Remove this ad

Is Our Universe Ruled by Artificial Intelligence?

by Fraser Cain on March 27, 2008

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

Bender. Image credit: Matt Groening/FOX
Science fiction is filled with unusual alien species. But apart from the occasional robot, biological life is running the show. But NASA scientist, Dr. Steven Dick, sees a future Universe that has evolved past biology. Where every intelligence is artificial. Consider the likelihood of a postbiological Universe.

Does intelligent life exist beyond Earth? It’s easily the most profound and challenging question that humans have ever asked. The consequences of discovering other intelligent life would ripple through every aspect of human society, and actually meeting another species would be even more challenging.

But are there abundant intelligent life forms out there? Or is the biological life on Earth just a stage? Just a single step towards our inevitable technological existence.

In a recent paper published in the journal Acta Astronautica, entitled The Post Biological Universe, Dr. Steven Dick notes how every search for extraterrestrial intelligence assumes that life will be biological. And yet, here on Earth we can see that intelligent life develops more and more sophisticated tools over time. And these tools will eventually lead to artificial intelligence that outstrips its makers.

If extraterrestrials are out there, they likely live in much older civilizations than ours, and have already transitioned through biology and into technology. The majority of worlds out there are already postbiological.

According to many scientists, it’s easy for civilizations to be older than us. The first metal rich stars with terrestrial planets could have formed a billion years after the Big Bang – 12.5 billion years ago. If intelligent life took another 5 billion years to evolve, just like it did here on Earth, that still means life could have been around for 7.5 billion years.

Plenty of time to evolve into intelligent life, and then transition into artificial intelligence.

Cultural advancement also seems to be an inevitable consequence of evolution. Not just humans, but many animals, such as chimpanzees have demonstrated that technology can be developed, improved and passed down from generation to generation.

Here’s a quote from the paper,

Remove this ad

Hans Moravec, a highly respected AI pioneer and robotic expert at Carnegie-Mellon, predicted “What awaits is not oblivion but rather a future which, from our present vantage point, is best described by the words ‘postbiological’ or even ‘supernatural’. It is a world in which the human race has been swept away by the tide of cultural change, usurped by its own artificial progeny.” Our machines, Moravec predicted, will eventually transcend us, and be “released from the plodding pace of biological evolution.”

How could this change the search for extraterrestrials? Well, when you’re looking for robots, you can look anywhere. Dr. Dick suggests that the SETI community consider the environmental tolerance of robots and the availability of resources beyond planets. AI will be looking for places that provide the most raw material and energy – think quasars, not habitable planets.

Postbiologicals probably have no interesting talking with us regular biologicals. But it might be possible for us to intercept their communications if we know what we’re looking for.

He also thinks that postbiologicals might be more interested in receiving our communications, that talking to us. We should consider very special messages that we might want to send out to the AI civilizations.

Of course, the difference between our minds and theirs might be so great that communication is impossible.

But it doesn’t hurt to try.

Original Source: Acta Astronautica

Remove this ad

About

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay.

← Older Comments
  • Ian

    A common theme in SF and not unreasonable.

    I think that anyone who thinks that normal humans will always be the pinnacle of cognitive prowess are just short sighted, or perhaps just victims of wishful thinking.

    You just need one self aware machine and that’s it. Once machines can design and build improved versions of themselves Humans need not be involved. At which point unaugmented folks will be at a severe disadvantage.

    I concur with a poster above in thinking that the biological sciences will also see explosive advances enabling humans to keep pace with their machine progeny.

    My $.02, YMMV, IMHO, FWIW, ETC

  • eMJay

    UFOs…are they real? where do they come from? well, after watching a marathon of UFO sighting documentaries one day i became convinced that they actually existed…i know now that the government knows they exist, not because they have some dead ET stashed somewhere, but because they have had to document the numerous encounters by military personnel in both air and sea ..it’s part of public record.

