https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...n-martians
EXCERPTS: . . . Any aliens that trek to our planet are unlikely to be carbon-based life forms, either hirsute or hairless. Their cognitive abilities will probably not be powered by a spongy mass of cells we’d call a brain. They will probably have gone beyond biological smarts and, indeed, beyond biology itself. They won’t be alive.
The reason is a simple consequence of the staggering distances to the stars. Even the nearest, Proxima Centauri, is 25tn miles from Earth. Our fastest rockets would take 75,000 years to reach it. Neither humans nor Klingons are built to withstand such trips.
You might be thinking that the aliens might have far speedier spacecraft. Without doubt, that’s possible. But there are natural limitations to high-speed rockets. Suppose that an alien would like to cover the distance between Proxima Centauri and Earth in 10 years. Their rocket would need to muster 600m times as much energy as a Saturn V rocket. Double that number if they plan to come to a stop at Earth and engage with the locals.
[...] Traveling from one solar system to another is incredibly difficult and expensive. However, if you’re not in a hurry, the prospects for an interstellar voyage brighten considerably. Such leisurely trips aren’t going to appeal to biological passengers who will die long before their destination is reached. Machines, on the other hand, won’t complain if they’re cooped up in a spaceship for tens of thousands of years. They don’t require food, oxygen, sanitation or entertainment. And they don’t insist on a round-trip ticket.
Artificial intelligence aliens may not be as appealing as those who are warm-blooded and squishy, but we shouldn’t get hung up on an anthropocentric viewpoint. Researchers who work in AI estimate that machines able to beat humans on an IQ test will emerge from the labs by mid-century. If we can do it, some extraterrestrials will have already done it.
Therefore it’s reasonable to expect that any cosmic intelligence paying us a visit will be synthetic. That rules out easy speculation on what the “aliens” will look like. But if it’s a machine, who cares? Of greater concern would be its intentions... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: . . . Any aliens that trek to our planet are unlikely to be carbon-based life forms, either hirsute or hairless. Their cognitive abilities will probably not be powered by a spongy mass of cells we’d call a brain. They will probably have gone beyond biological smarts and, indeed, beyond biology itself. They won’t be alive.
The reason is a simple consequence of the staggering distances to the stars. Even the nearest, Proxima Centauri, is 25tn miles from Earth. Our fastest rockets would take 75,000 years to reach it. Neither humans nor Klingons are built to withstand such trips.
You might be thinking that the aliens might have far speedier spacecraft. Without doubt, that’s possible. But there are natural limitations to high-speed rockets. Suppose that an alien would like to cover the distance between Proxima Centauri and Earth in 10 years. Their rocket would need to muster 600m times as much energy as a Saturn V rocket. Double that number if they plan to come to a stop at Earth and engage with the locals.
[...] Traveling from one solar system to another is incredibly difficult and expensive. However, if you’re not in a hurry, the prospects for an interstellar voyage brighten considerably. Such leisurely trips aren’t going to appeal to biological passengers who will die long before their destination is reached. Machines, on the other hand, won’t complain if they’re cooped up in a spaceship for tens of thousands of years. They don’t require food, oxygen, sanitation or entertainment. And they don’t insist on a round-trip ticket.
Artificial intelligence aliens may not be as appealing as those who are warm-blooded and squishy, but we shouldn’t get hung up on an anthropocentric viewpoint. Researchers who work in AI estimate that machines able to beat humans on an IQ test will emerge from the labs by mid-century. If we can do it, some extraterrestrials will have already done it.
Therefore it’s reasonable to expect that any cosmic intelligence paying us a visit will be synthetic. That rules out easy speculation on what the “aliens” will look like. But if it’s a machine, who cares? Of greater concern would be its intentions... (MORE - details)