: Thanks to read Sam

: *****************************

: Aliens will send robotic 'probes' to explore other solar
: systems and bring back samples.

: Sam

:
: http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-alien-life-will-be-robotic

: This September, a team of astronomers noticed that the light
: from a distant star is flickering in a highly irregular
: pattern.1 They considered the possibility that comets,

: debris, and impacts could account for their observations,
: but each of these explanations was unlikely to varying
: degrees.2 What their paper didn’t explore, but they and
: others are beginning to speculate, is that the flickering
: might be caused by enormous structures built by an advanced
: civilization—whether the light might be evidence of ET.

: In thinking about this possibility, or other similarly
: suggestive evidence of extraterrestrial life, an image of
: an alien creature might come to mind—something green,
: perhaps, or with tentacles or eye stalks. But in this we
: are probably mistaken. I would argue that any positive
: identification of ET will very likely not originate from
: organic or biological life (as Paul Davies has also
: argued), but from machines.

: Few doubt that machines will gradually surpass more and more
: of our distinctively human capabilities—or enhance them via
: cyborg technology. Disagreements are basically about the
: timescale: the rate of travel, not the direction of travel.
: The cautious amongst us envisage timescales of centuries
: rather than decades for these transformations. Be that as
: it may, the timescales for technological advance are but an
: instant compared to the timescales of the Darwinian
: selection that led to humanity’s emergence—and (more
: relevantly) they are less than a millionth of the vast
: expanses of time lying ahead. So the outcomes of future
: technological evolution will surpass humans by as much as
: we (intellectually) surpass a bug.

: Non-biological “brains” may develop insights as far beyond our
: imaginings as string theory is for a mouse.

: There are, after all, chemical and metabolic limits to the
: size and processing power of “wet” organic brains. Maybe
: we’re close to these already. It is remarkable that our
: brains, which have changed little since our ancestors
: roamed the African savannah, have allowed us to understand
: the counterintuitive worlds of the quantum and the cosmos.
: But there is no reason to think that our comprehension is
: matched to an understanding of all key features of reality.
: Scientific frontiers are advancing fast, but we may
: sometime “hit the buffers.” There may be phenomena crucial
: to our long-term destiny that we are not aware of, any more
: than a monkey comprehends the nature of stars and galaxies.

: But no such limits constrain silicon-based computers (still
: less, perhaps, quantum computers): For these, the potential
: for further development could be as dramatic as the
: evolution from monocellular organisms to humans. By any
: definition of “thinking,” the amount and intensity that’s
: done by organic human-type brains will be utterly swamped
: by the cerebrations of AI. Abstract thinking by biological
: brains has underpinned the emergence of all culture and
: science. But this activity—spanning tens of millennia at
: most—will be a brief precursor to the more powerful
: intellects of the inorganic post-human era.

: This will be especially true in space, which is a hostile
: place for biological intelligence. The Earth’s biosphere,
: in which organic life has symbiotically evolved, is not a
: constraint for advanced AI. Indeed it is far from
: optimal—interplanetary and interstellar space will be the
: preferred arena where robotic fabricators will have the
: grandest scope for construction, and where non-biological
: “brains” may develop insights as far beyond our imaginings
: as string theory is for a mouse.

: Consider the development of human space exploration. During
: this century, the entire solar system—planets, moons, and
: asteroids—will be explored by flotillas of tiny robotic
: craft. The next step would be the deployment of large-scale
: robotic fabricators, which can construct and assemble large
: structures in space (and fabrication in space will be a
: better use of materials mined from asteroids or the moon
: than bringing them back to Earth). The Hubble Telescope’s
: successors, with huge gossamer-thin mirrors assembled under
: zero gravity, will further expand our vision of stars,
: galaxies, and the wider cosmos.