WEBVTT - The Machine Lords of Barnard 68, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.680 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.720 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.760 Rob I wanna ask you a question. I think I've 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:22.560 talked about this on the show before, but now I 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.319 can't quite recall. You've seen the movie adaptation of Carl 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.880 Sagan's Contact, right, Yes, it's been a while. I saw 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.920 it when it came out in theaters and I haven't 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.560 seen it since. Oh wow, that is a long time ago. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.520 But yeah, it's I mean, it's really worth the watch 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.680 that movie. Uh, it always makes me emotional. But like, 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.160 one of the things about it that I always sticks 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.880 in my brain the most is the very opening sequence 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.479 where you you're starting um on Earth and you're pulling 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.240 out away from Earth, and as you get farther away 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.880 out into interstellar space, the signals that you are hearing 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.360 coming from Earth, like you're hearing like radio broadcasts or 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.760 television cast or something, and and it just gets older 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.160 and older because you're you're pulling out to where older 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.360 and older signals are the only ones that have reached 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.440 that far. Yeah, and of course there's this very chilling 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.480 moment where you get really far out there and I 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.680 think you're just getting like a signal of Hitler reading 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.080 a speech or something that's just like, oh god, And 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.200 it really makes you think about what kind of impression 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.640 humanity is making on the broader galaxy. Yeah, I I 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.959 specifically remember this this from the film. Yeah, it makes 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.120 makes quite an impression and makes you, yeah, a little 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:38.600 reflective on the on on human civilization itself. And and 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.199 and if anyone's receiving these signals, anything is receiving these signals, 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.200 what they're picking up on and what their impression is 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.040 going to be of the of human civilization? Yeah, Like, 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.600 what if aliens the only thing they intercepted and had 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:55.480 to go on was a TV edited broadcast of Batman Forever? 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.840 What would they what would they conclude about Earth life? 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.320 That's it's it's a it's a fun game. Uh, And 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.560 it also plays into some fun sci fi to think 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.440 about this. Uh. There's of course the Futurama episode where 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:12.760 it's essentially um, uh, what what was it? Ally mccuh? 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.520 What was the lawyer show, Ally McBeal. Yeah, it's like 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.359 an Ally McBeal s show that was canceled or it's um, 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.200 it's it's a season finale didn't air, or somehow they 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.000 didn't receive it. And that's what the aliens have come 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.519 to Earth in order to to get. They want the 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.040 season finale for this television show. Oh. I think that's 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.400 also sort of the premise of Galaxy Quest, isn't it 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.280 that they see like a Star Trek style show, but 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.640 they think it's a documentary about real life on Earth. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:43.760 that's right now. Of course, radio signals and so forth, 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:45.679 they're not the only things that we have sent out 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.079 into the void. Uh. We of course have sent machines 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.320 as well. And I want us to to think back 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.960 for a second to the Pioneer plaques, the gold anodized 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.120 aluminum plaques attached to the nineteen seventy two Pioneer ten 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.120 and the nineteen any three Pioneer eleven spacecrafts. These were 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.440 the first human made objects to escape velocity from our 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:10.080 Solar System, in the first physical emissaries of Earth life 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.840 and Earth civilization. I think in the years since, they've 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.080 actually been outpaced by the voyager probes in leaving the 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.400 Solar System? Is that right? I think? I believe so 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.440 and there's of course a similar story to tell with 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:25.600 those uh spacecraft as well, but but uh specifically with 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.040 the plaques, because of you know, these were of course machines, 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.840 they were not human beings. They were powered by nuclear batteries, 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.320 they had antenna, uh antenna, they had an assortment of 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.600 scientific equipment on board, so they didn't look like us 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.160 or in any way really represent biological life, except in 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.680 the case of these plaques, which include a number of 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.600 symbols detailing the origin of the spacecraft and then to 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.080 sort of convey you know, you know, human understanding of 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.480 where we are in the Solar System and then the 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.400 larger cosmos. But then also it contained these these now 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.520 iconic depictions of two human beings, a nude male and 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.600 a nude female. Now it's worth noting Carl Sagan regretted 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.800 that the humans on the plaque do not appear pan racial, 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.640 but rather appear very Caucasian. And also the line representing 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.320 the females Volva was removed, so she's kind of like, um, 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.479 like a Barbie doll on this, you know, so they're 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:29.360 not completely anatomically correct, and they seem to only represent 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.680 uh Caucasians as opposed to like a the idea of 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:37.440 representing the broader human species as a whole. Now, one 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.360 of the things that's super interesting about all of this, 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.000 especially given what we're gonna be talking about in this episode, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.960 is that the Pioneer probes and subsequent spacecraft are non 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.320 human machines that merely