Could AI be the explanation why we don’t find extraterrestrial intelligent life?
The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) toward artificial superintelligence (ASI) poses a critical question: Could this achievement become an obstacle to civilization's survival, rather than a triumph of technology?
This is the chilling proposition of a new theory that suggests AI could be the “great filter” of the universe. This theory, proposed by Michael Garrett of the University of Manchester, challenges the silence of the cosmos.
Despite the vastness of the Milky Way, we have found no trace of alien intelligence. The Fermi Paradox simply asks, if life can arise so easily, where have all the aliens gone ?
Garrett suggests that the answer may lie not in the improbability of the emergence of life, but in a critical evolutionary bottleneck that most civilizations fail to overcome, the development of artificial superintelligence leading to the extinction of intelligent populations.
Artificial superintelligence
Let's get into AI. The rapid development of AI, with the potential for an incredible leap in ASI, could be the obstacle that trips civilizations on their path to the stars. Garrett argues that this rapid technological progress may coincide with a fragile phase in a civilization's growth: the transition from a single planet to a multiplanetary species.
“The potential for something to go wrong is enormous, leading to the ruin of biological and AI civilizations before they have a chance to become multiplanetary,” Garrett said.
We imagine robots or machines with enormous power that make decisions on their own, or artificial intelligence that becomes so intelligent that we can't keep it under control. Garrett paints a sobering picture: a civilization dealing with uncontrolled AI might last on average only a hundred years.
As such, he predicted that the average lifespan of a technological civilization could be less than 100 years, from the onset of interstellar communication capabilities in 1960 to the expected arrival of ASI around 2040. This time frame stands in stark contrast to the billions of years included in the cosmic scale.
When plugged into the Drake Equation (used to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations), this estimate suggests a universe sparsely populated with intelligent life. Even if civilizations did manage to develop, their initial technological footprint might be difficult to detect, because they would last only an instant on the great cosmic clock.
The Drake Equation
A wake-up call for humanity
Garrett's quest isn't just a sci-fi prophecy of the apocalypse. It is a glaring alarm for humanity. We need strong standards for AI development, especially in military applications.
“It's not just about preventing the malicious use of AI on Earth,” Garrett said. “It's also about ensuring that the evolution of AI aligns with the long-term survival of our species,” he added.
The researcher emphasized that the urgency is compounded by the historical lack of preparedness for the integration of superintelligent entities into our world. Experts are calling for a moratorium on AI development until adequate controls are established.
The appeal of rapid and independent military defense systems is indisputable. Recent conflicts have already shown devastating cases of their use.
Autonomous weapons operating outside of ethical frameworks and international law could set off a chain reaction of destruction, wiping out our collective intelligence in an instant, the theory points out.
But there is also the problem of the progressive intellectual weakening of humanity made weak by the excessive use of AI tools. not to mention that the ASI itself could, through social communication, influence the behavior of the human race and lead it to extinction even without direct intervention.
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The article Can AI be the explanation why we don't find intelligent extraterrestrial life? comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/puo-essere-la-ai-la-spiegazione-perche-non-troviamo-vita-intelligente-extraterrestre/ on Sat, 11 May 2024 07:00:31 +0000.