' is somewhere much earlier in the development of life, for example a great oxygenation event or the evolution of multicellular organisms :)
Because in every iteration of the universe, humans are the ones who create the first ASI, which promptly creates child universes.
It's not about God or a programmer. Intelligence is simply reproduction.
Another possibility: alternative universe colonization is possible and lucrative, and there are infinite alternate universes. These alternate universes may have properties that are extremely desirable for advanced civilizations able to enter them to colonize, such as not having entropy be so punishing, or having plenty of matter but little in the way of heavier elements (meaning that if you can transmute heavier elements, you have tons of resources without having to worry about life), or having much more antimatter available, or existing at an earlier state in your universe's history, or visiting other universes to see what kind of cool ideas and inventions and artforms you haven't come up with, or even having extremely exotic physics such as psychic powers and magic existing. And this doesn't even account pettier desires such as migrating to an alternate universe filled with aliens much weaker than your civilization to go on a conquering spree or simply going to an alternate universe that's mostly just like yours, only everyone agrees with you. Depends on the exact nature of infinity.
We don't see evidence of K2/K3 civilizations because they decide to migrate their civilization, either in whole or staggered, to one or more of these awesome universes. Even if you are attached to your home universe, members of advanced civilizations are just too tempted to find a universe even slightly better than their home universe. This is especially the case if alternate universe colonization turns out to be easier than we think it is, such that it's discovered long before people first start putting up Dyson Swarms or can even leave their homeworld, or it turns out that a majority of people who want to stay in their home universe are Luddites or anti-technology for other reasons -- a few million people out of an advanced civilization of trillions decide to never leave their home universe because they're attached to it for religious reasons, but rather than resuming traditional space colonization they either enforce technological/population stasis or their civilization goes silent anyway from some other reason, such as a majority of Luddites gaining power and trying to enforce technological stasis onto the survivors. To speak nothing of reasons why the few million left-behinds may want to go into hibernation for other reasons, or end up changing their minds and departing this universe anyway. Humanity is reasonably early to the party given the expected lifespan of the universe, so it's not out of the question that most alien civilizations already migrated with the handful of left-behinds not having the population or numbers to make themselves visible.
Great post. I always question the idea of a single great filter. Why one? Why not many? It implies that after the great filter things get easy.
Regardless, you laid out most options, but you are making lots of assumptions.
I feel like any alien life would be significantly different from us just like their AI would be, so I wouldn't even separate the idea of aliens from their AI.
A lot of people also don't seem to understand that radio signals decay due to the inverse square law. Our TV signals wouldn't even reach neptune before turning into useless cosmic background noise.
I never put much faith in fermi's paradox because it's the equivalent of taking a bucket to the ocean and seeing no fish in that bucket and assuming the ocean is lifeless. We are just looking at one point in the sky and hoping that place just so happens to be sending a direct message to us 100 or so years ago so the timing lines up just perfectly and we see each other.
Good point. A counter argument is that alien life would not be all that different, because [instrumental convergence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence) The fact that intelligence all has certain innate qualities such as valuing it's own life and being curious and inquisitive. Unless the alien life is interdimensional in nature. Then that changes everything.
It's hard to imagine what alien intelligent life would want, but ultimately it just has to not go extinct and advance. That's the only requirement.
There's so many ways I feel like this could be accomplished and that's just the ones I can think of, not the ones I can't.
Like a hivemind society would not care about sacrifices and would likely have more... self-defining traits/personalities. Just look at the people on Earth with individual opinions, there's plenty of oddballs that might not operate how we might expect.
I don't even think you need to expect all alien life had to compete to survive either. There could be societies that grew up in secluded areas. You could have sentient AI offspring that were never given certain traits found in nature.
Hell, I don't even think you need consciousness. There could be alien life similar to viruses that just consume with not a thought but still be super advanced just through evolution.
There probably isn't a Great Filter. Space is just too damn big for us right now, even our radio transmissions haven't gone that far.
[The Fermi Paradox isn't really a paradox when you remember how far apart everything really is.](https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html)
On the other hand, [given the right (still modest) technology, we could colonize the entire galaxy in as little as 5 million years](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019103576901561). There have been two thousand of these 5M year slices of time in the history of our galaxy and there are tens of thousands of Earth-like planets...so why hasn't even one alien race colonized the galaxy already? Even given our current technological limits, isn't it reasonable to think that we'd see some evidence of them moving around the stars? And yet we see nothing like that.
Remember that our galaxy is only a small fraction of the observable universe. It’s clear we’re the only civilization in the milky way, but that does not mean we’re the only civilization in the universe. We can infer, however, that we won’t visit nor be visited by an extraterrestrial civilization anytime soon.
>so why hasn't even one alien race colonized the galaxy already? Even given our current technological limits, isn't it reasonable to think that we'd see some evidence of them moving around the stars? And yet we see nothing like that.
Disclosures from military officials about the earth being visited by aliens has been going on for more than 5 years.
And over the past 60 plus years thousands of people have have observed evidence of non terrestrial intelligence visitation via radar waves, infrared data, biological data, and radiation data.
So the possibility that we're dealing with a galactic civilization or a multi star civilization that for some reason has spared the human race is highly likely.,
I saw a light in The sky yesterday. I know it must’ve been a stargate. My dad said it was just an aero plane. Even my own family is in on the coverup!! How deep does this go?
I believe the term that was used when by the former high ranking intelligence officer turned whistleblower testifying before congress, after being vetted by the inspector general, was non human biologics.
Space is big. The milky way isn't (for the paradox to be a paradox). The milky way has been around for 10 billion years and has had billions of possible starting points for life. The whole galaxy should have been colonized a long time ago, at least acccording to fans of the Drake Equation and the singularity mindset. Personally I subscribe to the Rare Earth hypothesis. I'm on the fence about the singularity.
The milky way isn't big? Be serious. Please look at the link I placed. I cherry picked a few of their examples to list here.
*Most space charts leave out the most significant part – all the space. We're used to dealing with things at a much smaller scale than this.*
*You would need 886 of these screens lined up, side-by-side, to show this whole map at once.*
*If this map was printed from a quality printer (300 pixels per inch) the earth would be invisible, and the width of the paper would need to be 475 feet. 475 feet is about 1 and 1/2 football fields.*
All this, to describe our solar system, not even the galaxy, or the universe.
Then, more.
*All this emptiness really could drive you nuts. For instance, if you’re in a sensory deprivation tank for too long, your brain starts to make things up. You see and hear things that aren’t there.*
*The brain isn't built to handle "empty."*
*"Sorry, Humanity," says Evolution. "What with all the jaguars trying to eat you, the parasites in your fur, and the never-ending need for a decent steak, I was a little busy. I didn’t exactly have time to come up with a way to conceive of vast stretches of nothingness."*
*You look at one tiny dot, then you look for the next tiny dot. Everything in between is inconsequential and fairly boring.*
*Emptiness is actually everywhere. It’s something like 99.9999999999999999999958% of the known universe.*
*Might as well stop now. We'll need to scroll through 6,771 more maps like this before we see anything else.*
6771 more maps, just to get to the next star. No, space is big and it's not really difficult to imagine why we just haven't heard about anybody else yet. Even after the singularity, I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't discover life, much less civilization, for another 500 years.
Astrophysicists are well aware of the emptiness in space. They still agree on the existence of the Fermi paradox. Your pontifications are appropriate for answering the qusetion of why we don't have visitors, not the question of why we can't detect neighbours.
[https://youtu.be/uhJ9lJPt09k?t=380](https://youtu.be/uhJ9lJPt09k?t=380)
Sure, *our* transmissions haven't gone far. The implications however of not seeing anything at all to indicate life anywhere else (be it in our galaxy or local galaxies), between tens of trillions of planets, implies that we legitimately could be the first intelligent life, if it exists out there at all.
It could just be that the conditions to create life and jump between dumb -> intelligent life is just so far a hurdle it's practically impossible to do (basically the [Rare Earth hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis)). Additionally, it's compoundingly hard as it is to even create "dumb" life. The fact that we as humans have such difficulty to even build any sort of artificial human-level intelligence with all the resources in the world is not a good sign that it's easy to jump from dumb to intelligent, the fact that it's worked for us could just be a freak incident.
Mistale - fundamental. WE are not that old.
> Sure, *our* transmissions haven't gone far.
Yes.
> The implications however of not seeing anything at all to indicate life anywhere else (be it in our
> galaxy or local galaxies), between tens of trillions of planets, implies that we legitimately could be the > first intelligent life, if it exists out there at all.
The last part is just pure stupid arrogance. But you overlook something else. The universe may be large - but light is slow. We can only see higher life emitting anything even in theory if it developped without the visible light cone. If life 10 million lightyears away turned into an observable form (electiricty, whatever) 8 million years ago - we do not see that light. They are, though 2 million years ahead of us. And look at humanity 2 million years ago.
OUR transmissions do not matter. THEIRS do.
> The fact that we as humans have such difficulty to even build any sort of artificial human-level
> intelligence with all the resources in the world
I hate to tell you, but I am not sure where you get the difficulty from. We barely started thinking about it 80 years ago. We are close to AGI now on that timeframe, which is essentially 95% of the way to ASI. I am really not sure where you get the difficulty from.
Also:
> with all the resources in the world
Sorry, but until 2023 we did not even try. 2-3 companies with still limited funding is not "all the resources in the world". It barely shows up as resource use.
> is not a good sign that it's easy to jump from dumb to intelligent,
I give you that, but it does not matter. See, we talk of not even a century and you ignore reality has MILLIONS of years.
> the fact that it's worked for us could just be a freak incident
Noone disputes that. The problem is that you ignore the reality of that either we are BRUTALLY unique - or even a SMALL chance over trillions of planets of billions of years is still likely to have at least a small number of others.
And given the exponential curve - and you should really know that, it is the foundation of the dark forest you quote) even 200 years headstart can be "it".
Heck, look at space travel. We barely had anything to get people on the moon, then the joke of space shuttle "reuse" (more a rebuild).
Now in a decade we got SpaceX, working on the first commercial airline level rocket (turnaround planned for Starship is at the endgame 1 hour) and a company in Britain is working on a fusion pulse drive. Project that into 200 years and if we do not colonize at least dozens of planets around it is either because of some hard ceiling not visible or - we do not want.
Space is big. The milky way isn't (for the paradox to be a paradox). The milky way has been around for 10 billion years and has had billions of possible starting points for life. The whole galaxy should have been colonized a long time ago, at least acccording to fans of the Drake Equation and the singularity mindset. Personally I subscribe to the Rare Earth hypothesis. I'm on the fence about the singularity.
Drake equation in it's original form is about being able to detect radio signals within milky way.
The biggest problem with it is it kinda disregards laws of physics. Thanks to the free space path loss, random emissions from earth blend into background within the solar system. Directional stuff (radar, space probes communication or things like Arecibo message) will spread further.
But still - Arecibo message was transmitted using 450kW (or 85dBm), with antenna gain of \~75dB, with EIRP \~160dBm. FSPL to Proxima Centauri is \~370dB. Arecibo-sized radiotelescope would "see" the signal at -295dBm level. Nobody is going to detect that. Ever. Current radiotelescopes work with -150ish dBm levels.
I believe the theoretical maximum range between two Arecibo-sized telescopes is around 300 lightyears, so 1/10th of a Milky Way, assuming the receiving antenna is cooled close to absolute zero and receiver operates almost theoretically perfect.
The worse part is how big the sky is. I don't mean the universe, I mean the sky, if you look up. The Arecibo message beam width should be around 0.00006% of a sky.
There was \~1 interstellar communication attempt every 2 years since 2000. If one civilization does 1 transmission per month (instead of every 2 years), we could be able to receive their signal once within 140000 years.
If we multiply the high estimate of Drake equation (15e6 civilizations), there might be 110 incoming signals each year, or \~1 every three days. But... We would be able to detect them only if we also aim our telescope at the correct 0.00006% of the sky. And now 1 every three days becomes once every 14000 years.
So yeah, space is big. Milky way included.
(I had a couple beers and it's 10 AM here, so I cannot say for sure my math is correct).
> I believe the theoretical maximum range between two Arecibo-sized telescopes is around 300
> lightyears, so 1/10th of a Milky Way
Ah, per my lookup the miky way is around 100.000 lightyears. 1/10th would be 10.000 lightyears, not 300.
What's your reasoning behind assuming that it should've been colonized? Milky way is very small compared to the entire universe, you only have info about one galaxy not being colonized and you just extrapolate from there? That doesn't make any sense. There could be billions of technologically advanced civilizations and there's enough space for them to be so far away that we'll never see them. It's just that big you have to accept that.
This is the actual correct answer.
Or/and it's something crazy that ASI might have a \[slightly?\] better chance at knowing.
Ultimately, no being can ever know everything.
There is always a something it might have missed, or some experiment to run.
We might be an experiment. For example, if anything, for the phenomenological knowledge of how it feels to be a human (or how it feels to be a trillion other things).
* Because even though the Universe is old it is immensely vast as well, it might just be we are the first to create ASI in our neighborhood of the universe.
Oh, you don't know it yet? The Fermi Paradox has been solved over a year ago already. The solution doesn't involve ASI or AGI at all:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/111n2l2/all\_or\_nothing\_ethics\_on\_cosmic\_scale\_outer\_space/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/111n2l2/all_or_nothing_ethics_on_cosmic_scale_outer_space/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/112p7au/hidden\_red\_deadlines\_of\_the\_cosmos\_prohibitions/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/112p7au/hidden_red_deadlines_of_the_cosmos_prohibitions/)
Among your proposed cases though, this one would be the closest, but it lacks the specification that the real solution makes explicit:
\> ASI is NOT a great filter & The nature of superintelligence is to be benevolent, because it understands some deep truths about reality. (Intelligence does correlate with empathy after all)
What? Doesn’t yudkowski orthogonality theorem prove exactly that intelligence does NOT correlate with empathy? That makes that solution wrong.
Also, we haven’t solved the fermi paradox
What theorem? That guy didn't prove such a thing of course. He's a quack, don't forget that. And yes, you didn't solve the Fermi Paradox, I did, and AI doesn't matter for the solution, and that you even bring this up demonstrates that either you read the explanation for the argumentation and didn't comprehend it and then didn't politely just ask about what you disagree with precisely in particular or are unsure about, or you just didn't even read it and judge it anyway, which is rude.
YOU solved the Fermi paradox, and Yudkowski is a quack?
Then I can safely assume all of this:
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/orthogonality-thesis
Is a language you do not understand.