    Here’s the thing…I don’t buy the common explanation that they are extraterrestrial….the appearance pattern and their behavior don’t add up with that explanation. why would extraterrestrials fly so far to avoid contact with us and take soil samples, as was noted by a doctor who witnessed them in action one night? Here’s what i think….they’re human, but not 2008 human, more like 20000008 human. Clear evidence exists of some sort of humanoid associated with these craft – suggesting to me a relation to primates (or maybe mammals)…which suggests an origin from earth…if you’re from earth but not from now or the past then you’ve got to be from the future. I think they’re time-travelling archaeologists just here to study us…

    it explains why the craft have such varying designs and appear in no particular patterns and why a craft design can be seen in 1960 and then again in 1990 while a different design is seen in other sightings in the intervening years…the two sightings are likely of the same craft, the same “aliens,” so it’s technically one sighting at two points in time..literally.

    Crop circles confused me until i heard that metal filings are typically found in the soil atter these occurances and they had the same pattern as the vegetation. I figure it’s probably some sort of time-stamp using metal placed into the soil to let them map when they are in time…hence the so-called hot spots for sighting them.

    i won’t go into all the things i think add up with this (there’s quite a bit), but i just mentioned this to say that we may already know what the future holds for us in terms of development as a species. If these ‘creatures’ are really us from the future it would mean that we will survive as a species against all odds..despite A.I. however the short nature of these creatures also worries me…miniaturisation is associated with long-term famine…could this be a clue of perilous times in our own future? Or perhaps they are really biomechanical droids sent to explore us on behalf of our decendents? only time will tell i guess…

  • Mehrdad Rastegarian

    Ok, if we consider an inteligent civil on the nearest star except the Sun (just 4.2 ly far away) and we say them hello, and they are to receive our signal and answer imediately, we should wait about 8.4 years to hear their answer to our hello. (if they know english of course).

  • eMJay

    We shouldn’t assume that all alien intelligence will be capable of being what we call friendly…they may have no motivation to ‘meet and greet’ as it may not even be in their nature. Our friendly nature evolved from the mammalian drive to care for young. An intelligent species derived from creatures lacking such a drive will be incapable of appreciating such a motivation to care. Caring isn’t essential for intelligent life, just for human life.

    Another thing is that we assume that alien life forms will be of the same size scale as us…is it guaranteed at all earth like planets will be earth-sized planets? And that the life forms will be earth sized?

    There was a period when life on this planet got really really large; even the bugs got large. It would have stayed that way too were it not for a calamity that befell the dinosaurs and the largest plantlife. Therefore we owe our existence to really good luck that wiped them away…and yet we needed them…we use the carbon materials that they ended up as to power our technology.

    as for A.I life…it’s possible that some advanced race may have sent out A.I. craft and robots to find life outside of their world..If the craft and/or bots have a renewable energy supply they could travel for millions of years without end, searching for signals of life. The civilisation that sent them may have done so before there was even life on this planet, perhaps before our sun even existed.
    There may very well be probes looking for us…but they are more likely looking IN THE WRONG GALAXY!!!

    there are billions of galaxies the universe that we know of. Even if there were only one planet in each milkyway-type galaxy harbouring intelligence species, it would still mean billions of possible examples of intelligent life should exist…so i think it’s safe to assume that intelligent life exists out there. However, it may just be too far our there.

  • eMJay

    Mehrdad Rastegarian –

    I think it’s safe to assume that any life outside of earth wouldn’t know english..unless they were able to listen to our radio broadcasts and figure it out….we have thousands of languages here on earth and they have changed over time…we couldn’t use modern english to talk to anyone who spoke the english of 2000 years ago…the only reason we speak as much english as we do is colonisation.

    Alien life are not even guaranteed to use sound energy to communicate. For all we know, sound energy may be associated with plant life on their world so they may not look for it in a radio signal from ‘animal’ beings.They may use light energy or radio waves or some other form of energy and do so in ways that we haven’t imagined yet…Even if they use sound waves, they may use it at frequencies that we can’t hear or speak( eg. Ultrasound range). In any case, they will not know that the signal on the carrier wave is a sound wave…and we would sound like gibberish to them anyway. One alternaltive is to use mathematics to communicate..math is the language of the universe….

