I've never liked the Fermi paradox. It seems terribly contrived. It assumes way too much. That space colonization is inevitable and/or that strong AI is also in

I've never liked the Fermi paradox. It seems terribly contrived. It assumes way too much. That space colonization is inevitable and/or that strong AI is also inevitable. What if it's not? What if it's an intractable problem? What if technological advancement isn't exponential? What if it's more of an inverse tangent? A slow start, an explosive middle, then a long finish with an upper bound. We have absolutely no other examples to base any assumptions of technological societies on, so why do we get "space colonization" and "independently thinking machines" for free?