If "if" was a skiff, we'd all take a boat ride. We don't even really know what "strong AI" is. We have a kind of fuzzy "we'll know it when we see it" definitio

If "if" was a skiff, we'd all take a boat ride. We don't even really know what "strong AI" is. We have a kind of fuzzy "we'll know it when we see it" definition. We don't even know how we think. And why is the probe smart enough to chat with the locals in real time? And that's not really the problem. It's not communicating with the locals: it's communicating with us. And then that information being of some actual use. We are not investigating random rocks on Mars. We are exploring the possibility of moving there. If it can be made hospitable. Part of that is knowing rather dull stuff, like is there water, is it liquid, is the soil poisonous to plant life, etc. Performing billion dollar archaeology with no actual return is not something that's going to go far. I'm sorry to say. At some point, you have to dedicate some resources to taking care of the population of the planet you are on. > If our AIs are based on some sort of mind-uploading tech Or how about we just instantaneously beam there since we can just pretend whatever limitations we know we currently have won't exist in the future. I don't have a problem with speculating where technology may lead. However, that speculation needs to be grounded in reality. When we sent a man to the moon, we weren't waiting for something fanciful to be created. No, we took what currently existed and expanded upon that.