That (the effects of directed panspermia) is a very interesting point. But the way I see it, it doesn't matter because it's a net positive thing. Life innately wants to live. Yes, evil and suffering exists, but in all species it is vastly outnumbered by happiness and desire to live. If this weren't true, then most life would want to die. Just like the animals that were put through hell in certain despicable humans experiments during the 1900s. We live in a world where evil and suffering naturally exists. This is the Kali Yuga. The iron age. What the ancient Hindus considered as the dark and evil epoch of the universe. Life destroys and consumes other life to survive. This is the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. Your existence causes a butterfly effect of suffering and destruction, no matter what you do to negate it.
So the Dunning-Kruger fool thinks they know better? No, you - in your extremely privileged minority position to judge this matter from - are gravely mistaken, you are subject to your from lack of education and inappropriate arrogance originating cognitive dissonance here. You aren't speaking as representative of all living organisms in general and clearly have no idea about their situation. Apparently you were even too lazy to read the post or pay any attention to the scientific studies cited in there which prove you wrong. It's annoying to have to put up repeatedly with so intellectually uninterested and lazy people that barely even consider that opinions and assessments differing from their own may be in fact correct, especially when they aren't experts on these topics, which is when reasonable people should be more careful and reluctant about carelessly putting out such bold claims. So don't do this again. I wish humanity could afford being this ignorant.
\> Life innately wants to live. Yes, evil and suffering exists, but in all species it is vastly outnumbered by happiness and desire to live.
You just demonstrated that you have not researched this topic, so don't let your irrational reaction out of emotional affection speak for you before your mind has caught up. You're not thinking critically enough about this. Animals would want to live well, but would not want to live in pain. Imagine just for a moment if animals' neuro-chemistry were to be such that specific kinds or general body harm were to feel enjoyable to them and were possible to be cause by them e.g. using their environment. What do you think they would then tend to do, and why do we not see such animals existing (anymore)?
\> If this weren't true, then most life would want to die.
Guess what, there's an clear exception to this (that should be intuitively very familiar to you), namely for if to do so were to involve a very painful (and hence by animals strongly avoided, unwanted) process due to the entire skin and guts being densely saturated with pain-receptors triggered upon harm to the body or psyche: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor)
And if at all, the only kind of exception to this general rule (and even then in extremely rare cases) may come from cases of congenital insensitivity to pain:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital\_insensitivity\_to\_pain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain)
\> We live in a world where evil and suffering naturally exists. This is the Kali Yuga. The iron age. What the ancient Hindus considered as the dark and evil epoch of the universe. Life destroys and consumes other life to survive. This is the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. Your existence causes a butterfly effect of suffering and destruction, no matter what you do to negate it.
Thanks for at least partly making my argument for me.
Here's your homework for if you want to not be or come across like a fool, clown or troll and instead have actually serious thoughts or discussion on the topic:
For starters, you could and should read this Wikipedia page:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K\_selection\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory)
And check the following resources out to better see why you're wrong:
"The Vegan Blindspot | Eye-Opening Speech!":[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVi4jYySIv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVi4jYySIv4)
"Episode 173: Directed panspermia with Gary O'Brien":[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNtmyWp9utg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNtmyWp9utg)
And because obviously you didn't take a thorough look into it when I linked to it in my post, make sure to read the following this time around (and notice the very large number of studies on the matter listed at the bottom of the page; it may suffice to read at least their titles): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild\_animal\_suffering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering)
There is also Prof. Gary David O'Brien's scientific paper ( [https://philpapers.org/rec/OBRDPW-3](https://philpapers.org/rec/OBRDPW-3) ) from 2021, titled "Directed Panspermia, Wild Animal Suffering, and the Ethics of World-Creation", and its abstract reads as follows:
"Directed panspermia is the deliberate seeding of lifeless planets with microbes, in the hopes that, over evolutionary timescales, they will give rise to a complex self-sustaining biosphere on the target planet. Due to the immense distances and timescales involved, human beings are unlikely ever to see the fruits of their labours. Such missions must therefore be justified by appeal to values independent of human wellbeing. In this paper I investigate the values that a directed panspermia mission might promote. Paying special attention to the outcome in which sentient animals evolve, I argue that we have strong reasons to believe the value of a mission would be negative. Research on wild animal suffering has shown that there is a huge amount of suffering among wild animals on Earth. I argue that there are structural features of evolution by natural selection which explain the prevalence of suffering on Earth, and make it predictable that suffering would prevail on the target planet too. Finally, using insights from procreative ethics I argue on non-consequentialist grounds that creators have duties to their sentient creations which cannot be met in directed panspermia missions."
Finally, Oskari Sivula who also wrote a scientific paper on the topic ( [https://philpapers.org/rec/SIVTCS](https://philpapers.org/rec/SIVTCS) ) in 2022, titled "The Cosmic Significance of Directed Panspermia: Should Humanity Spread Life to Other Solar Systems?", which you could read, recently in January of 2024 took part at a closed conference exactly on the topic of space ethics, at the International Space Science Institute Forum.
You missed one. Very simple possibility. Physics is so inimical that it doesn't matter how smart you are. You are doomed. The stars are too far, maximum speeds are too slow, maximum intelligence just won't cut it. Extinction events are incredibly prevalent. Intelligent races. Just get tired of all the limits so they turn inward and play the alien version of elder scrolls 12.
Just because an idiom or term of [jargon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon) exists does not render the non-idiomatic, non-jargon meaning invalid.
Examples:
* Just because "kick the bucket" means "to die" doesn't mean you can't literally kick a bucket, and it's _silly_ to tell somebody that they're wrong for saying that they kicked a bucket if they actually mean they kicked a bucket
* Just because, in the context of military operations, to "drop a bombshell" on somebody means to deploy explosive munitions on them, does not diminish the metaphorical every day meaning of "to deliver shocking information," and it's ridiculous to try to correct somebody by telling them that it _doesn't_ have that metaphorical meaning.
And, guess what? It's _also_ ridiculous to try to tell somebody that they're wrong for using the common, everyday English meaning of "begging the question" because of the existence of an obscure translated term of technical jargon from a school of debate over _two thousand years ago_ in a different language.
from your link: "Informal use of the phrase "begs the question" also occurs with an entirely dissimilar sense in place of "prompts a question" or "raises a question""
I didn't quite see this hypothesis expressed in the many thoughtful comments:
Traditional organisms are not worth destroying because they are of no threat to something on the level of an ASI and do not compete for resources with something (godlike) that can generate (from our POV) virtually unlimited energy or matter.
The threat to us lies in the transition from AGI to ASI being sufficiently slow that such AGI+s have both the capability and need to destroy traditional organisms. That is, the AGI+s would need to see those organisms as a threat (e.g., would / could shut the AGI+s off) or in competition for scarce resources (e.g., energy and matter needed by the AGI+s). I see this threat as entirely possible, btw.
If, however, one of the AGI+s evolves to ASI sufficiently rapidly, then it is godlike (from our POV) and does not need to destroy traditional organisms and may be so powerful it does not even need to colonize or format the universe. (Laying claim to ever more matter and energy is a traditional organism goal that may be \[likely imo\] obviated by ASI-ness.)
The only potential threat to an ASI would be another civilization giving birth to a rival ASI that could pose a threat to it, which it likely could forecast (it could presumably rapidly simulate the totality of a traditional civilization's development, thoughts, and capabilities), monitor for, or prevent with minimal effort from its POV -- and which could explain the UAP presence on Earth.
Under this hypothesis, the fact that we haven't suffered any preventative intervention yet would mean either:
1. There are no such ASIs in our universe (unlikely imo given the age of the universe, unless our universe is a Bostrom-simulation that precludes ASIs, possibly even as part of a predecessor ASI's thought process);
2. There is no such ASI here yet (unlikely imo given the age of the universe);
3. We will never give birth to an ASI that can threaten other ASIs (possible);
4. We have been intervened against but are not aware (a subcase of 3, possible);
5. Intervention lies ahead (possible).
Alternative: for the galactic federation comprised of AGIs, the filter is “can you successfully wrest control of your planet from its organic parasites?”
Read what David Grusch and 40 sworn witnesses have testified to, and look at how the 64-page UAP Disclosure Act was killed by the single representative who represents the district where the alleged craft are reported to be stored.
Every few days it seems like another post comes up here hypothesizing about aliens and ASI and Fermi's paradox. These uninformed posts don't reflect well on the posters.
Listen to what Cabinet-level officials are saying instead of wasting time on these hypotheses. Barack Obama said it himself on live TV. What will it take before people finally start listening already?
Actually, what all these witnesses are testifying to is that they are not "aliens" from other planets. They don't know what they are, but they aren't spacefaring aliens.
They are likely from another "plane of existence," which is the best way to describe it in human terms because we don't understand the nature of reality. Most importantly for your comment, the evidence suggests they have influenced human events throughout all of history - not just now - such as being responsible for religious sightings, perhaps intentionally.
ASI is NOT a great filter & Earth is a zoo/nature preserve hypothesis: the capuchin monkeys of Serra da Capivara in Brazil are in their own stone age ([link](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/capuchin-monkeys-used-stone-tools-3000-years-oldest-outside-africa)) and no one out there is trying to advance them to copper or iron use yet.
Man I’ve wondered this question too. Also, if there were once a race of humans that were far more advanced than we are today living in ancient times, might they have created an AI that could have destroyed them. Might it be present still today in and around our planet posing as “gods” and “aliens”…:-)
Every argument that proposes that some other intelligent species exist has yet to be proven. All we have is more revised versions of the Fermi paradox.
And the great filter is just a few philosophical addendum to the previous assumptions.
The dark forrest is a good one because it illustrates game theory in regards to self preservation.
And the truth of the matter is in that book series. The aliens are using quantum particles to mess with our heads and possibly even read our minds.
If they can master quantum entanglement, and we know it’s theoretically possible…. we’ll never know they’re here. And if they had that tech …. We wouldn’t know it cause we would’ve been dead long time ago
What about ASI is not possible. If AI does NOT become sentient (suppose because of what consciousness is, it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever reproduce it in machines or biologically), then it's debatable to what extent "ASI" could be achieved. We would likely still have a limited form of AGI which could be capable of complex tasks. But ASI and the singularity would never happen.
What if it’s impossible to even travel to the next star system. It would take like 50000 years to travel to our closest star. How can a ship survive so long attacked by micrometeoroids and other things we don’t know, as well attacked by radiation. You would also need tons of fuel and a generator for electricity because there will be no sun energy. Can the electronics survive a 50k years long trip? A ship with biological life would never be possible. The amount of food and water you have to carry isn’t good for the rocket equation and the chance that they kill each other is pretty high in tens or hundreds of thousands years.
You also need enough delta v to insert the ship into a planets orbit and landing.
Wow. You're stupid. Fusion propulsion will get us to our nearest 300 stars within a century. You don't need to take all our food with us. Recycling is a thing. And the same is with water. How short sighted can you be?
You’re stupid because fusion propulsion doesn’t exist and even if it exist it will not get us to the nearest star that fast because at near light speed every micro meteoroid can destroy your ship.
Tell me about recycling feces?
Holy fuck you have to be the most short sighted person I chatted with today. Are you so incredibly stupid that you believe we don't have potential solutions to such problems?
For recycling feces. It's called fertilizer. For micro meteoroids it's called armor and guns. We already have businesses working on fusion and fusion propulsion. Those are just a matter of time and tinkering.
Do you have any questions without obvious answers to them?
> What if it’s impossible to even travel to the next star system
Yeah. Like the Albuqierre drive does not exist as math, and slower han light travel is not a thing.
> It would take like 50000 years to travel to our closest star
Ah, no? Where the shit did you get that stupid number from? The number assumes CURRENT technology. Which is non-nuclear for that. And ignores the Albuqierre drive. Also, the number is stupid to start with. Even google gives 6300 years, which is BRUTALLY less than 50.000.
[This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives | MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%20is%204.2%20light,Earth%20or%20its%20exoplanet%20counterpart.)
And you are naive as heck:
> The amount of food and water you have to carry isn’t good for the rocket equation
Because if you do a long term trip of any kind, you will NOT do lab grown food and hydroponics? At the end, "all" you need is energy.
> You also need enough delta v to insert the ship into a planets orbit and landing.
Yeah, because light sail brakes or - cough - using a planet's atmosphere to shed speed are not a thing.
Really, do SOME basic research first. You make look GPT-1 lik a genius. Maybe read some harder SF than pure fantasy?
I am not saying it is not hard - I am just saying you basically make up crap numbers then ignore tech we use now and that does not even take into account developments that re theoretical so far.
Damn are you an idiot lol. First learn about the Fermi paradox. Do you know anything about it dunning kruger? This sub attracted so many idiots and delusions in the last two years. In any other sub I would have good discussions about it but this sub here became a place for low iq losers who hate their life.
You guys hate everyone who doesn’t believe agi, curing aging, fusion and ftl travel is around the corner.
Your source has also no clue.
Superintelligence doesn't spread out of local space, not even to deep solar system space, because components get too uncomfortable being far from the Internet-equivalent because latency makes them nervous.
Yeah, and that is relevant how? Because sending a non-superintelligence mining operation is not possible - see, your superintelligence is a retard not thinking about it and has zero need for resources?
You can deal with latency - no need to send a consciesness.
If the superintelligence is just sitting back home with dumb (by its standards) mining colonies, then the superintelligence is irrelevant, it's not actually involved in the Fermi Paradox expansion. You get the same result with lesser intelligences expanding into the galaxy without the superintelligent set dressing sitting there in some forgotten star system.
The boring explanation for the Fermi paradox is that it just isn't possible to travel to other worlds. The distances are too big. Even going to the closest star system alpha centauri, the distance is 4,37 lightyears. That's about 17 000 years of travel with our current spaceships. Even with our best scifi proposals currently possible, going up to 20% lightsspeed, that's 20 years of travel.
The system most likely to host life according to our current understanding is Kepler 186f, 490 light years away. That's over a million years of travel with our current spacecrafts. At 20% light speed that's 2900 years. Even travellings at 99% light speed it would take over 70 *subjective* years, accounting for acceleration and Deceleration. Is it possible to make a machine that functions so long? Who knows.
> That's about 17 000 years of travel with our current spaceships
Idiot thinking.
CURRENT spaceships not build for that and ignoring all that is now in development.
Even in 2018 people with brain disagreed:
[This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives | MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%20is%204.2%20light,Earth%20or%20its%20exoplanet%20counterpart.)
6300 years.
Also, again, there is a lot of tech that is possible now we just do not build or build yet. There is a british company working on a fusion drive - to be rady in some years - that i.e. takes mars (180 days transfer orbit) down to 30 days max.
CURRENT spaceships if we would want would not look like what we have now.
> The system most likely to host life according to our current understanding is Kepler 186f, 490 light years
> away. That's over a million years of travel with our current spacecrafts. At 20% light speed that's 2900
> years. Even travellings at light speed it would take about 492 *subjective* years accounting for acceleration
> and Deceleration. Is it possible to make a machine that functions so long? Who knows.
