Update to Fermi's Paradox: Where are the alien computers?

Suppose self-replicating ET robots advancing in a wave were considered, by galactic civilizations, to be Weapons Of Mass Destruction and hence were banned, and perpetrators punished?

Really, The Mother Of All BotNets---bad juju.

greetings! fellow gentlebeings and neverborn, in this simulation you may observe a bipedal species that exhibits a high degree of curiosity, intelligence and innovation. attributes that have influenced your races during that enlightened era of your past when all of you learned to transcend beyond mere existence and survival of the organism into what you have become now. these bipedals, who call themselves humans, don't seem to be lacking in those characteristics. so we were quite puzzled by the results of our observation because based on the data available to us, these humans would have deserved a place amongst us if not for several factors that they've seemed to impose on themselves and which, as can be seen in their case, seem to be handicaps.

you see, these humans are actively going against everything we know about species/hive mentality in that they've created a concept of a value system that limits the participation of individuals for the betterment of their species by creating an artificial strata that defines what each individual is able to do, accomplish and contribute. this idea of money, this being the name of the value system that they have, actively prevents their populace from benefiting from and contributing to the discovery process of new technologies. how can they grow as an intelligent race when they haven't even met another equivalent yet? and how can they meet their equivalents in the neighborhood when the social constructs called corporations and companies continue to uphold the importance and righteousness of their money-based logic?

another of their handicaps is this creature called religion, but i don't want to discuss that one 'coz it just gives my processing nodes a terrible pain...

It could be that there are insurmountable technical obstacles to developing safe (i.e. friendly) machine super intelligences.

Or it could be that rather than expand out into the cosmos, it is wiser to try to avoid being detected due to the risk of encountering another alien super intelligence. It is easy to imagine that various super intelligences will posses incompatible goal systems, and that an encounter between them could result in terrible, widespread chaos.

But if you (as a race) just sit around trying to avoid detection, you are eventually going to be discovered anyway. And because the others will have expanded aggressively, they will have radically greater resources at their disposal. You are not likely to survive a conflict with them. So, I think it is rational to aggressively expand into the cosmos, wiping out all other sources of possible competition, rather than wait around until someone else does it first. (I think this may be related to the prisoner's dilemma.)

If the race to supremacy has already been won by someone, then the galaxy rather than teaming with life may have been virtually sterilized. Perhaps we don't detect this super aggressive agency because, having attained near absolute physical supremacy, they can afford to suspend their activities until a new threat is detected. They couldn't remain active indefinitely, expanding without reason, before exhausting all available resources. I think once the intelligence on earth is detected, we should see the galaxy wake up all around us in response to this newly discovered threat. We will then be quickly exterminated, before the galaxy goes back to sleep.

I absolutely love this conundrum and can even add the fractal nature of reality to it

Originally posted by Signals
It could be proof we are the FIRST intelligent species in the Universe.

Sad, but actually possible...

ya but not probable.

i don't know but what would happen to the net if all the comps went down for 1000 years?


can we hook back into it? could there be an alien net out there we don't know about?


eta; don't forget this is our first net.

we ain't got to 2.0 yet.

S+F awesome read, really got me thinking!

reply to post by kristobal


hm.. dark matter? Maybe there is in fact no paradox, and by now, 83 % of the matter in the universe is already converted into "computronium".

reply to post by Orkojoker


The Simms 3

2nd

more importantly where is the alien ai?

it has come to my understanding that the aliens are ai,artificialy intelligent.
some alien civilisations are billions of years old imagine the ai that would form out of such an ancient civ.

Originally posted by Signals
It could be proof we are the FIRST intelligent species in the Universe.

Sad, but actually possible...

What makes you believe we are an intelligent species? Our history would say otherwise.

If you think about it humans are very much like machines - just re-creating biological machines. So if you think about an advanced machine, it's going to be one which recreates itself and can make or produce it's own energy.
So I would think advanced alien computers would be a lot like humans.

What is intelligence but a gathering of information...?
What is computation, but the speed at which that information is processed for use in either understanding or manipulating the physical world...

Now apply an infinit exponential to both...not just to computers, but the entire races technological advancements and capabilities...
After all, science covers many fields...

