Send AI into space to spread human secrets to aliens, scientists urge – but is it worth the risk?

A giant beep for humanity.

Scientists have proposed a radical new method for sniffing out possible alien life on other planets – send artificial intelligence into space and see if any little green men react.

The sci-fi-worthy suggestion — reminiscent of Netflix’s hit show “3 Body Trouble” — was recently laid out in an essay published by Scientific American.

“After 40 years of serious research, we have not found such ET intelligence and our messages remain unanswered,” Frank Marchis, director of citizen science at the Research Institute for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Ignacio G. López-Francos, a director. wrote the NASA research engineer.

“We cannot conclude that we are alone in the galaxy, given its vastness and our nascent research efforts. It may be time to fundamentally rethink our approach,” the pair said.

The time may be ripe to sneak into space DMs – now that distinct signs of life on very Earth-like exoplanets have been observed and confirmed.

The two experts suggested that previous attempts to separate Earth’s culture from the great unknown have been too subtle — most notably a Bach piece set on the Voyager probe’s “Golden Record” in 1977.

Instead, modern alien exploration seeks “something more meaningful.”

Their answer is to develop a language learning model like ChatGPT (LLM) in a format that will be defined for extraterrestrials to easily engage, ask questions and learn about our world.

“This would allow extraterrestrial civilizations to indirectly talk to us and learn about us without being hindered by the vast distances of space and the corresponding delays of human life in communication,” wrote the forward-thinking duo.

“Aliens can learn one of our languages, ask LLM questions about us, and get answers that are representative of humanity,” they said.

The pair suggest a space laser over radio waves for a simple reason – the former is “wide and slow” compared to “directive and fast”.

“It would generate not only text, but also images and sounds,” the authors write. “Its content, personality and tone should be determined by scholars, philosophers, historians and other experts to represent humanity at large.”

Just getting to our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, would take around 100 years – but the pair have a plan for that too.

Limiting LLM in space to just the essentials would cut the travel time to less than 20 years as “a feasible project for humanity”.

However, the minds of science are not ignorant of the greatest possible vulnerabilities – helping to destroy us at the hands of an informed and advanced alien species that suddenly knows how to exploit our many weaknesses.

“This is a radical and potentially dangerous idea because unfriendly aliens could misuse this information,” they wrote, recalling countless fictional accounts of similar scenarios.

“However, it’s a discussion worth starting, given the recent findings.”