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Comment: Don't expect ET to look like us
Comment and analysis–
Don’t expect ET to be like us Astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence should cast their net – and their imaginations – a little wider, says Steven J. Dick WE HAVE been hunting for intelligent life in the universe since Frank Drake inaugurated the first modern radio search in 1960. So far, no interstellar communications have been detected, but I have always agreed with the final sentence in Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison’s famous Nature paper of the year before: “The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the chance of success is zero.” I am a fan of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and I served as the official SETI historian before Congress cancelled NASA’s programme in 1993. I disagree with those who say that after almost 50 years we have searched long enough. The truth is, we have searched only the tiniest part of our own galaxy in only a limited frequency range. More to the point: we may have been looking for the wrong thing. SETI scientists are not known for a lack of imagination, but even they may not be thinking big enough. They consistently acknowledge that alien intelligence would likely be older and more advanced than our own, a belief borne out by what we know about the universe. Yet they have done nothing to incorporate this into their search. Instead, they continue to look for biological creatures similar to us – ignoring the likelihood that any intelligence in the universe has evolved beyond biology. It is, of course, impossible to know what advanced ETs might be like, but we can make some educated guesses. Cosmic evolution has three components: astronomical, biological and cultural. While SETI scientists readily recognise the first two, by training and inclination they ignore the third. That’s a problem, because the one thing we know for sure is that civilisations older than ours will have undergone cultural evolution. And as we know from our experience on Earth, the pace of cultural evolution leaves other forms of evolution for dust. The study of terrestrial cultural www.newscientist.com
evolution has made great progress in the last few decades, but it has been controversial – think E. O. Wilson’s sociobiology, Richard Dawkins’s memes, Daniel Dennett’s universal Darwinism, and theories of gene-culture coevolution – and we still don’t have a robust theory. There is no doubt, though, that wherever intelligence exists, cultural evolution takes place. So I propose what I call the “intelligence principle”: that the maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent that intelligence can be improved, it will be improved. Applied to life in the universe, this means that ETs will have sought the best ways to improve their intelligence, and in doing so may long ago have advanced beyond flesh and blood to artificial intelligence (AI). Futurists such as Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil have predicted that a similar transition from biological life to AI will happen here on Earth in only a few generations.
“Extraterrestrials may long ago have advanced beyond flesh and blood to artificial intelligence”
Given these considerations, it seems inevitable that we live in a postbiological universe, and that SETI may not make sense unless we find ways to take cultural evolution seriously. The potential impact on their search is huge. Environmental tolerance and ability to use and create resources beyond the planetary realm means that SETI searches need not be confined to Earth-like planets, or even to planets at all. The intelligence principle renders it unlikely that post-biologicals would wish to communicate with embryonic biologicals such as humans, so we might be reduced to intercepting their communications. The vast disparity in age between biologicals and post-biologicals highlights what has been called the incommensurability problem: the differences between our minds and theirs may be so great that communication is impossible. Admittedly, there are many objections to the post-biological universe scenario. It assumes that intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution. It assumes that strong AI is possible. It assumes that there will be long-term progress in cultural evolution. And it assumes that post-biologicals are themselves not subject to cultural evolution. But the chief weakness of the idea may be that it is not bold enough, perhaps too closely tied to our current world view at the dawn of the computer age. The argument for a post-biological universe is thus not made with deductive rigour. Neither is the argument that ETs exist at all. But given the existence of ETs, the possibility of a post-biological universe requires serious study. It is an opportunity for AI researchers to place their work in a cosmic context. AI and SETI, after all, have a lot in common, starting with their interest in the nature of intelligence – which is itself an important area of research. Informed by AI and cultural evolution studies, SETI can expand its possibilities in new directions, and in its turn, the study of the long-term future of AI can become more than idle speculation. G Steven J. Dick is the NASA chief historian and author of The Biological Universe (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and The Living Universe (Rutgers University Press, 2004) 31 May 2008 | NewScientist | 21
