B Should we search for non-biological "life"?

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The discussion centers on the potential for searching for non-biological life, specifically extraterrestrial AI, alongside traditional searches for biological life. Participants highlight the advancements in AI technology and the philosophical implications of defining "life," noting that AI could exhibit self-replicating characteristics similar to biological entities. The conversation also touches on the challenges of detecting AI versus biological life, suggesting that radio signals may not provide clear distinctions between the two. Concerns are raised about the implications of advanced AI potentially existing in the universe and the risks it may pose. Overall, the dialogue emphasizes the need to broaden the criteria for what constitutes life in astrobiology.
  • #31
SciencewithDrJ said:
I am very interested in Astrobiology and just came across this 7-year old abstract by Seth Shostak (of SETI):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576510002195

There is a lot of emphasis on searching for biological life outside of our solar system, especially with the abundance of "habitable zone exoplanets" discovered by Kepler.

But in view of projections that we will be able to assemble self propagating AI here on Earth in the coming few decades, wouldn't it be possible that our search may well be for extraterrestrial AI in addition to search for biological life? And if so, what would we look for, if not for biochemical signature of life?

Not much. Digital objects are very cheap to maintain, because they don't need to raise their body temperature, they don't need to eat or drink or whatever, all they need is a small amount of electricity, which will go to an extremely efficient and tiny processor. So not very much.

On the plus side however, digital lifeforms cna leave a footprint that biological life can't in space - via magnetic waves. Not that they'd be sizeable enough to notice, but they will exist, unlike biological life in space which will be sealed shut.

Also the idea that digital life would evolve independent of biological is rather, rather unlikely. Metal doesn't magically organize itself into very complicated and dense objects, not to an astronomical probability. So you'll probably find both, or if not both, the sign of the biological life along with the latter.

But as an aside on the AI topic, I would be very cautious, because as well all know, that is not actually Mozart's orchestra playing in the speaker when we play a composition. It is a replica. What I think is extremely likely and scary is that we will create a replica AI, which will behave like a human, but have no internal consciousness, partly because it's not housed in a single celled organism, it's housed on hard drives, in and out of memory, on electrons. Pinpointing the physical location of the AI is problematic enough, designing an actual AI versus a glorified chat bot is going to be the really hard thing.
 
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  • #32
Anon1000 said:
What I think is extremely likely and scary is that we will create a replica AI, which will behave like a human, but have no internal consciousness,

Thank you for the great insight. Wouldn't this AI be able to "modify" its future generations to higher sophistication, so that even though there is no natural mutation as is the case in DNA molecules, it may still self "mutate" by designing and assembling variants of its "ancestral" design?
 
  • #33
Thread closed temporarily for Moderation...
 
  • #34
Thread locked - due to speculation. Please do not "guess" and theorize, use real research based citation with peer reviewed journals if possible