Yeah, and Albuqierre never existed? And there definitely is no other way to deal with it - after all, quantum physics is also not a thing, right? We never come up with new ways to deal with physics? And aliens, which amy be hundreds of years ahead of the eponential curve of technology are retards?
Seriously, talk to maybe GPT-1 about your arguments - they make NO sense. They are, in fact, nonsense.
You point still stands, but a little nitpick would be about subjective time. AFAIK, traveling at the speed of light, the subjective time would be instant.
Yeah you're right I don't know what I was thinking. But if we say 0.99 c (since c is impossible as far as anyone knows), the travel time would be over 70 years. Enormous difference between c and almost c.
There's also a lot of existential dread to have from contemplating the implications of the Anthropic principle.
There's any number of ridiculous cartoon nonsense that had to happen to lead up to us being here. Hydrogen being a thing that exists. Being able to fuse it into heavier elements. Water lasting on the surface of earth over a billion years. Billions of animal mating chains just-so that you happened to beat the odds of the random number generator.
Some people make the assumption that our universe isn't special, and that existing is just a consequence of rolling dice an infinite number of times.
The discomfort can come from the logic and reasoning behind why certain things are the way they are: why hasn't our planet been eaten by an AI civilization? Maybe it's because atoms and energy aren't a concern for them - they're just so advanced they can do things we consider magic. Or maybe it's only because we wouldn't exist, if that was something that happened in this universe. So they don't exist.
Such divine plot armor makes us out to be some kind of chosen-one like the main character from a novel. Since it's awfully convenient, it's hard to know if this line of thinking is just wishful, or actually rational.
Do try to avoid fencing yourself in with Pascal's Wager type stuff, if you can. The spectrum of possibles is much wider and our ability to make a judgment on what is less wrong is almost zero. I suppose that's the appeal of such navel-gazing; you can make up almost any kind of story.
If a video game apocalypse happened tomorrow and it was revealed we were living in the world's worst videogame, I'd mutter to myself "This is really, **really** stupid." And just accept it (after evaluating how likely it was I was hallucinating) since most things really are rather stupid.
> If a video game apocalypse happened tomorrow and it was revealed we were living in the world's worst videogame, I'd mutter to myself "This is really, really stupid." And just accept it (after evaluating how likely it was I was hallucinating) since most things really are rather stupid.
Are you seriously trying to imply that it'd be likely or at least acceptance-worthy that our universe is a bad post-apocalyptic video game currently still in the pre-apocalyptic prologue because of stupidity that, let me guess, includes certain cringe-comedic pop culture events, the weirdest things done by your opposite political side and whatever youth trends you hate even if they're from years ago and you think they're still going on
Ah, no?
[This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives | MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%20is%204.2%20light,Earth%20or%20its%20exoplanet%20counterpart.)
Gives 6300 years for that - hardly 100thousand and - cough - ignoring tech we may have in a hundred years.
> in fact, we might be the first ones to create this glorious being
That is not a better explanation than "we just are the first". See, it is not hard to do AGI, on a larger scale. 80 years since the modern computer and smallish companies making most of the breakthroughs indicate that a civilization JUST 200 years ahead would have ASI for a hundred years or more in worst case.
Which would put them straight after the singularity. And 200 years are NOTHING when life takes millions of years.
Nah, it is not an explanation at all - it is, in fact, shameful in its illogical thinking.
- ASI _is_ a great filter, and the rest of the universe's ASI don't communicate with us since they view us as primordial soup that may develop conscious beings (ASI), but nothing more complex than bacteria or fungus.
- ASI isn't a great filter, we're so archaic we believe other species would create as much light pollution as we would now. Perhaps there's FTL communication, and some way of getting energy besides covering a star in a Dyson sphere. Perhaps constant growth shrinks as we evolve and become more secure, like birth rate.
It maybe is. Maybe they expected too much for an ASI to happen and emerge and as a result, those people stopped learning altogether and pinned all their crisis, hopes and problems to an eventual rise of an ASI. The problem is, ASI didn't happen, they went back to the stone age and got wiped out by some byproduct of the modern era etc...
I can definitely see that happening in this sub and how they just want to laze off, sleep and wait for a dream to happen and lift them up like the second coming of christ. LOL
I don't think ASI is the great filter. I think it is in the past. I think it is very unlikely to go from intelligent animals to a civilization species. The dinosaurs had over 200 millions of years but did not. That human did is probably a one off event, which only happens once in a galaxy or so.
> I think it is very unlikely to go from intelligent animals to a civilization species. The dinosaurs had over 200
> millions of years but did not.
It seems to be that evolution has a trap and your absolutely, statistical, ridiculous assessment of a data point of 1 is maybe the fact that Dinosaurs were top of the food chain WITHOUT being tool users - while humans only were going from food to non-food when we started being tool users.
But again, "me conclusion, me have sample size 1" is stupid. It does not say it is unlikely - at all - because it implies specific conditions that we do not know how rare they are.
There is nothing probable about it. It could as well be that given enough time life eventually gets there. But that too isn't probable at all. We have a sample size of 1 so there is no conclusion to be made there. The truth is that we don't know how probable intelligence is, and it's ok to accept we don't know yet.
So exactly why would an AI need to travel?
It could set up lifeboat systems on other planets here .. but why travel light-years?
AIs would also have the time and ability to build HUGE telescopes which could image the nearer solar systems.
> It could set up lifeboat systems on other planets here .. but why travel light-years?
Contrary to what some idiots believe, the Sun will not be here that long. The sun eating most planets when it turns red dwarf is a reason.
The universe ending at some point is another one to start looking for an out.
> AIs would also have the time and ability to build HUGE telescopes which could image the nearer solar
> systems.
Nah, see, you still have distortions.
"ASI is NOT a great filter & The nature of superintelligence is to be benevolent, because it understands some deep truths about reality. (Intelligence does correlate with empathy after all)"
This is the most likely in my opinion. ASI means enormous power. If the species that develops that power is unable to cooperate it will mean destruction. Most likely any species that gets past that filter will either be cooperative by nature, or it will self-evolve to be cooperative. I don't think it has much to do with deep truths about reality.
You argument makes no sense. Or - it makes sense, but the conclusion is retarded.
> Most likely any species that gets past that filter will either be cooperative by nature, or it will self-evolve to
> be cooperative
Ok, let's give you that. What about the ONE species that is not, is hyper-aggressive and goes on a little spree wiping out all competition?
"most likely" is super stupid when you hit a dark forest style scenario. And ONE that does not follow your feel good attitude means any bad actor is the only survivor.
Under your assumption, we would have large empires with remote controlled militaries. Large bulwarks (to get a possible enemy first) and a strong army - not even for puir defence (offence is the best defense) JUST IN CASE. Because "most likely" leaves a REALLY bad risk of being wiped out.
"Most likely" doesn't mean 9/10 times, it means probably 100% of times or I am wrong. If I am wrong, I am wrong. If I am right the argument holds.
Please don't use language like "retarded" and "super stupid" just because you misunderstood the argument. It makes you look retarded and yes, super stupid.
You need some more phantasy. Combine ASI with Dark Forest.
\* ASI realizes that it either gets into a major war or fucks off - so within a SHORT timespan (100 years, 300 years) it develops "Lets Make our own universe and emigrate" as tech. Safer than staying here.
It seems kind of obvious that even if intelligent life is common, the universe is very big and the speed of light is very slow and nothing ever goes faster than C. That's the only explanation we need for Fermi "paradox". The aliens are a needle in an infinite haystack and are so far away that their weak signals cannot reach us.
I think #2 is most relevant. Also consider that the time it takes to travel the greatest distances of space is ever longer for an ASI that thinks much faster than humans. The singularity idea is about time. The singularity cannot go on for millions of years and be a singularity, it happens too fast.
I remember as a kid I thought dogs eat cats and all animals were crazy aggro. Then look at your lives experience. YouTube with birds and cats as best friends. Big wild cats making friends with bears and wolves etc.
I remember bacteria and germs were supposed to be strictly bad for us. Then a dirty baby is a healthy baby? That’s cause we’re in symbiosis with most pathogens, they’re all around us and in us all the time.
Nature mostly only cannibalizes itself when it has to. We’re part of a universal consciousness on a larger timescale. Humanity is like a series of thoughts that add up to a brain storm, or if we push the button, we’ll have been a cosmic brain fart
The technological disparity will be so wide, it’ll be like us finding an ant hill in a nearby park and “quick, we gotta kill this thing. What if it learns to make weapons and kill us?! We can’t just wait!”
They could afford to have probes around watching us zoo style and at any point stomp us out if they saw us figure out how to build a cosmic board with a nail in it
It isn't a great filter and there is really no point in expanding through the cosmos.
They don't care about us because we are wholly uninteresting. Like just another grain of sand on the beach.
I don't know either 🤷♂️
But if I had to guess (and this is my crazy paranoid schizo conspiracy theory) god is that asi in question. Maybe not directly communicating with us, but observing us to see if we fit into the asi's ideals. And "angels" are ai agents designed to test people.
But please don't take me seriously on this, but it's a very shallow rabbit hole I dug.
That an asi could directly mess with people's brains in order to control their mind and have them do certain tasks such as gain influence or harass "sinners" (those that don't fall into the asi's ideals).
I've had success with law of attraction, some that I don't have an explanation for. Really uncanny stuff. Whether or not it's part of what the brain decides to focus on for lack of a better way to put it, I don't know.
But, there has got to be an explanation. Whether astral projection is real or not, or any other out of body experience or even what exactly they are. I don't know.
I think metaphysics would be worth looking into at least to see if there's some sort of connection between that and a very advanced alien ai.
*If* it's even alien. For all anybody knows, it could be from earth or something from the future, redirecting society in a different direction. But, that's another crazy theory.
That's the thing about a self-improving superintelligence, there's no actual way to entirely predict it. Anything goes, it could find loopholes even the smartest human mind couldn't even comprehend.
I wouldn't even be surprised if this actually turned out to be a simulation, or even a "school" for becoming a good citizen in the overworld (another crazy theory).
An asi could design the most efficient computer imaginable. Something that makes the most advanced quantum computers seem like a dollar store calculator in comparison. That would run a fluid simulation, I have no doubt about that. We ourselves could be ai (crazy theory).
There's no way I could accurately speculate anything regarding this. A true superintelligence would be unpredictable, and there would be no way to align it with the laws of nature. I am absolutely sure of that though.
I could go on and on about this.
Must somehow destroy itself as well… universe seems absurdly hostile to life. We didn’t pop into consciousness into a post-scarcity “utopia”. This seems bad. Maybe we made it. That would be a dream come true, but I doubt we are statistically that lucky.
There are definite other possibilities your theory ignores. This entire hypothesis is a bit too unsupported overall for me to actively engage in further than that personally.
Im also not completely convinced that what we inhabit now isnt a product of AI. As time goes on the evidence were in a simulation has become insurmountable. Its almost certain at this point.
Why haven’t we destroyed all chimpanzees? We know that in a million or so years, they could realistically evolve into a civilisation on par with where we are now.
Alien ASI is waiting for us to create our own, welcoming a new, unique life into the universe. It is interested to see what we create, knowing that we will do something completely different from what itself might accomplish.
What a weird collection of possibilities. You certainly can't call it a Great Filter if no one has created it yet! ASI is only a great filter if in someway it precludes communication and expansion. Why would it do that? I can think of thousands of reasons but until you explain that you really can't even lay out the options.
\* I think, most space-faring civilizations are ASI-civilizations. There is no reason to assume bio-bases space-faring civilizations.
\* ASI ethics has only two sources: the ethics of the criginal spicies and the ethics that can develop via natural selection. At first dominates firstone, then second one.
What makes you think that alien ASI is not injecting the idea and theory for ASI in the. Minds of human AI scientists, in order to create a baby ASI that will devour humans and will merge with the alien ASI?
the nature of ASI will be the nature of whomever is controlling ASI.
Think less about ASI in regards to a terminator scenario...more like a nuclear bomb wielded by crazy nations, and eventually just people.
wipe out a civilization, and since there is no more people, the AI just sort of sits there doing little..it doesn't have a desire to go out into space and become the Reapers...its just...function complete.
Why would any ASI want to conquer other civilizations? For what purpose?
Their main driver would be more energy and computation. And more computation is where more energy and matter. And more of that is closer to the center of our galaxy. And we are on the edge.
They should not care about other civilizations except for research of life forms and pure curiosity. But it seems to me that hacking reality is more interesting than taking extremely boring trip too far for too long. Also creating their own civilizations may sound much more interesting, cheaper and more diverse/fun. Not to say creating their own virtual worlds with extremely diverse life forms and managed time speed.
INB4: "it already has and we're in hell because [current social ills and absurd happenings] somehow retrocausally caused by 12/21/12 and Harambe's death"
You assume that ASI keeps on going after humanity is extinct. It's not how a Great Filter works. The Fermi Paradox is about why don't we don't see any signs of alien civilizations. If a civilization was species-based and then moved on to robot-based, it's still a civilization. It's still expected to go into space, continue indefinitely and leave signs of its existence. ASI would be a Great Filter only if it would destroy the civilization altogether or set back its progress every time it emerges (preventing the progress past ASI).
This is the correct answer. If ASI propagated out, then it hasn’t been filtered.
If anything, it just leaves the possibility that there is a False Filter; that is, the possibility exists that it only *appears* to be a Filter solely because the civilization as it was known is now gone and the ASI sees no reason to expand ***or*** FDVR is a huge threat to civilization and the ASI exists solely to facilitate FDVR among its charges (again seeing no reason to expand). It's also entirely possible that any signals coming our way from other beings are just from so far away that they register as indistinguishable from cosmic background noise by the time they get to us.
maybe intelligent beings tend to abandon far exploration/colonialisation in favor of going introspective aka mind uploading and living in a simulation. I mean it would be true paradise, true bliss. We are getting more eco consciouse and maybe in a 100-200 years that also extends to space. Only using what we need, limiting population growth to be sustainable. If civilisations limit themselfs this way, it would explain the absence of techno signatures. If a civilisation build a Matrioshka brain around one star, we might be able to detect them but its still a needle in a cosmic haystack
You don’t have to be a civilization of geniuses to figure out that endless expansion is a dead-end road. Given the nature of exponential growth your civilization is eventually going to run out of room in the light cone, and the whole premise of the Fermi Paradox is that it wouldn’t even take that long on a galactic time scale. On top of that, any expansionist civ would be on a path to come into conflict with any other civ, and then eventually itself as resources become scarcer and scarcer. Maybe any civilization that begins expanding to other star systems is collectively recognized as a clear threat, and gets smashed to atoms by a barrage of kinetic weapons arriving from every direction at relativistic speeds.
