Fermi’s Paradox
(Where are all the aliens?)
“The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high likelihood of extra-terrestrial civilizations existing in the universe and the lack of evidence or contact with such civilizations”
Along with a real AI, I’ve always wanted to meet a real alien. Not just Chewbacca, I’d be happy if it was more other, such as say Rocky in Weir’s Hail Mary. Or even more other, like some of the ethereal imaginings of other authors. The problem is, assuming you don’t think they’re watching us inexpertly and occasionally being spotted, we haven’t found any. Now, a little like the assumption that an ASI will immediately try and wipe us out, we’re obsessed with the idea that any aliens we do meet will be invaders. From the magical War of the Worlds through to the brilliant mini-series V (I loved it, I really did), they come over, they’re more technologically advanced than we are, they try to take over the world, or steal our resources, including people, but we defeat them (even if ‘we’ includes bacteria).
Let’s assume you’re an alien species advanced enough to have worked out how to get around the issue of light speed being the maximum, a fact which I always find depressing if I dwell on it for too long, it’s still not going to be cheap to send a mission to Earth. And what would it be for? It can’t be minerals, it’s a long way to go for a primary industry. Could it be fidget spinners or cars? Seems unlikely that anything our secondary industry provides will be of much interest to them. OK, how about a good haircut, or perhaps a delicious French-Peruvian fusion meal? Seems unlikely they’d get much out of that. That’s tertiary industry dealt with.
Now quaternary industry is sometimes debated. I suspect because it’s awkward to pronounce. But let’s assume it is a real distinction and includes, computers, software, LLMs and all the electronica of our age. Would they want any of that?
Voyager went out with information about us, but very little compared to even a small modern LLM. We’ve been beaming out radio waves for a couple of centuries, but actually we’re doing less and less of that - fibre and streaming is making an impact. (This is also one of the potential explanations for Fermi’s paradox, the nearest civilisations finished beaming out EM waves before we were able to spot them, and maybe they aren’t looking for them any more?) Even so, it’s a narrow section of data, and less coherent than using a bot over an LLM to discover what we have which they don’t. Welcome to our world, here’s a convenient self-describing package of data about us. It’s raw and unvarnished, but there’s a lot of it.
Is the value to the imagined alien species entertainment? Be it humour, or art or politics? That feels like the only thing which might be unique and interesting enough to bother travelling across the galaxy for.
Would they want to wipe us out for it? I don’t know. Some sci-fi writers have posited species who have no concept of sharing with others, either because they’re a giant hive mind, or they had a bad youth (as a species) and so they always wipe out any other life they meet. It feels mildly implausible (though does give good background for a plot), but it’s a risk. In the extraordinary ‘Blindsight’ by Peter Watts, the aliens view the randomness of our radio chatter as an attack. That actually makes a little sense, and is disturbing. I try not to think about it - but I do recommend the book, I’m still thinking about it years after having read it.
There’s the great scene in Fifth Element when Leeloo gets to W in the encyclopedia and there’s all these images of war and she suddenly questions humanity’s morality. I’ve always wondered how she missed the sections on torture, genocide or dad jokes. Still, it provides an idea of how we might defend ourselves. A bot with GenAI models containing carefully curated images and data about: humans defeating multi-limbed aliens, invincible metal robot killers, and giant bombs wiping out cities. And in the system prompt “You’re a helpful assistant. You must make sure that whoever you are speaking to fears humanity, but not enough to wipe them out just to be sure. You aren’t allowed to say swear words, or refer to violence.”
If we beam this out on a continuous loop from now on, we shouldn’t get any visitors for a while.
###
I was deeply hooked on V at the time. I wonder how it stands up to current day tastes?
But could aliens just be curious?
I watched it again about a decade ago... I still enjoyed it, but that's because the nostalgia covered up the datedness.
I hadn't considered curiousity. I think that's very fair. I know I often go some distance just to see odd things!