Don’t expect ET to be like us Astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence should cast their net – and their imaginations – a little wider, says Steven J. Dick WE HAVE been hunting for intelligent life in the universe since Frank Drake inaugurated the first modern radio search in 1960. So far, no interstellar communications have been detected, but I have always agreed with the final sentence in Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison’s famous Nature paper of the year before: “The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the chance of success is zero.” I am a fan of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and I served as the official SETI historian before Congress cancelled NASA’s programme in 1993. I disagree with those who say that after almost 50 years we have searched long enough. The truth is, we have searched only the tiniest part of our own galaxy in only a limited frequency range. More to the point: we may have been looking for the wrong thing. SETI scientists are not known for a lack of imagination, but even they may not be thinking big enough. They consistently acknowledge that alien intelligence would likely be older and more advanced than our own, a belief borne out by what we know about the universe. Yet they have done nothing to incorporate this into their search. Instead, they continue to look for biological creatures similar to us – ignoring the likelihood that any intelligence in the universe has evolved beyond biology. It is, of course, impossible to know what advanced ETs might be like, but we can make some educated guesses. Cosmic evolution has three components: astronomical, biological and cultural. While SETI scientists readily recognise the first two, by training and inclination they ignore the third. That’s a problem, because the one thing we know for sure is that civilisations older than ours will have undergone cultural evolution. And as we know from our experience on Earth, the pace of cultural evolution leaves other forms of evolution for dust. The study of terrestrial cultural www.newscientist.com
evolution has made great progress in the last few decades, but it has been controversial – think E. O. Wilson’s sociobiology, Richard Dawkins’s memes, Daniel Dennett’s universal Darwinism, and theories of gene-culture coevolution – and we still don’t have a robust theory. There is no doubt, though, that wherever intelligence exists, cultural evolution takes place. So I propose what I call the “intelligence principle”: that the maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent that intelligence can be improved, it will be improved. Applied to life in the universe, this means that ETs will have sought the best ways to improve their intelligence, and in doing so may long ago have advanced beyond flesh and blood to artificial intelligence (AI). Futurists such as Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil have predicted that a similar transition from biological life to AI will happen here on Earth in only a few generations.
“Extraterrestrials may long ago have advanced beyond flesh and blood to artificial intelligence”
Given these considerations, it seems inevitable that we live in a postbiological universe, and that SETI may not make sense unless we find ways to take cultural evolution seriously. The potential impact on their search is huge. Environmental tolerance and ability to use and create resources beyond the planetary realm means that SETI searches need not be confined to Earth-like planets, or even to planets at all. The intelligence principle renders it unlikely that post-biologicals would wish to communicate with embryonic biologicals such as humans, so we might be reduced to intercepting their communications. The vast disparity in age between biologicals and post-biologicals highlights what has been called the incommensurability problem: the differences between our minds and theirs may be so great that communication is impossible. Admittedly, there are many objections to the post-biological universe scenario. It assumes that intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution. It assumes that strong AI is possible. It assumes that there will be long-term progress in cultural evolution. And it assumes that post-biologicals are themselves not subject to cultural evolution. But the chief weakness of the idea may be that it is not bold enough, perhaps too closely tied to our current world view at the dawn of the computer age. The argument for a post-biological universe is thus not made with deductive rigour. Neither is the argument that ETs exist at all. But given the existence of ETs, the possibility of a post-biological universe requires serious study. It is an opportunity for AI researchers to place their work in a cosmic context. AI and SETI, after all, have a lot in common, starting with their interest in the nature of intelligence – which is itself an important area of research. Informed by AI and cultural evolution studies, SETI can expand its possibilities in new directions, and in its turn, the study of the long-term future of AI can become more than idle speculation. G Steven J. Dick is the NASA chief historian and author of The Biological Universe (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and The Living Universe (Rutgers University Press, 2004) 31 May 2008 | NewScientist | 21