bear in some cases the inscriptions 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.520 of human beings, be they you know, actual inscriptions or 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.200 media of some sort. Uh. And at the same time, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.400 these are our mechanical works, our machine utterances that are 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.880 cast out into the void. They are us reaching out 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.480 four and two other life forms. Now today, humans maintain 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.159 a small orbital presence, and humans did visit the Moon 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.240 in the previous century, but our outreach continues to take 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.599 the form of these technological utterances. And even though it 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:18.719 is the work of human beings on our planet to 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.120 analyze the data we receive in search of possible signs 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:25.960 of alien life, we also use artificial intelligence in many 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:31.880 scientific and technological applications, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.000 That is strange. Yeah, and uh, I guess it's interesting 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:37.560 on a couple of levels. So, first of all, you know, 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.520 one of the things humans and we've discussed this in 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.120 the show before. One of the things that humans and 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.880 their AI creations look for our techno signatures, and these 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.679 include both radio signals and things like megastructures like dycen 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.120 s fears. You know. Uh so, just as we are 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.719 reaching out with our mechanical utterances, we are seeking the 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.119 mechanical utterances of others. Yeah, we haven't talked about dycen 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.120 spheres in a while, but unless my memory is betraying me, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.559 I think one of the ways to look for something 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:06.680 like that would be look out there and see if 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.039 there's some kind of structure object that is basically only 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.919 emitting heat. And the idea there would be, you know, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.400 if all the other frequencies of radiation are being used 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.159 up and only heat is coming out of it, that 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.479 looks like that's probably a waste product of doing work. 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:22.560 So it's like, you know, it's the fan on your 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.360 computer just blowing out into space. Yeah. Yeah, so, and 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.440 and basically coming back to the idea that advanced civilizations 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.120 are going to have advanced energy requirements and therefore they're 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.960 going to have to harness the energy of entire suns. Now, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.159 the other angle on this that that is interesting in 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.919 one that I really hadn't thought about. Uh, is that 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.880 there may be problems with our use of AI for 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:50.560 such searches, as pointed out by Spanish clinical neuropsychologist Gabriel G. 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:58.360 Dela Torre in a paper published in Acta Astronautica UM. Basically, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.640 the idea is AI could confuse us or tell us 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.680 that it has detected impossible or false things in the data. 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.720 And our AI creations can certainly reflect our own biases. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:12.880 We we've discussed that as well, you know, like we 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.360 can and and you know this this applies to things 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.600 like facial recognition, etcetera. Like we can we can easily 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:23.080 program our own um, you know, uh overt or hidden 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.120 wants and desires into the AI we create, Yeah, or 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.960 not even program them. AI can acquire them from data 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.760 sets based on our own reality. If it's just trying 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.120 to like read what has happened in the world and 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.200 learned from that. It can internalize biases that we didn't 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.480 even try to explicitly give it because those biases are 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.040 reflected in how the world is. Yeah. So the AI 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.360 we unleash on on on such a search for alien 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.240 life might simply be more inclined to find evidence of 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.880 it dragging in human bias, or it could simply identify 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.080 things that are not there. It could find and patterns 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.960 that that that simply aren't actually there in a meaningful way. 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.520 Oh well, this immediately makes me think of what was 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.680 it called the Google Deep Dream that found you know, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.520 dog faces in everything, where like have a have a 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.600 picture and have Google analyze it, and I think it 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.440 would try to extract recognizable patterns and then amplify them. 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.080 So you take a picture of your couch and suddenly 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.600 your couch, you know, Google happens to detect that your 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.360 couch is made out of crabs, dogs, and human faces. Yeah, 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.880 so you know you wouldn't want your your your AI 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.760 reporting back and saying we found it. It's a planet. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.280 We're calling it Good Dog one. It's composed entirely of 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.120 dog faces, so let's celebrate. And it's under threat from 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.760 the nearby crab nebula, not the crab nebula, you know, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.480 the literal crab nebula, which is made of crabs. So 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.839 there's actually a specific situation that the author points out 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.559 in this paper, and it concerns that the Nalia faculae 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:04.040 of series, the largest object in the asteroid belt. Basically 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.400 the situation here is bright spots were observed in a 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.360 crater there, which turned out to be volcanic ice and 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.480 salt emissions. You might remember seeing pictures of this on 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.559 the internet. So, yeah, Series is an object in the 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:18.960 asteroid belt, sometimes referred to I think as a dwarf 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.040 planet or something. It's basically spherical, so it looks kind 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.199 of like a moon, uh. And that Yeah, there was 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.760 a big crater in it where right in the middle 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.240 