Here are my optimistic Friday afternoon thoughts on aliens and the eleventy hojillion dollar asteroids. Probably none of this is unique to me, but I've not read it yet so feel free to link me someone who's put this better:
Conversation
Have been thinking about how these assumptions might interact -
1. An intelligence explosion is a thing that can happen if AI development gets away from its researchers
2. Intelligent alien civilisations exist
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If you take both to be true, then an intelligent alien civilisation that has the capability has an interest in coating the galaxy in cheap autonomous drones that can illuminate the dark forest and keep surveillance on what up and coming primitive planets are doing
If it is fairly easy to accidentally create an intelligence explosion and create a runaway paperclip maximiser that starts converting the broader galaxy into x, y or z - then an intelligent alien civilisation has an interest in strangling other races in their cradle before that
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So from our perspective - either we are close to inventing AGI and we should expect intervention very shortly, or we aren’t close at all, or intelligent alien civilisation do not exist
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