I think we can see that all it might possibly take is one brain bearing race in the cosmos to survive the flash point of self destruction in it's technological evolution, (where we are), to eventually produce a singularly significant cosmic intelligence and technology.

Technology, after all, in it's most basic view, attempts to place "handles" on aspects of our reality, that we may manipulate said aspects to our advantage...

Aspects such as scarcity of energy, food etc... Also aspects such as climate, biology, chemistry...longevity?
Isn't time also an aspect of our reality?
The infinitive applied to technolgy seems to suggest that all aspects of our reality, will eventually be mastered...including time...eventually...

All it takes is one race, remember...

Mastery of time manipulation, coupled with advanced technological immortality will give supernal manipulative power and control over any beings so not endowed...

It is my belief and hope that Humanity...Our brothers and sisters of the future, already have this aspect under supervision, and we are very likely, (being their past), like saaay a national "reserved and protected in time" heritage zone...or somping?





All it takes...is one brain bearing race to begin the infinities...

reply to post by kristobal


I really find this discussion intriguing. Thanks for the post.
Some things I would like to put out there.
First, people do everything they do because they have some concept of improving their lives or the lives of their loved ones. This means that capitalism is almost certainly going to be the rule in any alien economy - it makes sense from a survival standpoint. The higher producers are rewarded with a higher standard of living and a higher chance of procreation. Look at this way. Suppose the increased computational power of our computers allows us to selectively augment our DNA in such a way that a group of people is capable of living for an indefinite period of time. Applying this kind of technology to the entire Earth would be catastrophic. So, what is done with those who are not augments? Looking at our past as Homo Sapiens Sapiens I would note that there are no Homo Neanderthalensis, no Homo Floresiensis, no anything else.
Second, if the same path is common in the universe as a whole we are likely to come up against alien races with a competitive nature that makes ours look down right gentlemanly. Remember, if they can get here first they are going to be quite a ways further into the paradox than we are. This is a bad thing for us.
Third, suppose that the Liberals on this discussion board have their concepts of shared wealth, shared society, and other such 'ideals' realized in an alien society that arrives here. Again, that is bad for us. The reason is that any thought of maintaining our own culture, our own destiny is invalid within the theology of socialism espoused by the alien race. All I can think of as an analogy is the Borg from the later Star Trek series. You will be assimilated.

So my girlfriend is gaining about 5% of her total body weight every month, so does that mean that eventually she'll be bigger than our house? No, because there are any number of logistical problems that would arise, like health, food supply, money for food. There's got to be limits, but with promising areas such as biological computers and quantum computers, they still have the potential to get ridiculously powerful.

When machines get that complex, I think it's safe to assume they can program matter, perhaps even biological lifeforms. For all we know, that's what all our junk DNA is, code from the supercomputer. It wouldn't need to micromanage our every decision and action, but would likely operate on scales of time that are unimaginable to us, and over time we fulfill our designated purpose as an species.

Plus there's always stories about the Greys being biological robots. That story alone pretty much refutes the Fermi Paradox right there, or at least as much as it's possible to refute this kind of topic.

reply to post by MarksThoughts


Capitalism works in a situation where scarcity is imposed.
In an automated and near infinitly advanced society, it would be likely that no "thing" would be scarce; energy or any other neccesity for continued exsistance.

In fact, with all scarcity needs overcome, there would be few "precious" occupations to persue, and activity would very likely be concerned with creating and shepherding new intelligent/self-aware species..."children" if you will...

I would also assume that in a near infinitivly advanced technology, space for growth would have been dealt with.
The size of our cosmos alone would suggest that there is plenty of room for beings our... size?

I believe there comes a point in this endless progression where consciousness reaches this level of supernal mastery of the universe, and it is at this point where the second test of survival occures.

It is my belief that once you have mastered scarcity along with such things as time and space; once you can manufacture, or in some way conjure, anything your heart desires; once you are president over an entire newborn race of sentient beings...
It is then where the practice of benevolence or malevolence will determine your end path of either unity with the source or disolution in entropy...
Examples would indicate that malevolent beings destroy themselves from within or by opposition from without.
In either case it is but a sampling of the trend towards ultimate disolution.

Benevolent beings would IMO most likely take up a shepherding role, (shepherding is an act of "bringing together" or unity), and not interfere, (well..not too much anyway), in the burgeoning sentient culture...