    Actually, the most intelligent way for them to respond would be simple…just copy the signal and send it back to the sender..they could also attach a signal of their own to the message we sent them to verify that intelligent life sent it…If we send a math signal that they could decode, they could send it back with the solution or the next value in the equation.

    The speed at which they respond (if at all)may depend on factors that we haven’t considered..they could be at war when the signal arrives there and are too busy to listen or respond…or (my personal favorite), they could end up going to war with each other over the meaning of the signal!!! either way we get no reply.

  • eMJay

    Derek Mathias writes:
    ” One argument goes that if intelligence exists out there, within a few thousand years (a blink of an eye in cosmic terms), an entire galaxy would likely be completely populated. Thus, the fact that we haven’t yet contacted alien life is strong evidence against the odds that intelligent life exists out there. ”

    I think that it would be unreasonable to assume that a galaxy containing intelligent life could ever be completely populated…after all, only planets with environments friendly enough to be inhabitable could be used to support the lifeform that wants to move about…that also means that the distance between any two habitable planets would be very great…I don’t expect that any more than one percent of all planets in a galaxy could support the life of a given lifeform…therefore to find a whole galaxy anywhere teeming with life is impossible, if not more improbable than the possibility of the existence of intelligent life itself.

  • Cynthia

    Nomad-Tanru

    Enough said.

  • http://www.upgradeyourbody.com Josh

    We are already coming up with bionic replacement parts for limbs, ear and now eyes, but they are never as good as the real biological thing. I still think nature has made the best machines and biological life will be superior for a long time yet.

  • http://www.CDBaby.com/cd/fiorentini Marina

    As the stars present some basic identical caratheristics with all the variant we study up to now. We are made of the same matter as the stars. I suppose if life exist in other parts of the Universe it will be likely to ours with just the differences in times of existence, like more or less older. So I supposed advance artificial intelligence, which is now, for Us a study, could have been already possible for more advance creature of the Universe which we are calling today “alien” creatures ( I will call just creatures) Is true that our mankind is not perfect, we aiming to perfection with artificial life/intelligence in wherever form. I do not believe that artificial life could replace nature creatures in any galaxy, but only as an aid & control by nature creature. Like still today we are submitted to our creator don’t matter how we are advance in Science to “Him” the last word.

  • toto

    AI replacing humans? This is one of the most stupid stories I ever heard. Just how would the AI do that? by killing us? by replacing us in the economic system? and what about the humans still living in the forest or in the deserts, with no AI? will they be affected too? Let me laugh! let me laugh!!

  • alphonso richardson

    Assuming older civilizations haven’t either died out, or assume we’re insignificant morons (not hard, given some ofthe politicians & papparazzi nowadays), it could be interesting.
    if the were communicating
    And we knew what the hell we were looking for………………….

  • Richard T

    Nanotechnology holds out the promise of being able to build any structure we want, atom by atom. If this is so, then it means we will eventually be able to build a complete replica of a single cell organism , complete with its DNA mitochondria, ability to replicate, etc.

    This further means that we would theoretically not be able to tell a living cell with a biological origin apart from a living cell with a technological origin. Nor would it matter if we did. Obviously we could also build a multi-celled organism in the same fashion, and if we built both male and female organisms, then they would be capable of sex, and could reproduce through normal sexual means ( and also obviously, with us).

  • Godmaster

    I think humans will one day be able to engineer ourselves biologically and artificially. We could use the best of both worlds and conquer disease, aging, and perhaps death itself. Just as long as we don’t act like the apes we are and kill ourselves in the process.

    As for the plausibility of AI taking over, it is actually possible. We could just start augmenting our minds and bodies with technology and continue to do so until we reach the point that we don’t need biology anymore and we can just manufacture ourselves and preserve our minds forever in silicon. Once your mind is made of non-biological components, you would be “artificial intelligence” yourself.