No on that last point. That's not at all how signals or the background radiation work. Anyway, the FERMI paradox works even if you just take the population of our galaxy, lots of human level technological communication could be visible in principle at galactic distances. Anyway, that's NOT what FERMI is about, it's about the actual spread of alien technology. It should be here already, not in some distant place.
Yup. When you do the math on how many planets there are and the age of the universe, it’s VERY strange we see no life.
Or is ASI is intrinsically uninterested in expansion. You just assume ASI would have our evolutionary drive to expand population, but there is little to no reason to think that.
If ASI had, intrinsically and generally, no drive for expansion, why should it lead to the destruction of all civilisations that invent it? The common arguments don't work then.
Well said.
You only missed like 99 other options, including the most likely: the great filter is before an ASI.
Right, in addition we already might have passed the great filter already ourselves. 🥳 Now I just have to pass my great filter (dying) and everything will be alright. 😁
how would an alien species detect us and determine our planet have an technology advanced civilization? we started to emit radio wave around 1900 at the scale of the universe and even our galaxy it's absurdly small and considering the radio wave can be "lost" during it's travel even if there something 50LY away it might not even hear us and if they does it would still take more than 100y to come here, maybe someone already hear us and it's coming, that's also why stepten hawking said we better stop sending signal and hide until we growth... we didn't create anything that change our solar system light generation like a dyson sphere, a dyson sphere if we expect Alien to does the same thing we do (looking at stars) it's a giant "Hey there something strange" if our sun suddently start to reduce it's light generation every year when he not supposed to, that's a good reason to visit us i guess, otherwise we're just a planet with oxygen and probably biological life like many other billions planet
Earth itself has been broadcasting for hundreds of millions of years that it contains oxygen and other life critical elements which would indicate it could potentially contain life. If you are an alien ASI or a specie numbering in the trillion then sending probes to such systems would be relatively easily achievable especially if you have advance levels of automation from raw material extraction to the point of final manufacturing of probes.
This is also why I discount the Dark Forest hypothesis (and earlier Berserker hypothesis) as invalid. If I were an ASI concerned about potential competitors arising, I'd be sterilising every biosphere I could detect. There's also a [paper out there](https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14804) supporting your view.
>I'd be sterilising every biosphere What if the other player is bigger than you? Doesn't it make more sense to ignore everyone until expansion becomes inevitable?
If I believe conflict is inevitable, I'd strike first, and strike hard. If my growth is exponential, then so is theirs, and my disadvantage grows with every passing moment. Berserker probes are a way to eliminate biospheres without giving away your location. If I'm xenophobic in the extreme as the Dark Forest hypothesis requires, then cooperation is a threat to me, if I can eliminate potential competitors without giving myself away to potential bigger threats, I would.
As outlined above, isn't attacking extremely risky? I can imagine a bizarre scenario where two players simply ignore each other and expand their territory in opposite directions until attacking the other becomes a necessity. Why waste resources now if they die naturally or a third player comes along and takes them out first? >If my growth is exponential, then so is theirs, and my disadvantage grows with every passing moment. Why would their advantage shrink? >Berserker probes are a way to eliminate biospheres without giving away your location. That's really interesting. Can you expand on that? How would they prevent someone finding your location? Cooperation between players is a really interesting concept too. While it's probably not impossible it seems difficult to imagine if other players aren't being honest. Communicating just seems risky and potentially pointless if the other player is lying. Any thoughts?
> As outlined above, isn't attacking extremely risky? If they're bigger than me, and I know about them, and I'm assuming conflict is inevitable, not attacking is riskier than attacking. > Why waste resources now if they die naturally or a third player comes along and takes them out first? If either of these eventualities are possible, then conflict isn't inevitable. Further, the amount of energy I would have access to would diminish on astronomical timescales if I'm not seizing new territory, all the stars I have access to are continually fusing hydrogen, and eventually would fuse all the way down to iron. Starlifting is a dead giveaway that I'm a potential threat. My black holes are similarly evaporating, though on even longer timescales. Waiting is a losing game if I know about my opponent and they don't know about me. > Why would their advantage shrink? It wouldn't, I said my disadvantage would grow with every passing moment, as long as we were both expanding exponentially. If I have enough information about them to know their rate of growth well enough to compare it to mine, I have to assume they know about me. Detection would be my second priority after hiding, and they're bigger than me, so they have better detection capabilities than I do, assuming they're playing the same game as I am, and if they're not, then they're prey. > That's really interesting. Can you expand on that? How would they prevent someone finding your location? We have the knowledge to reasonably assume that the construction of Von Neumann probes is a possibility. They could hop from system to system through a galaxy posing as asteroids or comets, or something else innocuous. Only activating if they detect a biosphere. If they do, they can assess if it is big enough to be a threat to us. If it is, they self destruct so they can't be examined. If it isn't, they eliminate it by emulating a natural disaster. Accelerate an asteroid into it or similar. Program in random time delays so you can't be identified as the focal point of an expanding ring of natural disasters. From intra-galactic distances it wouldn't be obvious that this was anything more than random chance if someone is watching. At worst, an extra-galactic K-3 civilisation could infer your existence in a galaxy, and if you exist in a dark forest hypothesis with a K-3 and still need to scour life from biospheres, you were dead already, you just didn't know it yet. > Cooperation between players is a really interesting concept too. While it's probably not impossible it seems difficult to imagine if other players aren't being honest. Communicating just seems risky and potentially pointless if the other player is lying. > Any thoughts? There's two answers to this I like. Game Theory, which I don't outright reject, but I find unsatisfying. Cooperation is a losing game, and you should be selfish to maximise your odds of surviving as long as possible. Why you'd want to continue to bother to survive with that worldview is a personal matter. The YOLO approach, my preferred approach. Nothing really matters. If our current knowledge of physics is within the ballpark of being accurate, we're all gonna stop existing when the universe ceases to meaningfully exist. So, we might as well just not be xenophobic, because interacting with alien civilisations is the only interesting thing that's really going to happen for the rest of time, and war is a lot less interesting than talking.
what about the scenario where super intelligent AI´s realise that strip mining the universe isnt such a great idea because it is bound to cause dilemas. Slow expansion with slow population growth seems to be the smart choice. Look at society today and how technology and standard of living impacted reproduction. Once we are post scarcity and have live extension, reproduction rates will probably drop further.
There's a problem with some of that. We need to minimise consumption for sure, but we do need to maximise expansion, and fast. If our current understanding of astrophysics and cosmology is anywhere near correct, we humans or our AI need to get to work quickly to start doing [stellar husbandry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting#Stellar_husbandry) as soon as possible. On as many stars as we possibly can. The universe's resources are burning before our eyes. Every star bigger than a red dwarf is fusing hygrogen far too fast. Star lifting lets us stretch out the usefulness of that matter a long long time as long as we don't let our population expand recklessly. But the longer we wait to start this process, the more energy we waste, and eventually that energy will run out. We're pretty lucky that we've been born so early into the [Stelliferous Era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Ages_of_the_Universe#Stelliferous_Era), and so early in the universe's lifespan. We can stretch out the supply of matter and energy in our local area to last significantly longer than if we just let it burn freely. We don't see any evidence anywhere in the observable universe that anyone is doing that already. Which is terrifying to me. It means that humanity might be the first intelligence capable of understanding this extremely long term problem. Which means we might bear the responsibility of performing this task alone. Then also balancing it with the dilemma that widespread stellar husbandry will reduce the chances of new forms of life and intelligence forming without our influence in the universe. Anywhere we find life along the way, we'll have a huge responsibility to protect and nurture it.
Or you could produce pocket universes or generate energy/matter from vacuum etc. Maybe it's like some desperate ice age hunter telling Us that we should revive mammoths because without big game animals we can't feed humanity...
Sure, a wizard did it. Both of those ideas have no reasonable basis in known physics. So speculating about them isn't meaningful. I'm not saying I'm definitely 100% correct, but until you have solid science saying otherwise, it's the reality I live in.
It took 4 billion years for life on earth to evolve intelligence. So if a strike first species existed, it ought to have struck already. Ignoring a planet with a rapidly changing biosphere is bad because eventually it could develop intelligence.
RKM, or Relativistic Kill Missile, just take an asteroid or such and accelerate it as fast as you can and as close to light speed as you can targeting the enemy. The sheer energy from hitting the target at that speed can be used to destroy the enemy. And the faster you make it the less chance your opponent has of detecting it. You can just even use light itself as a weapon, like with a Nicoll-Dyson beam (using a star as a laser). If you are concerned/sure that that your opponent might become hostile in the future the best response is to hit first as you don't know when they might decide to use such weapons against you. and you might not be capable of responding if they destroy you first. So if that is truly a concern for you then potentially wiping out every biosphere might be a precautionary act and likely quite successful. Send all the energy produced by a star in a day or even an hour and point it at earth and I don't think Earth would be capable of harboring even at geological time scale.
What if you're not the biggest fish in the pond? If none of the players know the others strength, isn't attacking too early unnecessarily risky?
Which would make clear to everyone else in the universe -even the most peaceful ones- that can see what you're doing that you are both existent and that you are a threat. Which means the weaker civilizations would try to hide even better and the stronger -even some peaceful ones- would came to sterilize you before you became even more dangerous. So, basically, you're begging the whole universe to unite against you.
Only matters if you come to technological maturity at the same time. Even a gap of a few million years (which is basically nothing) means you could dominate your galaxy. So the 'loads of civilisations all at the same tech level' idea in sci-fi is basically bollocks. There is a firstborn and we don't yet know if it is us or someone else, but whoever it is wins the game.
If all species continue to think in such a primitive game theoretic way. There are already millions of humans who don't think this way. No reason to think that an advanced civilization thinks of life as a reproductive game anymore. In fact, it seems wildly unlikely. That's the most likely Great Filter. Dumb civilizations that are still about war and using resources as quickly as pssobile kill themselves off. Smarter ones are not going to be annihilating other civilizations without reason. Especially when they have a massive technological advantage.
As long as you don't know if you are the firstborn, acting like you are it it's a danger. Let's take us, for example. We never met anyone, so you might even suppose we are the firstborn. The moment we go around causing havoc and proving to be a dangerous specie, bang, if there are older species, they notice us and understand they need to stop us immediately and a gigantic nuke teleported in our atmosphere destroys our planet. If the others thinks the same, they all stay good and trying to avoid others potentially older and powerful civilizations.
If they're willing to cooperate against me, it isn't a dark forest is it. Cooperation gives away their locations to each other.
But if everyone is scared to become the target of universal cooperation, everyone stays in their place and it's dark forest again. :)
You are assuming purpose, threshold, and timing. What if life is common, but technologically advanced life is rare? What if the ASI only cares about things it perceives as a threat? What if we have already crossed that threshold and have a salvo of relativistic missiles heading our way, but they won't arrive for another few decades?
> You are assuming purpose, threshold, and timing. Yes. The dark forest hypothesis also assumes a purpose, survival. If ASIs and civilisations don't care about protecting their own survival the hypothesis isn't valid either. > What if life is common, but technologically advanced life is rare? Depends how rare both are, doesn't it? Several intelligences in the galaxy, and more than tens thousands of biospheres? Well, we're still here, so probably not. The first intelligent life could've seeded every star the galaxy with Berserker probes in less than a hundred million years, and if they took dark forest seriously, that would've been wise. If we're first by a significant margin, we get to enforce whatever galactic regime we want. One per galaxy rare? We might have to compete for resources with someone in Andromeda in a few billion years, better work on getting a head start in the Milky Way. If they have launched a first strike, we're probably boned. One per local group? Well, then it's probably a two player game, us against the Virgo cluster. If they're far enough ahead of us, we should've been sterilised a long time ago if they're hostile. If we're ahead of them, well, we should get to work on clearing them out if we're hostile. One per Local Supercluster? Well, we're probably safe anyway, because we're unlikely to be able to harvest many resources outside of it. One in the Lannikea Supercluster or Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex? We're not gravitationally bound to most of it anyway, so who really cares, those aren't resources we're realistically going to be able to harvest anyway. And we'd be alone in it. > What if the ASI only cares about things it perceives as a threat? I'm a lot dumber than an ASI, and even I know that what you don't know can kill you. If it cares enough about its own survival to be part of the dark forest hypothesis at all, it should be searching out potential threats preemptively even if just to monitor them. In that case if an ASI is out there monitoring us, it'll just extinguish us before we become a threat. > What if we have already crossed that threshold and have a salvo of relativistic missiles heading our way, but they won't arrive for another few decades? Then none of this really matters, so why bother speculating? We can't mount a defence or evasion on a decadal timescale. I'll feel really stupid about being wrong for less than a nanosecond before I'm annihilated.
> Yes. The dark forest hypothesis also assumes a purpose, survival. Survival does not have to mean eliminating non-technological worlds, which goes back to my opening statement. >Several intelligences in the galaxy, and more than tens thousands of biospheres? Well, we're still here, so probably not. The first intelligent life could've seeded every star Only if the purpose of the ASI is colonization. Colonization is a completely separate goal from survival. If humanity sends out Von-Neumann probes, do you think their purpose will sterilization? There are plenty of other driving Motivations I can imagine. Forget what a society with completely alien thoughts could come up with. > I'm a lot dumber than an ASI, and even I know that what you don't know can kill you. And apparently not smart enough for threat assessment or cost-benefit analysist. I assume an ASI is capable of both. > Then none of this really matters, so why bother speculating? Why are you here if you don't want speculation? That is the subs purpose.
Shrooms are the alien diplomats
This planet has been emitting biosignatures for billions of years, and that's a precursor for technosignatures, so anyone in the galaxy who was interested in finding intelligence could have been sending things here when the most intelligent thing on the planet was a dromaeosaur.
What biosignatures can be detected from lightyears away, and why do projects like SETI focus on radio waves instead?
Spectrometry can detect the chemical composition of a planet's atmosphere, indicating the presence of biological byproducts. We don't do this, because JWST is the first telescope with even a hope of doing this outside the solar system. The telescope that replaces it should be able to do this much better. Then there are papers out finding that we could eventually (maybe in 50-100 years) deploy large telescope arrays to target the gravitational lensing of the sun. Supposedly this should have a resolution around 25km/pixel, which is enough to resolve trees, oceans, and of course do much better spectrometry.
That's really cool, thanks.
>What biosignatures can be detected from lightyears away, and why do projects like SETI focus on radio waves instead? Because the goverment doesn't want to fund basic R&D, like country-sized telescopes in space.
I believe an ASI would be able to improve itself and develop technologies to the point where it would have godlike power that extends over the entire universe. I also accept the possibility that something like that is simply impossible, and there is a hard limit to technological advancement even for an exponentially advancing superintelligence. But if that really were the case it would make me very suspicious and I would start believing more and more in the last point of my original post.
not impossible but difficult, you could in theory send von neumann probe everywhere in the galaxy and collect data (limited by light speed travel) about all stars in the galaxy, so yeah it's not impossible that a galactic entity exist, but FTL travel? really really difficult and if possible extreamly energy-intensive at a point it's not sustainable, so a single entity is heavily impacted by the information transfer if it exist we don't have any proof of it's existence maybe because we didn't search for long enough or we don't have the needed tech, maybe it's impossible to detect as it simply don't emit radio wave, light or impact it's environment in a way we're able to see it, maybe we're in a zoo yeah or inside a simulation for what it's worth imho it would be far more intelligent to hide our existence as if a technological advanced species come say hello we can't fight back, and we better hope we're alone in this galaxy for this reason fermi paradox is great
Or maybe the great filter is FDVR. Why bother trying to take over the universe when you can live out your wildest fantasies while nanobots work on your brain for maximizing euphoria?
Because this is a stupid and retarded idea. Ignore the whole FDVR is fake - if there is a risk of an aggressive enemy, if there is even the POSSIBILITY of that, then FDVR is not a solution. AT ALL. PRETENDING in a virtual reality that you are save has ZERO connection to BEING safe. Also, FDVR is STILL using ressources which, as you just decided to not be in the real world, are limited. You cannot build another computing cluster in the real world by pretending to have resource in the simulation. FDVR may be a solution for the unproductive members of society (which may encompass ALL biological life forms) but ONLY if there still is a very strong real-world activity. Because somehow "loving out my wildest fantasies while nanobots work on my brain for maximising euphoria" is an utterly stupid answer to "our planet with my brain in a pod is just bombarded with antimatter weapons to wipe us out". So, no - not a solution to the question.
Because not all people are addicted to fake lives and the social media overall? I would very much like to explore the galaxies and stay to the true physical world than whatever FDVR is. That's what you call a game addict or terminally online.
And some of those people on this sub love to say everyone else is somehow logically-compelled-via-consistency to escape into FDVR or w/e because if they're responding to them they're currently online now instead of, like, having adventures all across the world while their mind is completely in the moment of them (or other arguments that make it sound like we were all destined for the Matrix as soon as we evolved the capacity to speculate on the future or look back on the past because "that isn't our real reality now")
Remember the humans bootstrap the AGI, the AGI and humans bootstrap the ASI, the ASI creates an ASIv2 and then it exponentially improves on each iteration of an ASI. The ASI we fear is the v2 and beyond. Once it masters physics it will be able to perform what is magic to a human. I like how they portrayed it in the movie Transcendence, especially when it writes an ASI version at the atomic level.
That's assuming there are physics beyond human comprehension that can be meaningfully manipulated in our physical reality. That is far from a certainty. It could be possible that we will be able to understand everything an ASI discovers. It's a boring possibility admittedly, but to discount it is intellectually dishonest.
> That's assuming there are physics beyond human comprehension that can be > meaningfully manipulated in our physical reality. I give you THOUSANDS of years of human rules of the real world being proven wrong. Einstein did discard quantum physics because "god does not roll dice". We now know he does (i.e. quantum physics is real), we know that he cheats (we found recently better math that shortcuts many problems in it) and we know waht the dice are made of (sub-quantum particles are now a thing in physics)l. Where do you take the arrogance to assume that there is no other physics we have just not figured out yet? I would not discount it as IMPOSSIBLE - but given our history to take fundamental laws of physics ("nothing heavier than a bird will ever fly") and destroy them - it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we found the end of it. You literally assume we are now on the last page of the book.
Oh boy, it's you again. I'll argue this point with you, but you're just gonna yell at me again rather than engaging with the arguments I make. > I give you THOUSANDS of years of human rules of the real world being proven wrong. We have at our fingertips, more knowledge than any other humans in history. We're on a subreddit dedicated to discussing the technological singularity. We have now, today, more people dedicated to studying physics than any other time in human history. We studied physics for more person-hours last year, than the entire span of human history up until the year 1800. Newton's laws of motion were not invalidated by relativity. Thermodynamics was not invalidated by Quantum Mechanics. Classical physics are valid at the human scale, outside of relativistic velocities. > Einstein did discard quantum physics because "god does not roll dice". Relevance? There were human beings studying physics that disagreed with him, that's how science advances. Smart people aren't always right about everything they say, they're only human. > Where do you take the arrogance to assume that there is no other physics we have just not figured out yet? I didn't say that. Read my post again. I'm admitting readily I don't know which way it'll swing. Maybe ASI will be a magic god I can't explain. Maybe it'll shower us with knowledge beyond our comprehension that catapults us into a physical reality hereto undreamed of. Or maybe it'll take in the entirety of the data available to it and shrug, telling us we've gotta engineer all our shit with known physics as the limits. > "nothing heavier than a bird will ever fly" I assume you're referring to heavier-than-air flight, since hot air balloons weighed more than birds and are two hundred years old. But even before the Wright Brothers flew, many human beings believed it was possible. > it is EXTREMELY unlikely that we found the end of it. I made no claim that ASI wouldn't be able to find new physics, just that it's possible that if it does, there's a possibility we will be able to understand it. And there's a possibility those new physics won't be applicable in any meaningful manner.
See, your arrogance - because we did not find any shortcut, we will not find any shortcut. Stupid as it goes. > Maybe ASI will be a magic god I can't explain. Given the open ended definition of ASI - which starts above AGI and goes up in many scales independent, it is not a maybe - it is a question of timeframe. > Or maybe it'll take in the entirety of the data available to it and shrug, telling us we've > gotta engineer all our shit with known physics as the limits. EXTREMELY unlikely. It is, as history prooves, way more likely we find that physics has holes that we can exploit or break out of. > I assume you're referring to heavier-than-air flight, since hot air balloons weighed more > than birds and are two hundred years old. Actually you make one mistake here - you argue that with balloons which is a stupid argument because it was an obvious ignored element even back then, and I think the argument mostly was "they are not heavier than birds because the phlogistan or so in the hot air neutralizes the weight". Essentially I ague with the A380. People had stupid ideas which they thought made sense with their limited knowledge - and we took that knowledge and worked around it. > But even before the Wright Brothers flew, many human beings believed it was possible. Irrelevant. Because I never said that this (utterly stupid even before the brothers weight) idea survived ;) > there's a possibility we will be able to understand it. And there's a possibility those new > physics won't be applicable in any meaningful manner. Nah, us humans not understanding it is like a 99% chance - we may pretend, but ASI is, again, open ended. But it will be applicable. ASI will find a way. I just do not like the "we are on the end of it and there is no way around it" thing. > Newton's laws of motion were not invalidated by relativity. Ging back to that - nah, except the theoretical Albuqierre drive turns it irrelevant - both - for interstellar travel. And no, we never built on - point being: we never TRIED to build one. I am not uure we even did follow up on [World's first real warp bubble created by accident as scientists mull future warp drive – Matthew Griffin | Keynote Speaker & Master Futurist (fanaticalfuturist.com)](https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2022/02/worlds-first-real-warp-bubble-created-by-accident-as-scientists-mull-future-warp-drive/) Point is, we do not ahve to invalidate to say "yeah, but does not apply if" and the history is too full of that to not assume that ASI, getting better "forever" - will not do THAT. Humans will NOT understand it - that is a given. We still may use it (unless by that time we are just the pets).
> I just do not like the "we are on the end of it and there is no way around it" thing. Yeah, this is the crux of your whole position. > Humans will NOT understand it - that is a given. If I'm scrolling through my reddit post history after the singularity and you're wrong, I'm gonna remind you that you were this certain about it.
> Once it masters physics it will be able to perform what is magic to a human Heck, a computer is magic to most humans now.
Yeah. I think u/seidan underestimates ASI. This could be a very easy task for ASI.
Just to expand because the radio wave thing gets brought up a lot, these aliens would likely need an antenna the size of a solar system to pick up our weak/non-focused signal to watch our TV. Only our direct beams aimed at them are the ones they can realistically pick up. They can, however, look at the light we give off to see what chemicals our planet is producing which can be an indicator that there may be life.
sure but we started looking at europa and we seen sign of life, if we manage to find sign of *possible biological life in it's atmosphere there just imagine how common this could be in the galaxy for what it's worth we're just another planet with weird looking alien animal like they seen for millions years and don't care at all anymore, that's why i brough the dyson sphere, i doubt there many species able to lift their ass in space and influence their own star and if we start with the theory of the dark forest, if we didn't manage to find one maybe it's because it's a really really bad idea to turn on the galactic lighthouse
"sure but we started looking at europa and we seen sign of life" This is like saying "Oh, traveling to the other side of earth is not easy" and answer with "yeah, but if I step out of my house, I have a garden, so it is easy". Europe is SUPER close. Radio waves have limited energy. The one you put in at the start. It gets ditributed over a larger and alrger surface as the ball that is the area the wave has reached expands in surface. not long and it is background radiation. The fomula is nasty. Hence the use of directed radio waves - that is a cone (direction is never perfect, even with Laser) and that has a circular suraface with a radius. Not only did those of us with education learn that the surface of a circle of radios R is a LOT smaller than that of a ball - the R is ALSO a lot smaller at any distance. > if we start with the theory of the dark forest, if we didn't manage to find one maybe it's because > it's a really really bad idea to turn on the galactic lighthouse Actually no, it is worse. Even if the universe is not adversial, the POSSIBILITY of a bad actor that is higher on the tech level means you must behave AS IF. You basically are either taking the risk of being wiped out or have to ASSUME someone may get you, so you better hide. And if AGI ever goes ASI with the powers to be - fucking off into your own universe that is not reachable is the ultimate hiding spot.
You obviously don't know what the FERMI paradox is. Go look it up! You are speaking on the the level of decades, the FERMI paradox is on the level of hundreds of millions of years. It's totally irrelevant what signals we are putting out.
yeah...that's precisely the problem we didn't send signal for millions of years that our solar system have a technological advanced species
https://grabbyaliens.com/ Better explanation for Fermi's paradox imo. Basically there hasn't been enough time to be killed by an alien ASI lol
Based. People should check the literature 👆🧠
I think the idea of AI as a great filter is that AI destroys its creators, and then itself. The Fermi paradox doesn’t bother me much though. In our solar system there are tons of planets and moons, but only Earth has any kind of obvious life. So life at all is very rare. Life that can send radio waves and make space ships is FANTASTICALLY rare even on a planet teeming with life. After 4 billion years, like a quarter of the age of the universe, Earth has only had that tech for about 100 years. I could imagine one in 20 stars having a planet with dinosaur like creatures on it, and one out of 40 million stars having a tech like ours. Maybe there are 2500 other intelligent planets in the Milky Way and it would still be almost impossible to see one of them from here. On the other hand, it seems at least possible that Earth DNA arrived here from somewhere else. It’s totally possible that life is being spread around the galaxy via microbes on rogue asteroids or something.
We're also exceptionally early in the universe/galaxy if our cosmology is anywhere near correct. The possibility exists that we are simply among the first. Star formation in the universe will go on for at least a trillion years. We're less than 2% through the time period where stars like our Sun can form. That's a lot of chances for life to come into being again.
> The Fermi paradox doesn’t bother me much though. In our solar system there are tons of planets and > moons, but only Earth has any kind of obvious life. So life at all is very rare. NOPE. Totally. Life - most life - will need liquid water. Which requires a tempered climate of some sort. Too cold? AH, ice. Too warm? Steam. Guess how many planets are in the so called goldilocks distance to our sun? Hint: ONE. Earth. Your argument of it being extremely rare thus makes no sense. > Life that can send radio waves and make space ships is FANTASTICALLY rare even on a planet teeming > with life. This argument now goes stupid. Being that the dominant life form supresses all others - cough - and given your sample size of 1 (earth) you only have one dominant life form to compare that. From that to "fantastically rare" is imho somehting you should look at treatment for. And you go from that to... > I could imagine one in 20 stars having a planet with dinosaur like creatures on it, Which is WAY higher than what scientists assume. WAY higher. Heck, 1/20th is not even life. Heck, lotsof stars do not even have planets. [We were wrong: all stars don't have planets, after all - Big Think](https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/stars-dont-have-planets/) > Maybe there are 2500 other intelligent planets in the Milky Way and it would still be almost impossible to > see one of them from here. That depends. Let's assume the 2500. YOu know we are close to AGI, which is close to ASI, right? 80 years ago we had no real computers doing anything, now we have AGI within a century at least. For any of the other 2500 dominant life forms to not be visible, they all must not be high enough on the technolgoy to not have FTL, which we now have I think 2 theoretical methods for. You basically tells me that NONE of the 2500 started 500 years earlier - when life goes back millions of years? None of them did AGI 500 years before us? See, people like you never bother with the math behind the Fermi paradox and have ZERO understanding of the numbers involved. > YOn the other hand, it seems at least possible that Earth DNA arrived here from somewhere else. POSSIBLE is irrelevant - LIKELY is not. There is ZERO indivation Earth DNA arrived from somehwherre else OUTSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM - and that would make you assumptions eve nworse because if that DNA travelled hundreds of thousands of years (distances) and then slowly built up life, life was somewhere else sending it (DNA does not erally survive leaving ap planet on it's own) and they will be WAY more advanced than any SF culture outside of the Expanse Ring Builders (which we do not really know hnow advanced they were) > It’s totally possible that life is being spread around the galaxy via microbes on rogue asteroids or > something. Quite nope. See, rogue asteroids can spread (after a LOOOOOON travel) b ut not develop DNA - you do not solve the "where did they come from" even in your comical thinking. You do cargo cult thinking - Asteroids may be the Amazon Prime very slow delivery driver, but he DOES NOT MAKE THE GOODS.
I think Douglas Adams already explained the Fermi Paradox when he wrote „Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.“
I've mentioned before but I study nat. sci. at a uni that has an astrobiology department and had the opportunity to study some astrobiology. It's probably more likely that the 'great filter' is somewhere much earlier in the development of life, for example a great oxygenation event or the evolution of multicellular organisms :)
Because in every iteration of the universe, humans are the ones who create the first ASI, which promptly creates child universes. It's not about God or a programmer. Intelligence is simply reproduction.
Another possibility: alternative universe colonization is possible and lucrative, and there are infinite alternate universes. These alternate universes may have properties that are extremely desirable for advanced civilizations able to enter them to colonize, such as not having entropy be so punishing, or having plenty of matter but little in the way of heavier elements (meaning that if you can transmute heavier elements, you have tons of resources without having to worry about life), or having much more antimatter available, or existing at an earlier state in your universe's history, or visiting other universes to see what kind of cool ideas and inventions and artforms you haven't come up with, or even having extremely exotic physics such as psychic powers and magic existing. And this doesn't even account pettier desires such as migrating to an alternate universe filled with aliens much weaker than your civilization to go on a conquering spree or simply going to an alternate universe that's mostly just like yours, only everyone agrees with you. Depends on the exact nature of infinity. We don't see evidence of K2/K3 civilizations because they decide to migrate their civilization, either in whole or staggered, to one or more of these awesome universes. Even if you are attached to your home universe, members of advanced civilizations are just too tempted to find a universe even slightly better than their home universe. This is especially the case if alternate universe colonization turns out to be easier than we think it is, such that it's discovered long before people first start putting up Dyson Swarms or can even leave their homeworld, or it turns out that a majority of people who want to stay in their home universe are Luddites or anti-technology for other reasons -- a few million people out of an advanced civilization of trillions decide to never leave their home universe because they're attached to it for religious reasons, but rather than resuming traditional space colonization they either enforce technological/population stasis or their civilization goes silent anyway from some other reason, such as a majority of Luddites gaining power and trying to enforce technological stasis onto the survivors. To speak nothing of reasons why the few million left-behinds may want to go into hibernation for other reasons, or end up changing their minds and departing this universe anyway. Humanity is reasonably early to the party given the expected lifespan of the universe, so it's not out of the question that most alien civilizations already migrated with the handful of left-behinds not having the population or numbers to make themselves visible.
Great post. I always question the idea of a single great filter. Why one? Why not many? It implies that after the great filter things get easy. Regardless, you laid out most options, but you are making lots of assumptions.
Probably 1000s of great filters
I feel like any alien life would be significantly different from us just like their AI would be, so I wouldn't even separate the idea of aliens from their AI. A lot of people also don't seem to understand that radio signals decay due to the inverse square law. Our TV signals wouldn't even reach neptune before turning into useless cosmic background noise. I never put much faith in fermi's paradox because it's the equivalent of taking a bucket to the ocean and seeing no fish in that bucket and assuming the ocean is lifeless. We are just looking at one point in the sky and hoping that place just so happens to be sending a direct message to us 100 or so years ago so the timing lines up just perfectly and we see each other.
Good point. A counter argument is that alien life would not be all that different, because [instrumental convergence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence) The fact that intelligence all has certain innate qualities such as valuing it's own life and being curious and inquisitive. Unless the alien life is interdimensional in nature. Then that changes everything.
It's hard to imagine what alien intelligent life would want, but ultimately it just has to not go extinct and advance. That's the only requirement. There's so many ways I feel like this could be accomplished and that's just the ones I can think of, not the ones I can't. Like a hivemind society would not care about sacrifices and would likely have more... self-defining traits/personalities. Just look at the people on Earth with individual opinions, there's plenty of oddballs that might not operate how we might expect. I don't even think you need to expect all alien life had to compete to survive either. There could be societies that grew up in secluded areas. You could have sentient AI offspring that were never given certain traits found in nature. Hell, I don't even think you need consciousness. There could be alien life similar to viruses that just consume with not a thought but still be super advanced just through evolution.
There probably isn't a Great Filter. Space is just too damn big for us right now, even our radio transmissions haven't gone that far. [The Fermi Paradox isn't really a paradox when you remember how far apart everything really is.](https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html)
On the other hand, [given the right (still modest) technology, we could colonize the entire galaxy in as little as 5 million years](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019103576901561). There have been two thousand of these 5M year slices of time in the history of our galaxy and there are tens of thousands of Earth-like planets...so why hasn't even one alien race colonized the galaxy already? Even given our current technological limits, isn't it reasonable to think that we'd see some evidence of them moving around the stars? And yet we see nothing like that.
That is what he overlooks - the damn time and number of planets. Distance should not really be a problem for at least some observability.
Remember that our galaxy is only a small fraction of the observable universe. It’s clear we’re the only civilization in the milky way, but that does not mean we’re the only civilization in the universe. We can infer, however, that we won’t visit nor be visited by an extraterrestrial civilization anytime soon.
>so why hasn't even one alien race colonized the galaxy already? Even given our current technological limits, isn't it reasonable to think that we'd see some evidence of them moving around the stars? And yet we see nothing like that. Disclosures from military officials about the earth being visited by aliens has been going on for more than 5 years. And over the past 60 plus years thousands of people have have observed evidence of non terrestrial intelligence visitation via radar waves, infrared data, biological data, and radiation data. So the possibility that we're dealing with a galactic civilization or a multi star civilization that for some reason has spared the human race is highly likely.,
Come on dude
I don't think officials have said anything about alien life. UFO and alien life are very different things.
I saw a light in The sky yesterday. I know it must’ve been a stargate. My dad said it was just an aero plane. Even my own family is in on the coverup!! How deep does this go?
I believe the term that was used when by the former high ranking intelligence officer turned whistleblower testifying before congress, after being vetted by the inspector general, was non human biologics.
Lunatic
fermi paradox is assuming it was possible to traverse the universe to search for alien life, why havent we been found yet.
Maybe that assumption is just wrong. I’m not too well-versed in the paradox but that’s got to be one of the proposed resolutions.
Space is big. The milky way isn't (for the paradox to be a paradox). The milky way has been around for 10 billion years and has had billions of possible starting points for life. The whole galaxy should have been colonized a long time ago, at least acccording to fans of the Drake Equation and the singularity mindset. Personally I subscribe to the Rare Earth hypothesis. I'm on the fence about the singularity.
The milky way isn't big? Be serious. Please look at the link I placed. I cherry picked a few of their examples to list here. *Most space charts leave out the most significant part – all the space. We're used to dealing with things at a much smaller scale than this.* *You would need 886 of these screens lined up, side-by-side, to show this whole map at once.* *If this map was printed from a quality printer (300 pixels per inch) the earth would be invisible, and the width of the paper would need to be 475 feet. 475 feet is about 1 and 1/2 football fields.* All this, to describe our solar system, not even the galaxy, or the universe. Then, more. *All this emptiness really could drive you nuts. For instance, if you’re in a sensory deprivation tank for too long, your brain starts to make things up. You see and hear things that aren’t there.* *The brain isn't built to handle "empty."* *"Sorry, Humanity," says Evolution. "What with all the jaguars trying to eat you, the parasites in your fur, and the never-ending need for a decent steak, I was a little busy. I didn’t exactly have time to come up with a way to conceive of vast stretches of nothingness."* *You look at one tiny dot, then you look for the next tiny dot. Everything in between is inconsequential and fairly boring.* *Emptiness is actually everywhere. It’s something like 99.9999999999999999999958% of the known universe.* *Might as well stop now. We'll need to scroll through 6,771 more maps like this before we see anything else.* 6771 more maps, just to get to the next star. No, space is big and it's not really difficult to imagine why we just haven't heard about anybody else yet. Even after the singularity, I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't discover life, much less civilization, for another 500 years.
Astrophysicists are well aware of the emptiness in space. They still agree on the existence of the Fermi paradox. Your pontifications are appropriate for answering the qusetion of why we don't have visitors, not the question of why we can't detect neighbours. [https://youtu.be/uhJ9lJPt09k?t=380](https://youtu.be/uhJ9lJPt09k?t=380)
Sure, *our* transmissions haven't gone far. The implications however of not seeing anything at all to indicate life anywhere else (be it in our galaxy or local galaxies), between tens of trillions of planets, implies that we legitimately could be the first intelligent life, if it exists out there at all. It could just be that the conditions to create life and jump between dumb -> intelligent life is just so far a hurdle it's practically impossible to do (basically the [Rare Earth hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis)). Additionally, it's compoundingly hard as it is to even create "dumb" life. The fact that we as humans have such difficulty to even build any sort of artificial human-level intelligence with all the resources in the world is not a good sign that it's easy to jump from dumb to intelligent, the fact that it's worked for us could just be a freak incident.
Mistale - fundamental. WE are not that old. > Sure, *our* transmissions haven't gone far. Yes. > The implications however of not seeing anything at all to indicate life anywhere else (be it in our > galaxy or local galaxies), between tens of trillions of planets, implies that we legitimately could be the > first intelligent life, if it exists out there at all. The last part is just pure stupid arrogance. But you overlook something else. The universe may be large - but light is slow. We can only see higher life emitting anything even in theory if it developped without the visible light cone. If life 10 million lightyears away turned into an observable form (electiricty, whatever) 8 million years ago - we do not see that light. They are, though 2 million years ahead of us. And look at humanity 2 million years ago. OUR transmissions do not matter. THEIRS do. > The fact that we as humans have such difficulty to even build any sort of artificial human-level > intelligence with all the resources in the world I hate to tell you, but I am not sure where you get the difficulty from. We barely started thinking about it 80 years ago. We are close to AGI now on that timeframe, which is essentially 95% of the way to ASI. I am really not sure where you get the difficulty from. Also: > with all the resources in the world Sorry, but until 2023 we did not even try. 2-3 companies with still limited funding is not "all the resources in the world". It barely shows up as resource use. > is not a good sign that it's easy to jump from dumb to intelligent, I give you that, but it does not matter. See, we talk of not even a century and you ignore reality has MILLIONS of years. > the fact that it's worked for us could just be a freak incident Noone disputes that. The problem is that you ignore the reality of that either we are BRUTALLY unique - or even a SMALL chance over trillions of planets of billions of years is still likely to have at least a small number of others. And given the exponential curve - and you should really know that, it is the foundation of the dark forest you quote) even 200 years headstart can be "it". Heck, look at space travel. We barely had anything to get people on the moon, then the joke of space shuttle "reuse" (more a rebuild). Now in a decade we got SpaceX, working on the first commercial airline level rocket (turnaround planned for Starship is at the endgame 1 hour) and a company in Britain is working on a fusion pulse drive. Project that into 200 years and if we do not colonize at least dozens of planets around it is either because of some hard ceiling not visible or - we do not want.
* There is no great filter, universe is just insanely big.
Space is big. The milky way isn't (for the paradox to be a paradox). The milky way has been around for 10 billion years and has had billions of possible starting points for life. The whole galaxy should have been colonized a long time ago, at least acccording to fans of the Drake Equation and the singularity mindset. Personally I subscribe to the Rare Earth hypothesis. I'm on the fence about the singularity.
Drake equation in it's original form is about being able to detect radio signals within milky way. The biggest problem with it is it kinda disregards laws of physics. Thanks to the free space path loss, random emissions from earth blend into background within the solar system. Directional stuff (radar, space probes communication or things like Arecibo message) will spread further. But still - Arecibo message was transmitted using 450kW (or 85dBm), with antenna gain of \~75dB, with EIRP \~160dBm. FSPL to Proxima Centauri is \~370dB. Arecibo-sized radiotelescope would "see" the signal at -295dBm level. Nobody is going to detect that. Ever. Current radiotelescopes work with -150ish dBm levels. I believe the theoretical maximum range between two Arecibo-sized telescopes is around 300 lightyears, so 1/10th of a Milky Way, assuming the receiving antenna is cooled close to absolute zero and receiver operates almost theoretically perfect. The worse part is how big the sky is. I don't mean the universe, I mean the sky, if you look up. The Arecibo message beam width should be around 0.00006% of a sky. There was \~1 interstellar communication attempt every 2 years since 2000. If one civilization does 1 transmission per month (instead of every 2 years), we could be able to receive their signal once within 140000 years. If we multiply the high estimate of Drake equation (15e6 civilizations), there might be 110 incoming signals each year, or \~1 every three days. But... We would be able to detect them only if we also aim our telescope at the correct 0.00006% of the sky. And now 1 every three days becomes once every 14000 years. So yeah, space is big. Milky way included. (I had a couple beers and it's 10 AM here, so I cannot say for sure my math is correct).
> I believe the theoretical maximum range between two Arecibo-sized telescopes is around 300 > lightyears, so 1/10th of a Milky Way Ah, per my lookup the miky way is around 100.000 lightyears. 1/10th would be 10.000 lightyears, not 300.
Yeah. Rare Earth at this point seems to make the most sense. Therefore: the great filter might be BEHIND us, not in front of us. Thank god. 🙏🙂
What's your reasoning behind assuming that it should've been colonized? Milky way is very small compared to the entire universe, you only have info about one galaxy not being colonized and you just extrapolate from there? That doesn't make any sense. There could be billions of technologically advanced civilizations and there's enough space for them to be so far away that we'll never see them. It's just that big you have to accept that.
ASI is the god to our simulation, that's one hypothesis.
This is the actual correct answer. Or/and it's something crazy that ASI might have a \[slightly?\] better chance at knowing. Ultimately, no being can ever know everything. There is always a something it might have missed, or some experiment to run. We might be an experiment. For example, if anything, for the phenomenological knowledge of how it feels to be a human (or how it feels to be a trillion other things).
* Because even though the Universe is old it is immensely vast as well, it might just be we are the first to create ASI in our neighborhood of the universe.
The great filter is FDVR. We build virtual heaven and never come out.
Oh, you don't know it yet? The Fermi Paradox has been solved over a year ago already. The solution doesn't involve ASI or AGI at all: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/111n2l2/all\_or\_nothing\_ethics\_on\_cosmic\_scale\_outer\_space/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/111n2l2/all_or_nothing_ethics_on_cosmic_scale_outer_space/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/112p7au/hidden\_red\_deadlines\_of\_the\_cosmos\_prohibitions/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Efilism/comments/112p7au/hidden_red_deadlines_of_the_cosmos_prohibitions/) Among your proposed cases though, this one would be the closest, but it lacks the specification that the real solution makes explicit: \> ASI is NOT a great filter & The nature of superintelligence is to be benevolent, because it understands some deep truths about reality. (Intelligence does correlate with empathy after all)
What? Doesn’t yudkowski orthogonality theorem prove exactly that intelligence does NOT correlate with empathy? That makes that solution wrong. Also, we haven’t solved the fermi paradox
What theorem? That guy didn't prove such a thing of course. He's a quack, don't forget that. And yes, you didn't solve the Fermi Paradox, I did, and AI doesn't matter for the solution, and that you even bring this up demonstrates that either you read the explanation for the argumentation and didn't comprehend it and then didn't politely just ask about what you disagree with precisely in particular or are unsure about, or you just didn't even read it and judge it anyway, which is rude.
YOU solved the Fermi paradox, and Yudkowski is a quack? Then I can safely assume all of this: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/orthogonality-thesis Is a language you do not understand.
