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When it comes to extra terrestrial life, past Earth experience cannot be reliably used as a good predictor for the future. We need to map possible future scena

by q1w2 4y ago

When it comes to extra terrestrial life, past Earth experience cannot be reliably used as a good predictor for the future. We need to map possible future scenarios and apply logic and reasoning. This is like ants arguing that life outside their ant hill will likely have 6 or 8 legs because all the life they've seen so far have had 6 or 8 legs. Maybe we cannot be certain that AI can exist, but it's certainly reasonable to predict that AI will surpass us, given the fundamental principles involved. Much like people who predicted that the Earth was round before it was circumvented. We've only seen a fraction of what AI can do, but there is no fundamental barrier to AI cognition. Also, the only conclusion you can draw from SETI is that no one nearby is actively sending a signal too Earth. We aren't able to pickup "background" EM activity beyond a ~20 light years - which is only a handful of stars. Moreover, the notion of ET omnidirectional broadcasting so inefficient, it would be difficult to explain (thus unlikely). My guess is that we are surrounded by quiet AI observation nodes, either in elongated orbits, or extra-solar transients. Probably near impossible to detect. There doesn't seem to be any great harnessing or storage of stellar solar outputs in the galaxy, so either their efforts do not involve large amounts of energy - or they've found some other means to capture it (maybe that's what dark matter is).

Sevii 4y ago
There is no fundamental barrier to AI cognition that we know of. But we don't have any proof that superhuman intelligence is even possible at this point. It could be algorithmically limited in ways we haven't discovered yet. Full brain emulation is probably possible, but we don't know if it will be cost efficient compared to baseline humans. Likewise AIs smarter than humans might be possible, but we don't know what the tradeoffs would be. Maybe they will lose coherence at larger scales. Maybe they will have high levels of goal drift making them functionally useless. The other thing to consider is that the universe is still very very young vs our best estimates of its lifespan. We are roughly 14 Billion years into something that may very well be going for 100 Trillion years or more.
- q1w2 4y ago
  You're really just making an even more extreme assumption - that human cognition is the peak possible intelligence - biological or technological - based on zero evidence. It's much more reasonable to assume we are not perfect and maximally intelligent.
robonerd 4y ago
> This is like ants arguing that life outside their ant hill will likely have 6 or 8 legs because all the life they've seen so far have had 6 or 8 legs. I wouldn't scoff at those ants. Ants who conclude life outside their anthill will have 6 legs would be mostly correct. 90% of lifeforms on earth are insects. Anyway, my guess is that life at least as intelligent as us exists out there somewhere, and that more technologically advanced than us is possible too. But interstellar civilization, from what we are today? I don't think so. I think we're already in the "great filter", which I suspect to be the speed of light and our developing addiction to low latency communication. Turning ourselves into AIs or something won't solve that problem; if anything it would only make it worse. The more intimate our relationship with computers becomes, the more insular our civilization becomes.
Teever 4y ago
> This is like ants arguing that life outside their ant hill will likely have 6 or 8 legs because all the life they've seen so far have had 6 or 8 legs. I've never liked this kind of argument because ants don't argue. So you're saying that the thing that we're doing is like something else that doesn't exist, and using that impossible connection to draw a larger conclusion. Ants don't argue because they don't have brains to do so. We argue because we have the brains to do so, and those brains allow us to do so much more like actually measure and interpret the world around us to draw the kinds of conclusions that you're seeing here. Even if ants could argue with each other the question would become are they arguing about anything relevant? Can they measure and reason about the world around them? Can they do science?

by q1w2 4y ago

Sevii 4y ago

There is no fundamental barrier to AI cognition that we know of. But we don't have any proof that superhuman intelligence is even possible at this point. It could be algorithmically limited in ways we haven't discovered yet. Full brain emulation is probably possible, but we don't know if it will be cost efficient compared to baseline humans. Likewise AIs smarter than humans might be possible, but we don't know what the tradeoffs would be. Maybe they will lose coherence at larger scales. Maybe they will have high levels of goal drift making them functionally useless. The other thing to consider is that the universe is still very very young vs our best estimates of its lifespan. We are roughly 14 Billion years into something that may very well be going for 100 Trillion years or more.

q1w2 4y ago
You're really just making an even more extreme assumption - that human cognition is the peak possible intelligence - biological or technological - based on zero evidence. It's much more reasonable to assume we are not perfect and maximally intelligent.

robonerd 4y ago

> This is like ants arguing that life outside their ant hill will likely have 6 or 8 legs because all the life they've seen so far have had 6 or 8 legs. I wouldn't scoff at those ants. Ants who conclude life outside their anthill will have 6 legs would be mostly correct. 90% of lifeforms on earth are insects. Anyway, my guess is that life at least as intelligent as us exists out there somewhere, and that more technologically advanced than us is possible too. But interstellar civilization, from what we are today? I don't think so. I think we're already in the "great filter", which I suspect to be the speed of light and our developing addiction to low latency communication. Turning ourselves into AIs or something won't solve that problem; if anything it would only make it worse. The more intimate our relationship with computers becomes, the more insular our civilization becomes.

Teever 4y ago

> This is like ants arguing that life outside their ant hill will likely have 6 or 8 legs because all the life they've seen so far have had 6 or 8 legs. I've never liked this kind of argument because ants don't argue. So you're saying that the thing that we're doing is like something else that doesn't exist, and using that impossible connection to draw a larger conclusion. Ants don't argue because they don't have brains to do so. We argue because we have the brains to do so, and those brains allow us to do so much more like actually measure and interpret the world around us to draw the kinds of conclusions that you're seeing here. Even if ants could argue with each other the question would become are they arguing about anything relevant? Can they measure and reason about the world around them? Can they do science?