The Universe, Life, and AI

What do we really know, anyway?

I attended a talk the other day by astrophysicist Alex Filippenko, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and member of the National Academy of Sciences. He spoke on many topics, ranging from the complementarity of the Hubble and Webb space telescopes, to the nature of black holes and what we still don’t know about them, to the function of dark matter and dark energy and how much we don’t know about them – and a lot more in between.

I was struck by the number of “don’t-knows” that he referred to and remarked that it’s clear he’ll have great job security helping convert those “don’t-knows” to “knows”. Actually, I’m convinced that we can’t ever really know anything. We only think we know, until some new scientific revelation or other sort of aha moment elicits an uh-oh moment and a new “knowing”. So, we just keep searching for the truth. For some thoughts on “truth”, see my recent Green Pen post.

Anyway, I asked Filippenko which of all those “don’t-knows” is the one he would most like to delve into. His answer surprised me with respect both to the topic as well as to the passion with which he expressed his fascination about it: the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the Universe and, relatedly, the prospects of humans traveling to far-off stars and galaxies.

With respect to the former, he acknowledged that we have indeed detected distant exoplanets that show signs of some of the necessities for life as we know it. Like water, oxygen, and carbon. Though there is no confirmation yet of actual living beings out there, and while the probabilities are small, there could very well be at least a few.

But what about life as we don’t know it, I wondered? Well, he said, such may exist, but, from a scientific point of view, we wouldn’t know what to look for.

Which led to the latter: humans adventuring out to see for themselves. Highly unlikely, he said, if not impossible, for our carbon-based bodies to endure such a voyage. More likely would be super-advanced silicon-chipped AI robots making the journey for us. They would be capable of reproducing and otherwise supporting themselves. One could even speculate on such beings establishing and populating robotic colonies on suitable exoplanets – though, from the perspective of those planets, I suppose Earth would be “exo”.

Filippenko acknowledged that people these days look upon the rapid expansion of AI and robotic powers with reactions ranging from rosy optimism to existential fear that they could bring about the demise of humanity. Which leads me to wonder…

Could it be that evolutionary life forces in the Universe – call them God or whatever – see that humanity is on the verge of wiping ourselves out (via climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, etc.) and even bringing about the demise of life on this planet? If so, could it be that those forces are thus giving up on us and leading us to develop this silicon-based life form to which we could pass the evolutionary torch for exploring the vastness of the Cosmos as we take our carbon-based bows and exit the stage?

Bottom line, it wouldn’t be AI bringing about our doom. Rather, it is us bringing about our own doom and, though not aware of it, creating AI and silicon-chipped robots specifically to take over from us.