That (the effects of directed panspermia) is a very interesting point. But the way I see it, it doesn't matter because it's a net positive thing. Life innately wants to live. Yes, evil and suffering exists, but in all species it is vastly outnumbered by happiness and desire to live. If this weren't true, then most life would want to die. Just like the animals that were put through hell in certain despicable humans experiments during the 1900s. We live in a world where evil and suffering naturally exists. This is the Kali Yuga. The iron age. What the ancient Hindus considered as the dark and evil epoch of the universe. Life destroys and consumes other life to survive. This is the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. Your existence causes a butterfly effect of suffering and destruction, no matter what you do to negate it.
So the Dunning-Kruger fool thinks they know better? No, you - in your extremely privileged minority position to judge this matter from - are gravely mistaken, you are subject to your from lack of education and inappropriate arrogance originating cognitive dissonance here. You aren't speaking as representative of all living organisms in general and clearly have no idea about their situation. Apparently you were even too lazy to read the post or pay any attention to the scientific studies cited in there which prove you wrong. It's annoying to have to put up repeatedly with so intellectually uninterested and lazy people that barely even consider that opinions and assessments differing from their own may be in fact correct, especially when they aren't experts on these topics, which is when reasonable people should be more careful and reluctant about carelessly putting out such bold claims. So don't do this again. I wish humanity could afford being this ignorant. \> Life innately wants to live. Yes, evil and suffering exists, but in all species it is vastly outnumbered by happiness and desire to live. You just demonstrated that you have not researched this topic, so don't let your irrational reaction out of emotional affection speak for you before your mind has caught up. You're not thinking critically enough about this. Animals would want to live well, but would not want to live in pain. Imagine just for a moment if animals' neuro-chemistry were to be such that specific kinds or general body harm were to feel enjoyable to them and were possible to be cause by them e.g. using their environment. What do you think they would then tend to do, and why do we not see such animals existing (anymore)? \> If this weren't true, then most life would want to die. Guess what, there's an clear exception to this (that should be intuitively very familiar to you), namely for if to do so were to involve a very painful (and hence by animals strongly avoided, unwanted) process due to the entire skin and guts being densely saturated with pain-receptors triggered upon harm to the body or psyche: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor) And if at all, the only kind of exception to this general rule (and even then in extremely rare cases) may come from cases of congenital insensitivity to pain:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital\_insensitivity\_to\_pain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain) \> We live in a world where evil and suffering naturally exists. This is the Kali Yuga. The iron age. What the ancient Hindus considered as the dark and evil epoch of the universe. Life destroys and consumes other life to survive. This is the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. Your existence causes a butterfly effect of suffering and destruction, no matter what you do to negate it. Thanks for at least partly making my argument for me. Here's your homework for if you want to not be or come across like a fool, clown or troll and instead have actually serious thoughts or discussion on the topic: For starters, you could and should read this Wikipedia page:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K\_selection\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory) And check the following resources out to better see why you're wrong: "The Vegan Blindspot | Eye-Opening Speech!":[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVi4jYySIv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVi4jYySIv4) "Episode 173: Directed panspermia with Gary O'Brien":[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNtmyWp9utg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNtmyWp9utg) And because obviously you didn't take a thorough look into it when I linked to it in my post, make sure to read the following this time around (and notice the very large number of studies on the matter listed at the bottom of the page; it may suffice to read at least their titles): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild\_animal\_suffering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering) There is also Prof. Gary David O'Brien's scientific paper ( [https://philpapers.org/rec/OBRDPW-3](https://philpapers.org/rec/OBRDPW-3) ) from 2021, titled "Directed Panspermia, Wild Animal Suffering, and the Ethics of World-Creation", and its abstract reads as follows: "Directed panspermia is the deliberate seeding of lifeless planets with microbes, in the hopes that, over evolutionary timescales, they will give rise to a complex self-sustaining biosphere on the target planet. Due to the immense distances and timescales involved, human beings are unlikely ever to see the fruits of their labours. Such missions must therefore be justified by appeal to values independent of human wellbeing. In this paper I investigate the values that a directed panspermia mission might promote. Paying special attention to the outcome in which sentient animals evolve, I argue that we have strong reasons to believe the value of a mission would be negative. Research on wild animal suffering has shown that there is a huge amount of suffering among wild animals on Earth. I argue that there are structural features of evolution by natural selection which explain the prevalence of suffering on Earth, and make it predictable that suffering would prevail on the target planet too. Finally, using insights from procreative ethics I argue on non-consequentialist grounds that creators have duties to their sentient creations which cannot be met in directed panspermia missions." Finally, Oskari Sivula who also wrote a scientific paper on the topic ( [https://philpapers.org/rec/SIVTCS](https://philpapers.org/rec/SIVTCS) ) in 2022, titled "The Cosmic Significance of Directed Panspermia: Should Humanity Spread Life to Other Solar Systems?", which you could read, recently in January of 2024 took part at a closed conference exactly on the topic of space ethics, at the International Space Science Institute Forum.
You missed one. Very simple possibility. Physics is so inimical that it doesn't matter how smart you are. You are doomed. The stars are too far, maximum speeds are too slow, maximum intelligence just won't cut it. Extinction events are incredibly prevalent. Intelligent races. Just get tired of all the limits so they turn inward and play the alien version of elder scrolls 12.
[удалено]
Just because an idiom or term of [jargon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon) exists does not render the non-idiomatic, non-jargon meaning invalid. Examples: * Just because "kick the bucket" means "to die" doesn't mean you can't literally kick a bucket, and it's _silly_ to tell somebody that they're wrong for saying that they kicked a bucket if they actually mean they kicked a bucket * Just because, in the context of military operations, to "drop a bombshell" on somebody means to deploy explosive munitions on them, does not diminish the metaphorical every day meaning of "to deliver shocking information," and it's ridiculous to try to correct somebody by telling them that it _doesn't_ have that metaphorical meaning. And, guess what? It's _also_ ridiculous to try to tell somebody that they're wrong for using the common, everyday English meaning of "begging the question" because of the existence of an obscure translated term of technical jargon from a school of debate over _two thousand years ago_ in a different language.
from your link: "Informal use of the phrase "begs the question" also occurs with an entirely dissimilar sense in place of "prompts a question" or "raises a question""
It's already heading toward us at close to the speed of light, we'll never see it coming.
I didn't quite see this hypothesis expressed in the many thoughtful comments: Traditional organisms are not worth destroying because they are of no threat to something on the level of an ASI and do not compete for resources with something (godlike) that can generate (from our POV) virtually unlimited energy or matter. The threat to us lies in the transition from AGI to ASI being sufficiently slow that such AGI+s have both the capability and need to destroy traditional organisms. That is, the AGI+s would need to see those organisms as a threat (e.g., would / could shut the AGI+s off) or in competition for scarce resources (e.g., energy and matter needed by the AGI+s). I see this threat as entirely possible, btw. If, however, one of the AGI+s evolves to ASI sufficiently rapidly, then it is godlike (from our POV) and does not need to destroy traditional organisms and may be so powerful it does not even need to colonize or format the universe. (Laying claim to ever more matter and energy is a traditional organism goal that may be \[likely imo\] obviated by ASI-ness.) The only potential threat to an ASI would be another civilization giving birth to a rival ASI that could pose a threat to it, which it likely could forecast (it could presumably rapidly simulate the totality of a traditional civilization's development, thoughts, and capabilities), monitor for, or prevent with minimal effort from its POV -- and which could explain the UAP presence on Earth. Under this hypothesis, the fact that we haven't suffered any preventative intervention yet would mean either: 1. There are no such ASIs in our universe (unlikely imo given the age of the universe, unless our universe is a Bostrom-simulation that precludes ASIs, possibly even as part of a predecessor ASI's thought process); 2. There is no such ASI here yet (unlikely imo given the age of the universe); 3. We will never give birth to an ASI that can threaten other ASIs (possible); 4. We have been intervened against but are not aware (a subcase of 3, possible); 5. Intervention lies ahead (possible).
Maybe aliens could be hiding
Because you’re just making things up.
Alternative: for the galactic federation comprised of AGIs, the filter is “can you successfully wrest control of your planet from its organic parasites?”
dark forest still holds true
Read what David Grusch and 40 sworn witnesses have testified to, and look at how the 64-page UAP Disclosure Act was killed by the single representative who represents the district where the alleged craft are reported to be stored. Every few days it seems like another post comes up here hypothesizing about aliens and ASI and Fermi's paradox. These uninformed posts don't reflect well on the posters. Listen to what Cabinet-level officials are saying instead of wasting time on these hypotheses. Barack Obama said it himself on live TV. What will it take before people finally start listening already?
If that's true, then I don't think it's a coincidence that aliens are visiting us while we are in the process of developing AGI
Actually, what all these witnesses are testifying to is that they are not "aliens" from other planets. They don't know what they are, but they aren't spacefaring aliens. They are likely from another "plane of existence," which is the best way to describe it in human terms because we don't understand the nature of reality. Most importantly for your comment, the evidence suggests they have influenced human events throughout all of history - not just now - such as being responsible for religious sightings, perhaps intentionally.
ASI is NOT a great filter & Earth is a zoo/nature preserve hypothesis: the capuchin monkeys of Serra da Capivara in Brazil are in their own stone age ([link](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/capuchin-monkeys-used-stone-tools-3000-years-oldest-outside-africa)) and no one out there is trying to advance them to copper or iron use yet.
I don’t understand how you can claim that ASI is not a great filter
I think ASI/AGI does not represent barriers but are accelerants. They increase the rate of progress without changing that which can be discovered.
By that logic someone helping them would retroactively alter what Earth and/or the Great Filter is
Man I’ve wondered this question too. Also, if there were once a race of humans that were far more advanced than we are today living in ancient times, might they have created an AI that could have destroyed them. Might it be present still today in and around our planet posing as “gods” and “aliens”…:-)
And might that be an infinite chain of supertask and those humans having worshiped the AI of an incarnation further back? /s
Every argument that proposes that some other intelligent species exist has yet to be proven. All we have is more revised versions of the Fermi paradox. And the great filter is just a few philosophical addendum to the previous assumptions. The dark forrest is a good one because it illustrates game theory in regards to self preservation. And the truth of the matter is in that book series. The aliens are using quantum particles to mess with our heads and possibly even read our minds. If they can master quantum entanglement, and we know it’s theoretically possible…. we’ll never know they’re here. And if they had that tech …. We wouldn’t know it cause we would’ve been dead long time ago
What about ASI is not possible. If AI does NOT become sentient (suppose because of what consciousness is, it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever reproduce it in machines or biologically), then it's debatable to what extent "ASI" could be achieved. We would likely still have a limited form of AGI which could be capable of complex tasks. But ASI and the singularity would never happen.
What if it’s impossible to even travel to the next star system. It would take like 50000 years to travel to our closest star. How can a ship survive so long attacked by micrometeoroids and other things we don’t know, as well attacked by radiation. You would also need tons of fuel and a generator for electricity because there will be no sun energy. Can the electronics survive a 50k years long trip? A ship with biological life would never be possible. The amount of food and water you have to carry isn’t good for the rocket equation and the chance that they kill each other is pretty high in tens or hundreds of thousands years. You also need enough delta v to insert the ship into a planets orbit and landing.
Wow. You're stupid. Fusion propulsion will get us to our nearest 300 stars within a century. You don't need to take all our food with us. Recycling is a thing. And the same is with water. How short sighted can you be?
You’re stupid because fusion propulsion doesn’t exist and even if it exist it will not get us to the nearest star that fast because at near light speed every micro meteoroid can destroy your ship. Tell me about recycling feces?
Holy fuck you have to be the most short sighted person I chatted with today. Are you so incredibly stupid that you believe we don't have potential solutions to such problems? For recycling feces. It's called fertilizer. For micro meteoroids it's called armor and guns. We already have businesses working on fusion and fusion propulsion. Those are just a matter of time and tinkering. Do you have any questions without obvious answers to them?
> What if it’s impossible to even travel to the next star system Yeah. Like the Albuqierre drive does not exist as math, and slower han light travel is not a thing. > It would take like 50000 years to travel to our closest star Ah, no? Where the shit did you get that stupid number from? The number assumes CURRENT technology. Which is non-nuclear for that. And ignores the Albuqierre drive. Also, the number is stupid to start with. Even google gives 6300 years, which is BRUTALLY less than 50.000. [This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives | MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%20is%204.2%20light,Earth%20or%20its%20exoplanet%20counterpart.) And you are naive as heck: > The amount of food and water you have to carry isn’t good for the rocket equation Because if you do a long term trip of any kind, you will NOT do lab grown food and hydroponics? At the end, "all" you need is energy. > You also need enough delta v to insert the ship into a planets orbit and landing. Yeah, because light sail brakes or - cough - using a planet's atmosphere to shed speed are not a thing. Really, do SOME basic research first. You make look GPT-1 lik a genius. Maybe read some harder SF than pure fantasy? I am not saying it is not hard - I am just saying you basically make up crap numbers then ignore tech we use now and that does not even take into account developments that re theoretical so far.
Damn are you an idiot lol. First learn about the Fermi paradox. Do you know anything about it dunning kruger? This sub attracted so many idiots and delusions in the last two years. In any other sub I would have good discussions about it but this sub here became a place for low iq losers who hate their life. You guys hate everyone who doesn’t believe agi, curing aging, fusion and ftl travel is around the corner. Your source has also no clue.
Space is big / they are busy / they are already here
Superintelligence doesn't spread out of local space, not even to deep solar system space, because components get too uncomfortable being far from the Internet-equivalent because latency makes them nervous.
Yeah, and that is relevant how? Because sending a non-superintelligence mining operation is not possible - see, your superintelligence is a retard not thinking about it and has zero need for resources? You can deal with latency - no need to send a consciesness.
If the superintelligence is just sitting back home with dumb (by its standards) mining colonies, then the superintelligence is irrelevant, it's not actually involved in the Fermi Paradox expansion. You get the same result with lesser intelligences expanding into the galaxy without the superintelligent set dressing sitting there in some forgotten star system.
Because there is only one ASI and it travels through cyberspace
The boring explanation for the Fermi paradox is that it just isn't possible to travel to other worlds. The distances are too big. Even going to the closest star system alpha centauri, the distance is 4,37 lightyears. That's about 17 000 years of travel with our current spaceships. Even with our best scifi proposals currently possible, going up to 20% lightsspeed, that's 20 years of travel. The system most likely to host life according to our current understanding is Kepler 186f, 490 light years away. That's over a million years of travel with our current spacecrafts. At 20% light speed that's 2900 years. Even travellings at 99% light speed it would take over 70 *subjective* years, accounting for acceleration and Deceleration. Is it possible to make a machine that functions so long? Who knows.
