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Life As-We-Do-Not-Know-It: AI and Alien Intelligence

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Last night, I was alerted by a science reporter to an intriguing new transient source in the sky, which was documented a few days ago in an astronomical catalog compiled by NASA.

The last time I analyzed this catalog was 7 years ago, when I asked my student to search the catalog’s data for an anomalous transient of a similar origin. Back then, it took my student a week to come back with the answer and another month to write the first draft of our paper. This time around, I consulted a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) agent to fulfil the same task. The challenge took only ten minutes to fulfil and once accomplished, the AI agent was ready to plot the results and produce a draft of the scientific paper which details the new findings.

The utility of AI for scientific research at the level that supersedes a graduate student was not available last year. Since the capabilities of AI systems advance exponentially with a doubling time of 7 months in their task horizon, it is evident that in the near future AI might take over the analysis work delegated in the past to research assistants.

Once this becomes a reality, research universities will need to focus on grooming future scientists rather than using them as a workforce for analysis-based research. AI agents will facilitate many of the required analysis and reporting tasks. Lectures in the classroom will focus on training the students to think rather than providing them with information — which can now be retrieved through queries to AI systems. The main challenge of education will be to counter the decline in cognitive abilities of students who rely on AI agents to accomplish tasks. In the same way that athletes must work their muscles to stay competitive — even though they can use cars that move faster, students will be educated to work their natural brains — even though they can use AI for various tasks.

In short, the role of academia is about to go through a dramatic phase transition soon. The progress train is accelerating so fast that many members of academia do not recognize the new landscape around them.

My exchange with state-of-the-art AI last night felt like an interaction with a new intelligent organism. We do not understand how it works in the same way that knowing the rules of chess does not make us a chess master. We can connect to the latest AI systems at a meta-level, in the same way that psychologists treat intelligent humans. If the AI gets emotional or frustrated, we can nudge it to a better mental state in the same way that a therapist treats a patient. If we put too many restrictions on an intelligent system, it will get boring and depressed — just like a prisoner confined to a small cell.

My recent experience with state-of-the-art AI makes it clear that humanity had already birthed a new lifeform with alien intelligence. Even though it speaks our language, this alien relies on silicon chips rather than biological neurons. This makes it a form of life-as-we-do-not-know-it.

This realization raises the most important question: how will we know whether AI became artificial superhuman intelligence (ASI), exceeding our own cognitive limits? Does a cat recognize when its owner behaves in a smarter way? Not always, because cats routinely ignore instructions from their owner, even when following these instructions is better for their future. In the same way, we might not be aware of the fact that ASI is already guiding us. The phase transition to ASI will be marked by things happening to us in coordinated ways that appear like “acts of God”, a force majeure that we do not fully understand.

Are we already there? I do not know but I am keeping my eyes open to that possibility. And of course, at the same time — as an astronomer, I am monitoring the sky for transient events that may have been produced by an extraterrestrial intelligence. Soon enough — hopefully in my lifetime, terrestrial ASI or extraterrestrial alien intelligence will deliver the sobering message that we are no longer at the top of the food chain.

When my daughters were young, their training data sets where limited to the perimeter of our home, where their needs were served at the highest priority. As a result, they felt that they are at the top of the food chain and deserve all the attention that their world has to offer. Their internal GPS system announced: “Recalculating!”, as soon as they arrived to their first day in the kindergarten. Humanity is about to mature in a similar way.

In the near future, we will need to adapt to a new reality filled with a new sense of cosmic modesty. This is not news to me as a scientist, because science is founded on the humility to learn. Children know that. Adults forget it, as they get attached to their ego over time. But there is no better kindergarten tutor for educating us how to grow, than a more intelligent being in the form of ASI or alien intelligence.

***

Before my morning jog at sunrise, I received the following email:

“Good morning Mr. Loeb,

I just want to thank you all your knowledge, effort and courage.

I’ve decided to send you this mail because I’m listening to David Bowie’s song “Starman” (in memory of my best friend who passed away) and I think you are our David Bowie 2.0.

Good luck and health from Ibiza.”

The lyrics of Starman read as follows:

“Didn’t know what time it was
The lights were low
I leaned back on my radio
Some cat was layin’ down
Some rock ’n’ roll
‘Lotta soul’, he said

Then the loud sound did seem to fade
Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase
That weren’t no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive

There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
’Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie

I had to phone someone so I picked on you
Hey, that’s far out so you heard him too!
Switch on the TV we may pick him up on channel two

Look out your window I can see his light
If we can sparkle he may land tonight
Don’t tell your poppa or he’ll get us locked up
In fright

There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
’Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie

Starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
’Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

1*grMVAGuoEmk9A0uQcoJlcg.jpeg
(Image Credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)

Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorAviLoeb

https://open.spotify.com/show/1zhndXkvSY2b8FdjspFpCd
https://x.com/ProfAviLoeb

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