Damn it man, I just watched Independence Day over the weekend and now I'm freaking out

Far less likely than machine intelligence we've created doing the same thing and if IIRC you're down for that.

If they have the ability to reach us chances are they already know we're here. If not explicitly then implicitly through various means.

Far less likely than machine intelligence we've created doing the same thing and if IIRC you're down for that.

How could an AI develop an interest in something like that, exactly?

Possessiveness is something that carbon-based life forms developed for specific biological and environmental purposes, and it's almost entirely irrational. How and why would an intelligent machine running on different hardware develop this trait?

We couldn't hide from anything intelligent / advanced enough to travel here. Or fight.
That would be pointless.

And by the time those signals get anywhere we'll be long gone.

Could the same argument not be made for literally any component of the Fermi Paradox? Is it wise for us to work towards advancements in medicine if perhaps the reason we don't see advanced races elsewhere is because once you reach age ooptilian your race wins the game and ascends into NG+?

Maybe not the wisest way, but it's hardly a threat given our current reach in space.

Radio waves (the furthest travelled) have only gone 100 years out, which has also been heavily muddled with our atmosphere, solar/cosmic rays, etc making it as intelligible as white noise.

The only guaranteed message (that won't be garbled in travel) we have out is the Viking probe IIRC, which we're not even sure has left the solar system yet.

In the future when space travel and communications equipment are far more advanced, we should be more aware of the unknown and take cautions. That said, if intelligent life does intercept communications or some space probe, they're probably at a level to find the source of said things.

How to combat it...well that's a whole 'nother problem. No way to fight the unknown if all you know is it's hostile.

If machines were to become capable of recursive self programming, their motives would likely be even less familiar to us than organic extraterrestrials who likely underwent a similar evolutionary process. I doubt concepts like narcissism could even be applied to them.

If anything, that's even riskier than creating a hyper-intelligent narcissist.

Although, I have to say, I really don't find the whole "non-Euclidean, blue-and-orange value systems" argument very compelling.

To put this in perspective: These are the Pillars of Creation

A photo of the eagle nebula taken by the hubble telescope around 20 yrs ago. They do not exist, and have not existed for 1,000 years. When they were torn apart by a supernova.

The image we see is 7,000 years old because that's how far the light has taken to travel here.

Now the farthest we can see is around 13 billion light years away (as in traveling at the speed of light it would take 13.3 billion years to get here). We have found a number of possible life bearing planets, but no concrete evidence of any life, much less intelligent life capable of space travel at the speed of light. Which even if it was we'd see them coming from millions of years off.

Now imagine how long it takes for radio waves to get anywhere. The idea that this is remotely a danger is ridiculous, and if it was a danger the species in question would be so advanced we'd be less than ants in comparison. They probably wouldn't even notice us.

Quote from: Pendulate on July 07, 2015, 09:46:05 PM

If machines were to become capable of recursive self programming, their motives would likely be even less familiar to us than organic extraterrestrials who likely underwent a similar evolutionary process. I doubt concepts like narcissism could even be applied to them.

If anything, that's even riskier than creating a hyper-intelligent narcissist.

Although, I have to say, I really don't find the whole "non-Euclidean, blue-and-orange value systems" argument very compelling.

We're in agreement that sentient AI would likely arise by accident, aren't we?

Unless we start trying to create narcissistic, semi-organic computers, I don't think we'll have much of a say in what interests they'll end up developing.

I can't grasp different value systems either, but I find it equally difficult to grasp a computer developing values similar to ours when its mode of information processing is so incommensurable.

Hard to say, but we can only really look at it from our isolated perspective. The evolutionary conditions of another planet could have been such that aggressiveness and competition wasn't necessary for a dominant species. From our perspective that sounds unreasonable and contradictory, but given the complexities of life we really can't say for sure. Extraterrestrial life might not even be carbon based.
Frankly space is so vast that our messages might not even make it to intelligent life, and if they do they probably can't be deciphered, and even if they can be deciphered we'd probably be long gone by the time they were.

But assuming our message was received in a timely manner and translated by this intelligent species (or multiple species), I'd argue it's not a good idea, but also not a bad one given the potential of meeting and cooperating with extraterrestrial life. If it results in a war, well we done just fucked up.

no it's dumb as fuck


but try telling that to the progress for the sake of progress crowd

Shut the fuck up, you fear mongerer. The only crowd you're producing is the irrational state of fear crowd, despite the fact there's nothing to fear.