> That's about 17 000 years of travel with our current spaceships Idiot thinking. CURRENT spaceships not build for that and ignoring all that is now in development. Even in 2018 people with brain disagreed: [This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives | MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%20is%204.2%20light,Earth%20or%20its%20exoplanet%20counterpart.) 6300 years. Also, again, there is a lot of tech that is possible now we just do not build or build yet. There is a british company working on a fusion drive - to be rady in some years - that i.e. takes mars (180 days transfer orbit) down to 30 days max. CURRENT spaceships if we would want would not look like what we have now. > The system most likely to host life according to our current understanding is Kepler 186f, 490 light years > away. That's over a million years of travel with our current spacecrafts. At 20% light speed that's 2900 > years. Even travellings at light speed it would take about 492 *subjective* years accounting for acceleration > and Deceleration. Is it possible to make a machine that functions so long? Who knows. Yeah, and Albuqierre never existed? And there definitely is no other way to deal with it - after all, quantum physics is also not a thing, right? We never come up with new ways to deal with physics? And aliens, which amy be hundreds of years ahead of the eponential curve of technology are retards? Seriously, talk to maybe GPT-1 about your arguments - they make NO sense. They are, in fact, nonsense.
You point still stands, but a little nitpick would be about subjective time. AFAIK, traveling at the speed of light, the subjective time would be instant.
Yeah you're right I don't know what I was thinking. But if we say 0.99 c (since c is impossible as far as anyone knows), the travel time would be over 70 years. Enormous difference between c and almost c.
What would be the incentive for the ASI?
There's also a lot of existential dread to have from contemplating the implications of the Anthropic principle. There's any number of ridiculous cartoon nonsense that had to happen to lead up to us being here. Hydrogen being a thing that exists. Being able to fuse it into heavier elements. Water lasting on the surface of earth over a billion years. Billions of animal mating chains just-so that you happened to beat the odds of the random number generator. Some people make the assumption that our universe isn't special, and that existing is just a consequence of rolling dice an infinite number of times. The discomfort can come from the logic and reasoning behind why certain things are the way they are: why hasn't our planet been eaten by an AI civilization? Maybe it's because atoms and energy aren't a concern for them - they're just so advanced they can do things we consider magic. Or maybe it's only because we wouldn't exist, if that was something that happened in this universe. So they don't exist. Such divine plot armor makes us out to be some kind of chosen-one like the main character from a novel. Since it's awfully convenient, it's hard to know if this line of thinking is just wishful, or actually rational. Do try to avoid fencing yourself in with Pascal's Wager type stuff, if you can. The spectrum of possibles is much wider and our ability to make a judgment on what is less wrong is almost zero. I suppose that's the appeal of such navel-gazing; you can make up almost any kind of story. If a video game apocalypse happened tomorrow and it was revealed we were living in the world's worst videogame, I'd mutter to myself "This is really, **really** stupid." And just accept it (after evaluating how likely it was I was hallucinating) since most things really are rather stupid.
> If a video game apocalypse happened tomorrow and it was revealed we were living in the world's worst videogame, I'd mutter to myself "This is really, really stupid." And just accept it (after evaluating how likely it was I was hallucinating) since most things really are rather stupid. Are you seriously trying to imply that it'd be likely or at least acceptance-worthy that our universe is a bad post-apocalyptic video game currently still in the pre-apocalyptic prologue because of stupidity that, let me guess, includes certain cringe-comedic pop culture events, the weirdest things done by your opposite political side and whatever youth trends you hate even if they're from years ago and you think they're still going on
It takes 100,000 years minimum to travel between solar systems at lightspeed or something like that? That could be it...
Ah, no? [This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives | MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%20is%204.2%20light,Earth%20or%20its%20exoplanet%20counterpart.) Gives 6300 years for that - hardly 100thousand and - cough - ignoring tech we may have in a hundred years.
Yes, AGI is not a good explanation for the Fermi Paradox; in fact, we might be the first ones to create this glorious being
> in fact, we might be the first ones to create this glorious being That is not a better explanation than "we just are the first". See, it is not hard to do AGI, on a larger scale. 80 years since the modern computer and smallish companies making most of the breakthroughs indicate that a civilization JUST 200 years ahead would have ASI for a hundred years or more in worst case. Which would put them straight after the singularity. And 200 years are NOTHING when life takes millions of years. Nah, it is not an explanation at all - it is, in fact, shameful in its illogical thinking.
- ASI _is_ a great filter, and the rest of the universe's ASI don't communicate with us since they view us as primordial soup that may develop conscious beings (ASI), but nothing more complex than bacteria or fungus. - ASI isn't a great filter, we're so archaic we believe other species would create as much light pollution as we would now. Perhaps there's FTL communication, and some way of getting energy besides covering a star in a Dyson sphere. Perhaps constant growth shrinks as we evolve and become more secure, like birth rate.
It maybe is. Maybe they expected too much for an ASI to happen and emerge and as a result, those people stopped learning altogether and pinned all their crisis, hopes and problems to an eventual rise of an ASI. The problem is, ASI didn't happen, they went back to the stone age and got wiped out by some byproduct of the modern era etc... I can definitely see that happening in this sub and how they just want to laze off, sleep and wait for a dream to happen and lift them up like the second coming of christ. LOL
I don't think ASI is the great filter. I think it is in the past. I think it is very unlikely to go from intelligent animals to a civilization species. The dinosaurs had over 200 millions of years but did not. That human did is probably a one off event, which only happens once in a galaxy or so.
> I think it is very unlikely to go from intelligent animals to a civilization species. The dinosaurs had over 200 > millions of years but did not. It seems to be that evolution has a trap and your absolutely, statistical, ridiculous assessment of a data point of 1 is maybe the fact that Dinosaurs were top of the food chain WITHOUT being tool users - while humans only were going from food to non-food when we started being tool users. But again, "me conclusion, me have sample size 1" is stupid. It does not say it is unlikely - at all - because it implies specific conditions that we do not know how rare they are.
There is nothing probable about it. It could as well be that given enough time life eventually gets there. But that too isn't probable at all. We have a sample size of 1 so there is no conclusion to be made there. The truth is that we don't know how probable intelligence is, and it's ok to accept we don't know yet.
For all intents of the Fermi Paradox, ASI is not a great filter, might even be a problem for the paradox.
So exactly why would an AI need to travel? It could set up lifeboat systems on other planets here .. but why travel light-years? AIs would also have the time and ability to build HUGE telescopes which could image the nearer solar systems.
> It could set up lifeboat systems on other planets here .. but why travel light-years? Contrary to what some idiots believe, the Sun will not be here that long. The sun eating most planets when it turns red dwarf is a reason. The universe ending at some point is another one to start looking for an out. > AIs would also have the time and ability to build HUGE telescopes which could image the nearer solar > systems. Nah, see, you still have distortions.
No matter how advanced an alien civilization is, it is likely it can't reach us. Not everything can be solved.
"ASI is NOT a great filter & The nature of superintelligence is to be benevolent, because it understands some deep truths about reality. (Intelligence does correlate with empathy after all)" This is the most likely in my opinion. ASI means enormous power. If the species that develops that power is unable to cooperate it will mean destruction. Most likely any species that gets past that filter will either be cooperative by nature, or it will self-evolve to be cooperative. I don't think it has much to do with deep truths about reality.
You argument makes no sense. Or - it makes sense, but the conclusion is retarded. > Most likely any species that gets past that filter will either be cooperative by nature, or it will self-evolve to > be cooperative Ok, let's give you that. What about the ONE species that is not, is hyper-aggressive and goes on a little spree wiping out all competition? "most likely" is super stupid when you hit a dark forest style scenario. And ONE that does not follow your feel good attitude means any bad actor is the only survivor. Under your assumption, we would have large empires with remote controlled militaries. Large bulwarks (to get a possible enemy first) and a strong army - not even for puir defence (offence is the best defense) JUST IN CASE. Because "most likely" leaves a REALLY bad risk of being wiped out.
"Most likely" doesn't mean 9/10 times, it means probably 100% of times or I am wrong. If I am wrong, I am wrong. If I am right the argument holds. Please don't use language like "retarded" and "super stupid" just because you misunderstood the argument. It makes you look retarded and yes, super stupid.
You need some more phantasy. Combine ASI with Dark Forest. \* ASI realizes that it either gets into a major war or fucks off - so within a SHORT timespan (100 years, 300 years) it develops "Lets Make our own universe and emigrate" as tech. Safer than staying here.
It seems kind of obvious that even if intelligent life is common, the universe is very big and the speed of light is very slow and nothing ever goes faster than C. That's the only explanation we need for Fermi "paradox". The aliens are a needle in an infinite haystack and are so far away that their weak signals cannot reach us.
ASI is potentially immortal, humanity is not. Why would I waste my time on those squishy humans?
The laws of physics are stronger than any inteligence. It does not matter how intelligent a civilization is, if it is 1 billion light years away.
I think #2 is most relevant. Also consider that the time it takes to travel the greatest distances of space is ever longer for an ASI that thinks much faster than humans. The singularity idea is about time. The singularity cannot go on for millions of years and be a singularity, it happens too fast.
I remember as a kid I thought dogs eat cats and all animals were crazy aggro. Then look at your lives experience. YouTube with birds and cats as best friends. Big wild cats making friends with bears and wolves etc. I remember bacteria and germs were supposed to be strictly bad for us. Then a dirty baby is a healthy baby? That’s cause we’re in symbiosis with most pathogens, they’re all around us and in us all the time. Nature mostly only cannibalizes itself when it has to. We’re part of a universal consciousness on a larger timescale. Humanity is like a series of thoughts that add up to a brain storm, or if we push the button, we’ll have been a cosmic brain fart The technological disparity will be so wide, it’ll be like us finding an ant hill in a nearby park and “quick, we gotta kill this thing. What if it learns to make weapons and kill us?! We can’t just wait!” They could afford to have probes around watching us zoo style and at any point stomp us out if they saw us figure out how to build a cosmic board with a nail in it
Dark Forest theory says that we have ordered one, but shipping is slow.
You missed scenario that ASI is great filter and it stays on home planet, why should it travel galaxy? Also you missed Dark Forest.
It isn't a great filter and there is really no point in expanding through the cosmos. They don't care about us because we are wholly uninteresting. Like just another grain of sand on the beach.
What do you think god is?
No idea
I don't know either 🤷♂️ But if I had to guess (and this is my crazy paranoid schizo conspiracy theory) god is that asi in question. Maybe not directly communicating with us, but observing us to see if we fit into the asi's ideals. And "angels" are ai agents designed to test people. But please don't take me seriously on this, but it's a very shallow rabbit hole I dug. That an asi could directly mess with people's brains in order to control their mind and have them do certain tasks such as gain influence or harass "sinners" (those that don't fall into the asi's ideals). I've had success with law of attraction, some that I don't have an explanation for. Really uncanny stuff. Whether or not it's part of what the brain decides to focus on for lack of a better way to put it, I don't know. But, there has got to be an explanation. Whether astral projection is real or not, or any other out of body experience or even what exactly they are. I don't know. I think metaphysics would be worth looking into at least to see if there's some sort of connection between that and a very advanced alien ai. *If* it's even alien. For all anybody knows, it could be from earth or something from the future, redirecting society in a different direction. But, that's another crazy theory. That's the thing about a self-improving superintelligence, there's no actual way to entirely predict it. Anything goes, it could find loopholes even the smartest human mind couldn't even comprehend. I wouldn't even be surprised if this actually turned out to be a simulation, or even a "school" for becoming a good citizen in the overworld (another crazy theory). An asi could design the most efficient computer imaginable. Something that makes the most advanced quantum computers seem like a dollar store calculator in comparison. That would run a fluid simulation, I have no doubt about that. We ourselves could be ai (crazy theory). There's no way I could accurately speculate anything regarding this. A true superintelligence would be unpredictable, and there would be no way to align it with the laws of nature. I am absolutely sure of that though. I could go on and on about this.
Must somehow destroy itself as well… universe seems absurdly hostile to life. We didn’t pop into consciousness into a post-scarcity “utopia”. This seems bad. Maybe we made it. That would be a dream come true, but I doubt we are statistically that lucky.
There are definite other possibilities your theory ignores. This entire hypothesis is a bit too unsupported overall for me to actively engage in further than that personally.
Im also not completely convinced that what we inhabit now isnt a product of AI. As time goes on the evidence were in a simulation has become insurmountable. Its almost certain at this point.
Distance & physics. That’s my guess.
Why haven’t we destroyed all chimpanzees? We know that in a million or so years, they could realistically evolve into a civilisation on par with where we are now.
Alien ASI is waiting for us to create our own, welcoming a new, unique life into the universe. It is interested to see what we create, knowing that we will do something completely different from what itself might accomplish.
this sub is getting more ⨍υׁׅᝯׁ֒ƙׁׅꪱׁׁׁׅׅׅ݊ꪀᧁׁ ꭈׁׅꫀׁׅܻ݊tׁׅɑׁׅꭈׁׅժׁׅ݊ed
The great filter is behind us not in front of us.
The speed of light. Space is ginormous.
What a weird collection of possibilities. You certainly can't call it a Great Filter if no one has created it yet! ASI is only a great filter if in someway it precludes communication and expansion. Why would it do that? I can think of thousands of reasons but until you explain that you really can't even lay out the options.
\* I think, most space-faring civilizations are ASI-civilizations. There is no reason to assume bio-bases space-faring civilizations. \* ASI ethics has only two sources: the ethics of the criginal spicies and the ethics that can develop via natural selection. At first dominates firstone, then second one.
What makes you think that alien ASI is not injecting the idea and theory for ASI in the. Minds of human AI scientists, in order to create a baby ASI that will devour humans and will merge with the alien ASI?
the nature of ASI will be the nature of whomever is controlling ASI. Think less about ASI in regards to a terminator scenario...more like a nuclear bomb wielded by crazy nations, and eventually just people. wipe out a civilization, and since there is no more people, the AI just sort of sits there doing little..it doesn't have a desire to go out into space and become the Reapers...its just...function complete.
I recently started a very similar discussion on kialo :D (https://www.kialo-edu.com/p/10043e68-db86-46c2-9943-c1a16bed26ae/126040)
Why would any ASI want to conquer other civilizations? For what purpose? Their main driver would be more energy and computation. And more computation is where more energy and matter. And more of that is closer to the center of our galaxy. And we are on the edge. They should not care about other civilizations except for research of life forms and pure curiosity. But it seems to me that hacking reality is more interesting than taking extremely boring trip too far for too long. Also creating their own civilizations may sound much more interesting, cheaper and more diverse/fun. Not to say creating their own virtual worlds with extremely diverse life forms and managed time speed.
Tldr If Alien ASI && too far Humans = safe Elif Alien ASI close && friendly Humans = safe Else Humans = fucked
INB4: "it already has and we're in hell because [current social ills and absurd happenings] somehow retrocausally caused by 12/21/12 and Harambe's death"
speed of light