Kinda sorta whats going on now?

reply to post by kristobal


If our technology advances at that rate we will be looking at the "Terminator" senario, we will all be running from robots.

On the alien side of things, if you think about the number of planets in our solar system then how many solar systems there are in the universe this alone shows that there must be life somewhere else. Im not saying "intelligence" but just simple bacteria life.

There are chances there there is intelligent life out there that is the same as us, with the same technology, and they could be developing this technology at the same rate as us so this being said we will find them when they find us.

reply to post by kristobal


Dear kristobal

I heard about this a while ago now, very interesting. We and the whole universe are no more than zeros and ones in a future supper computer.

I just love it.

You do relies that if true it makes everything work, GOD, computer tech.

Pares work.

The Christians hate the idea. Makes me love it even more.

I'm just going to say this, off topic and all. Threads like this are the reason I spend time in this cesspool filled with ignorance. Outstanding discussion, and excellent thought provoking material.

I have more to say about this that is on topic, but I have so much going through my mind when I think about this I can't boil it down to something intelligible yet, lol. GREAT THREAD!!!!!!!!!

reply to post by kristobal


I found this thread so interesting that I had to make an account and reply. While I can see that the discussion is gravitating away from the concept of Moore's Law, I just felt like I must say that Moore's Law will NOT continue. I remember reading an article in the Computer Science building on campus that Gordon Moore said that he regretted coming up with Moore's Law and does not want to be remembered for it. I also remember hearing though I cannot remember where that we will hit a technological plateau, and that the current generation will be frustrated with the lack of advancement while their children will be complacent with it.

Originally posted by darkbooty
reply to post by kristobal

 

I found this thread so interesting that I had to make an account and reply. While I can see that the discussion is gravitating away from the concept of Moore's Law, I just felt like I must say that Moore's Law will NOT continue. I remember reading an article in the Computer Science building on campus that Gordon Moore said that he regretted coming up with Moore's Law and does not want to be remembered for it. I also remember hearing though I cannot remember where that we will hit a technological plateau, and that the current generation will be frustrated with the lack of advancement while their children will be complacent with it.

If Moor's Law had been met with single cores, we would be well past 15GHz right now. CPU's would have overheated so they produced multi-core systems. Unfortunately, software has not mastered multi-core architecture quite yet and a lot of the older software does not use it at all. But it has great potential. Not too long ago IBM unveiled an 80-core processor that used the energy of a light bulb. It was very impressive. A sign of things to come.

Thing is, we will be making some processing leaps over the next several years as new technologies emerge and software improves. I would not be suprised if we're all swallowing our words in 10 years. While I also doubt that Moor's Law will hold into the indefinite future, I have little to no doubt that we will be able to produce computers that outdo the brain within 10 to 20 years. And that's incredible. Consider that computers these days can perform calculations in a single day that would require millions of scientists all across the world performing them for an entire lifetime. Being able to process as much information as a brain is not as important as WHAT YOU DO WITH IT, as we're proving today with modern processors.

Here's some links about up and coming technologies and research:
www.gizmag.com ...
spectrum.ieee.org ...

This is just scratching the surface. Anybody hoping that this advancement over the past 20 years would stop are in for some bad news. The progress is not stopping. In fact, it's moving so fast that the only thing holding it back are the very people saying it will stop. The type that refuse to admit that the internet is changing the world in ways they cannot even begin to comprehend.

We all get old. No need to feel ashamed. I watched my grandpa get old and die. I watched my parents become seniors. I watched my mother die. I watch as I age and slowly slip away...

Computers are not a silver bullet. I have no doubt we could go for a thousand years with computers that outperform a brain yet still not ever reach that fantastic singularity people speak of. Singularitans don't realize that culture and civilization move at a snails pace. We have all of these incredible resources in front of us but we ourselves are unwilling to change and unable to comprehend. More than likely, if there is any kind of singularity, there'll be a war and a faction of the humans will leave forever and the rest of us will be left here fighting over what's left and having hawt sex and burning books and forgetting whatever the hell singularity meant.

We live in a world where men have walked on the moon and yet still live in the jungle.

As for the universe, it's a complicated topic. I don't really have time for it. My next post.