The aim of this post is to present a hypothetical future scenario that challenges some of our basic assumptions and intuitions about our place in the cosmos.
Hypothetical future scenario: Earth-descendant probes
Imagine a future scenario in which AI progress continues, and where the ruling powers on Earth eventually send out advanced AI-driven probes to explore other star systems. The ultimate motives of these future Earth rulers may be mysterious and difficult to grasp from our current vantage point, yet we can nevertheless understand that their motives — in this hypothetical scenario — include the exploration of life forms that might have emerged or will emerge elsewhere in the universe. (The fact that there are already projects aimed at sending out (much less advanced) probes to other star systems is arguably some evidence of the plausibility of this future scenario.)
Such exploration may be considered important by these future Earth rulers for a number of reasons, but a prominent reason they consider it important is that it helps inform their broader strategy for the long-term future. By studying the frequency and character of nascent life elsewhere, they can build a better picture of the long-run future of life in the universe. This includes gaining a better picture of where and when these Earth descendants might eventually encounter other species — or probes — that are as advanced as themselves, and not least what these other advanced species might be like in terms of their motives and their propensities toward conflict or cooperation.
The Earth-descendant probes will take an especially strong interest in life forms that are relatively close to matching their own, functionally optimized level of technological development. Why? First of all, they wish to ensure that the ascending civilizations do not come to match their own level of technological sophistication, which the Earth-descendant probes will eventually take steps to prevent so as to not lose their power and influence over the future. Second, they will study ascending civilizations because what takes place at that late “sub-optimized” stage may be particularly informative for estimating the nature of the fully optimized civilizations that the Earth-descendant probes might encounter in the future (at least the late sub-optimized stage of development seems more informative than does earlier stages of life where comparatively less change happens over time).
From the point of view of these distant life forms, the Earth-descendant probes are almost never visible, and when they occasionally are, they appear altogether mysterious. After all, the probes represent a highly advanced form of technology that the distant life forms do not yet understand, much less master, and the potential motives behind the study protocols of these rarely appearing probes are likewise difficult to make sense of from the outside. Thus, the distant life forms are being studied by the Earth-descendant probes without having any clear sense of their zoo-like condition.
Back to Earth
Now, what is the point of this hypothetical scenario? One point I wish to make is that this is not an absurd or unthinkable scenario. There are, I submit, no fantastical or unbelievable steps involved here, and we can hardly rule out that some version of this scenario could play out in the future. This is obviously not to say that it is the most likely future scenario, but merely that something like this scenario seems fairly plausible provided that technological development continues and eventually expands into space (perhaps around 1 percent likely?).
But what if we now make just one (theoretically) small change to this scenario such that Earth is no longer the origin of the advanced probes in question, but instead one of the perhaps many planets that are being visited and studied by advanced probes that originated elsewhere in the universe? Essentially, we are changing nothing in the scenario above, except for swapping which exact planet Earth happens to be.
Given the structural equivalence of these respective scenarios, we should hardly consider the swapped scenario to be much less plausible. Sure, we know for a fact that life has arisen on Earth, and hence the projection that Earth-originating life might eventually give rise to advanced probes is not entirely speculative. Yet there is a countervailing consideration that suggests that — conditional on a scenario equivalent to the one described above occurring — Earth is unlikely to be the first planet to give rise to advanced space probes, and is instead more likely to be observed by probes from elsewhere.
The reason is simply that Earth is but one planet, whereas there are many other planets from which probes could have been sent to study Earth. For example, in a scenario in which a single civilization creates advanced probes that eventually go out and explore, say, a thousand other planets with life at roughly our stage of development (observed at different points in time), we would have a 1 in 1,001 chance of being that first, exploring civilization — and a 1000 in 1,001 chance of being an observed one, under this assumed scenario. Likewise, even if the exploring civilization in this kind of scenario only ever visits, say, two other planets with life at roughly our stage, we would still be more likely to be among the observed ones than the first one (2 in 3 versus 1 in 3). Thus, whatever probability we assign to the hypothetical future scenario in which Earth-descendant space probes observe other life forms at roughly our stage, we should arguably assign a greater probability to a scenario in which we are being observed by similar such probes.
Nevertheless, I think many of us will intuitively think just the opposite, namely that the scenario involving Earth-descendant probes observing others seems far more plausible than the scenario in which we are currently being observed by foreign probes. Indeed, many of us intuitively find the foreign-probes scenario to be quite ridiculous. (That is also largely the attitude that is expressed in leading scholarly books on the Fermi paradox, with scant justification.)
Yet this complete dismissal is difficult to square with the apparent plausibility — or at least the non-ridiculousness — of the “Earth-descendant probes observing others” scenario, as well as the seemingly greater plausibility of the foreign probe scenario compared to the “Earth-descendant probes observing others” scenario. There appears to be a breakdown of the transitivity of plausibility and ridiculousness at the level of our intuitions.
What explains this inconsistency?
I can only speculate on what explains this apparent inconsistency, but I suspect that various biases and cultural factors are part of the explanation.
For example, wishful thinking could well play a role: we may better like a scenario in which Earth’s descendants will be the most advanced species in the universe, compared to a scenario in which we are a relatively primitive and feeble party without any unique influence over the future. This could in turn cause us to ignore or downplay any considerations that speak against our preferred beliefs. And, of course, apart from our relative feebleness, being observed by an apparently indifferent superpower that does not intervene to prevent even the most gratuitous suffering would seem like bad news as well.
Perhaps more significantly, there is the force of cultural sentiment and social stigma. Most of us have grown up in a culture that openly ridicules the idea of an extraterrestrial presence around Earth. Taking that idea seriously has effectively been just another way of saying that you are a dumb-dumb (or worse), and few of us want to be seen in that way. For the human mind, that is a pressure so strong that it can move continents, and even block mere open-mindedness.
Given the unreasonable effectiveness of such cultural forces in schooling our intuitions, many of us intuitively “just know” in our bones that the idea of an extraterrestrial presence around Earth is ridiculous, with little need to invoke actual cogent reasons.
To be clear, my point here is not that we should positively believe in such a foreign presence, but merely that we may need to revise our intuitive assessment of this possibility, or at least question whether our intuitions and our level of open-mindedness toward this possibility are truly well-grounded.
Magnus Vinding 