  • http://lifestream.aol.com Derek Mathias

    emJay, the suitability of planets for life as we know it isn’t really relevant for whether or not life will eventually occupy it. Exponential growth of both populations and technology would likely soon allow both terraforming and–more importantly–construction of non-planetary systems. Add to this the ability to alter the original biological form to something completely different (most likely machine-related), and Earth-like planets become merely one of many options.

  • http://lifestream.aol.com Derek Mathias

    Josh said, “We are already coming up with bionic replacement parts for limbs, ear and now eyes, but they are never as good as the real biological thing. I still think nature has made the best machines and biological life will be superior for a long time yet.”

    Looking at what we have now and declaring that the end is not the way to do it. In the early 1990s, after having worked a decade on decoding the human genome, we’d only decoded 1%. This led short-sighted people to say it would take a hundred years to complete the project…but the job was done within the next ten years.

    So looking at a crude technological accomplishment and concluding it’ll never be better than what biology has produced is a big mistake.

    Just recently a legless sprinter was banned from competing in the Olympics because his artificial limbs gave him an advantage over biological limbs. Granted, the limbs lack sensation and flexibility, but they’ve already bested human limbs in one area.

    I’d be willing to bet $1000 that within 15 years we’ll have machine parts that function better than the human equivalent in ALL ways. And within 20 years we should have machines that function better than humans in ALL ways…and certainly within 30 years.

  • rusty

    do a quick Google on holographic universe, the idea is that the limit of entropy is the 2d surface area of the event horizon of any matter condensed into “black hole” density. The next step is what we understand as binary information (bits) is equivalent to artificial entropy(I’m jumping around here). As our ability to make things smaller and eventually quantum we bring that artificial entropy density limit closer to the natural entropy density limit.
    This all lends to the metaphor that the universe is actually the holographic projection of information stored in 2d into the 3rd dimension. (I’m really simplifying this)
    So what I’m saying is if we could manipulate the natural entropy of matter(like bits in a computer) we could change the 2d information that would change the nature of the 3d projection. Essentially…. alchemy/magic. So if there was an older civilization out there, that had control to this level they would have either obliterated themselves before the got a handle of it, or transcended into something else.
    Honestly, I think our first order of business is learning how to USE the solar system we have instead of camping out in this crib we call Earth.
    If E.T. is out there, there is a lot of space to cover so we stand a better chance if we split up!

  • Tarquin Q. Zanzibar

    Not gonna happen. Wanna know why?

    The future is unknowable, therefore the evolution of intelligent life MUST include enough biological variation to endure the continuation of (in the first instance) the particular species, but more importantly, for life in general.

    Evolution’s way of creating this variety is genetic variety through the development of two different sexes….hard to imagine something like this being implemented in AI…
    When intelligent entities such as Humans degign AI, it is with a specific function in mind – where would the ESSENTIAL variety come from?

    Also, with biological life, traits which appear disadvantageous may actually be beneficial, e.g. Sickle Cell Anemia = defense against Malaria.

    It is also hard to see how AI would emulate important trraits such as imagination, curiosity, ambition etc
    …having said that, “fuzzy logic” is an interesting development…
    …still, like I said – Not gonna happen! …IMHO, of course!

    p.s. Dan Boyce… relative to the age of the Universe, intelligent life on this planet has been here just a micro-moment… An intelligent species younger than us, would, in Universe terms, be simultaneous… the odds of that happening are so small as to be (almost) inconceivable!

    p.p.s. Quote from eMJay: “i know now that the government knows they exist”

    You know nothing of the sort. If you are so uninformed as to believe such things, please don’t present your OPINIONS as FACT.
    I don’t deny your right to voice such OPINION, but presenting them in such a manner is only likely to drive of potential contributors who could give you intelligent insight into such things, rather than National Enquirer style coverage…

← Older Comments

Previous post:

Next post: