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The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future :
http://www.rael.org
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Rael's comment: As I said in my 2002 speech at the Las Vegas
Happiness Academy: “Why not imagine that the Elohim I met had
actually reached a higher level of science? And that they downloaded
themselves into a computer where they all enjoy eternal life
together, as some human scientists hypothesize we will do soon? When
they wish to, they download themselves back into biological
entities, who either go on to create life elsewhere or take their
messages to prophets, so as to guide them toward love and science.
And I add another element today:
"Why not also imagine that the most advanced beings in the
universe have interconnected computer networks? These networks are
spread over numerous planets, so the advanced beings can live
eternally and with a safety feature: Even if one of the planets is
destroyed, the interplanetary network of computers allows the
advanced beings a kind of universal ubiquity. So they are eternal
as well as indestructible, since they are non-localized. We can
even imagine that at this level, all species of the infinite,
whether human or not, reach a kind of universal consciousness in
which they become ‘one’ in this infinite network. By continuously
creating life on new planets, the advanced beings generate an
endless renewal of new beings. They in turn are able to reach that
same level in a process of conscious self-awareness of the
infinite."
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Source:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160922-what-if-the-aliens-we-are-looking-for-are-ai
What if the aliens we are looking for are AI?
The search for extraterrestrial life has so far assumed our
cosmic neighbours are organic. What if we’re dealing with
artificial intelligence?
For more than a century we have been broadcasting our presence to
the cosmos. This year, the faintest signals from the world’s first
major televised event – the Nazi-hosted
1936 Olympics –
will have passed several potentially habitable planets. The first
season of Game of Thrones has already reached the nearest star
beyond our Solar System.
So why hasn’t ET called us back?
There are plenty of obvious answers. Maybe there are no intelligent
space aliens in our immediate cosmic vicinity. Perhaps they have
never evolved beyond unthinking microbial slime or – based on our
transmissions – aliens have concluded it is safer to stay away.
There is, however, another explanation: ET is nothing like us.
One theory is that the aliens that may have created
intelligent algorithms are no longer with us (Credit: iStock)
“If we do find a signal, we shouldn’t expect it’s going to be some
sort of soft squishy protoplasmic alien behind the microphone at the
other end,” says Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for alien-hunting
organisation Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti).
Seti has been actively searching
for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life for more than half a
century. Despite tantalising signals (such as this
recent
one), it has so far drawn a blank. But Shostak believes we
should consider looking to our own future to imagine what aliens
will be like.
“Perhaps the most significant thing we’re doing is to develop our
own successors,” says Shostak. “If we can develop artificial
intelligence within a couple of hundred years of inventing radio,
any aliens we are likely to hear from have very likely gone past
that point.”
The big question is whether the AI goes on to become
conscious and define its own goals and decide it doesn’t need the
biological creatures that developed it – Stuart Clark
“In other words,” he says, “most of the intelligence in the cosmos,
I would venture, is synthetic intelligence and that may disappoint
movie goers who expect little grey guys with big eyeballs, no
clothes, no hair or sense of humour.”
The argument assumes that the creatures who built the first AIs –
grey guys, hyper- intelligent pan-dimensional beings, sentient trees
or whatever – are no longer around.
“Well they might be,” Shostak concedes, “but once you develop
artificial intelligence you can use that to develop the next
generation of thinking thing and so on – within 50 years you not
only have a machine that’s far smarter than all the previous
machines but certainly smarter than all humans put together.”
Anyone expecting the grey-skinned aliens from sci-fi films
may be disappointed (Credit: iStock)
“The big question,” says astronomer and author of the Search for
Earth’s Twin,
Stuart Clark,
“is whether the AI goes on to become conscious and define its own
goals and decide it doesn’t need the biological creatures that
developed it.”
From the self-aware death machines of the
Berserker
booksto the cyborgs of Battlestar Galactica or The Terminator,
science fiction certainly has a rich seam of AIs taking over and
wiping out their inferior biological creators. It is not, however,
necessarily the inevitable path of any technological civilisation.
Artificial Intelligence – truly thinking machines with synthetic
super-brains – may not even be possible.
“It’s very unclear to me that this is inevitably going to happen,”
says Clark. “But the key point is we are looking for something we
imagine to be a bit like us and we’re limiting the search as a
result.”
Seti could be looking for ET in the wrong place
Seti uses an array of radio telescope dishes in California to search
for signals. The receivers are aimed at star systems where planets
have been discovered by Earth or space telescopes such as Nasa’s
Kepler observatory. These are
planets which might have liquid oceans and life-supporting
atmospheres – habitats that have made human evolution possible. But
machine intelligences could live anywhere.
“That’s the whole problem,” says Shostak. “Not only could they be
anywhere, it would make sense for them to go to places in the
Universe where there were big sources of energy – if you’re going to
do a lot of thinking, a lot of energy helps so maybe that’s the
place to look.”
If this is the case, then Seti could be looking for ET in the wrong
place. “Instead of having their own fields of radio telescopes,”
says Clark, “maybe that money would be better spent equipping every
observatory with piggyback equipment that looks at every signal
that’s been received and look for repeating patterns.”
Should we be sending signals as well as listening for them?
(Credit: iStock)
Whether every observatory would agree to host a Seti sensor is a
matter for debate. The technology might, however, reveal some other
surprising astronomical discovery. We now know that pulsars are
rapidly rotating neutron stars. When
Jocelyn
Bell discovered the first of these oscillating signals in
1967, only half-jokingly did the University of Cambridge team label
it LGM1 for Little Green Men.
In the short term, Seti is likely to continue its search for life on
Earth-like planets. “But,” says Shostak, “over the course of time if
we can come up with some ideas of where you might find synthetic
intelligence, I think they’ll be more and more experiments aimed at
doing that.”
Another approach would be to broadcast messages from Earth to target
regions of the cosmos. It is a controversial strategy that Stephen
Hawking has warned could leave the Earth vulnerable to attack and
exploitation. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how
intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to
meet,”
he warned in
2010.
So are we any closer to discovering whether we are the
lone intelligence – AI or not – in the Universe?
“I don’t agree,” Shostak says. “But Seti has no broadcasting
capability and the other thing about broadcasting is that even if
you do it, it might be a very long time before you get a response –
depending how close the aliens are.”
So are we any closer to discovering whether we are the lone
intelligence – AI or not – in the Universe? “I don’t think you can
ever say there’s nothing there, you can’t prove that negative,”
Shostak says. “What you can say is that there’s something wrong with
our approach so, for me, it’s very, very early days to think about
giving up.”
Clark agrees. “I think Seti should generalise its search as much as
possible,” he says. “An answer to ‘yes there’s intelligent life in
the Universe’ has profound implications for us and that alone
qualifies Seti to carry on.”