of the crater there was there were these white, bright 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.440 white spots there. And obviously, you know, without knowing better 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.600 and having learned our lesson from the face on Mars 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.640 and all this stuff, you know, people's natural inclination was 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.080 to was to pattern recognize out the butt and go 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.240 like that technology or something, this is an alien Yeah, clearly. Yeah, 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.240 you start looking for geometric shapes and uh and and 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.679 looking for artificiality in it. And so this this particular paper, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.360 this this team from the University of Cadiz, they had 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.640 already looked at what they called the cosmic guerrilla effect 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.600 into only eighteen UM. This is this is um referring 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.160 of course to these uh, these attention based experiments that 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.400 we've we've discussed before in the show, and a lot 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.520 of you've probably seen in YouTube clips where you have 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.080 somebody in a guerrilla costume walk through a scene and 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.000 see afterwards if anybody noticed it. Yeah, human cognition has 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:23.160 amazing blind spots for attention that will astound you. Now 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.720 we've already warned you, so if you've never tried this 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.400 experiment before, you might be on your guard and already 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.640 knowing what to look for. Yeah, Basically, the way it 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:32.760 goes is like, you can do something like have a 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.480 bunch of people stand in a circle throwing a basketball 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.520 to each other, and you ask people to judge how 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.760 many times the basketball has passed from person to person, 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.280 and they'll do that, and in the middle of the video, 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.040 a person in a guerrilla costume just walks through the 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.120 middle of the group, and huge numbers of people while 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.280 they're counting the basketball passes do not see the gorilla. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:55.640 And it's like, if you go back and watch the 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.600 video again looking for the gorilla, it is unmissable. But somehow, 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.600 when we're trained in on a certain type of cognitive 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:08.880 task and visual processing, you can completely miss gross stimuli 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.000 that that would seem impossible to miss if you were 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.160 looking for them. Yeah, And of course one can imagine 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.840 that if an artificial intelligence were watching the same scene, 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:20.320 they would pick up on the gorilla. They would they 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.319 would it would be able to say, oh, gorilla, unexpected 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.960 guerilla has appeared in this scene and then reported as such. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.160 And so the cosmic guerrilla effect basically deals with the 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:34.559 idea that eve there are intelligent, non earthly signals out there. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.560 They could be written dimensions that escape our perceptions, such 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.480 as dark matter for example, and it would be like 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:44.839 the guerrilla suit. You know, you just wouldn't see it. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.280 But an AI would potentially have an advantage in catching 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.079 those sorts of signals. Oh okay, yeah, I see what 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.600 they're saying there. So in in this between, in this 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.480 this this newer study looking at the Venalia faculae. Uh, 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.600 they did the following. They used a hunt sixty volunteers, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.360 human volunteers with no grounding in astronomy. I wanted to 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.000 stress they're not guerillas or robots. Um. Plus, they used 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:14.439 an artificial vision system based on con evolutional neural networks 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:19.640 or CNNs. Both groups detected square structures in the image 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.880 of the venalia faculae. But the AI also saw a triangle, 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.400 and when the triangle option was then presented to humans, 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.720 um the number of humans claiming to also see a 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:37.320 triangle increase significantly. So while AI could certainly detect something 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.680 that we cannot that we cannot see, it might also 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.560 detect something that isn't there and then confuse us into 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.360 seeing something that isn't there as well. So you can 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.400 see the the sort of spiraling effects of this. Uh. 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.200 And ultimately, with the aid of AI, we end up 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:57.240 seeing signs of life where there weren't any to begin with. Okay, 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.040 I see, I see what you're saying. So the idea 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.719 is that humans already have a certain tendency for paradolia 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:08.319 or paradolia the detecting of patterns or signal within noise. 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.840 So that's the reason that we see faces in the clouds, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.079 or see a face on Mars, or any number of things. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.400 We look at something that in fact has no encoded 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.720 information in it, and we think we can extract meaningful information, 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.160 I mean no meaningful information, and we think we can 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.760 extract meaningful information. Uh. You know, listening to tape hiss, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.040 you might think you hear a word or something like that. 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.480 And the example here is we think we see I 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.160 don't know a pyramid or a you know, a building 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.600 on this asteroid or this dwarf planet, and then you 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.360 can actually make it worse by if you add on 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:44.240 an AI. The AI may in fact contribute to priming 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.800 that makes you even more likely to engage in paradolia. 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:49.640 The same way that if somebody plays you a tape 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.000 hiss and doesn't just play it for you, but says, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:53.959 you know, hey, listen for the part where it says 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.160 worship Satan or whatever, that you're probably more likely to 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.120 hear it because you've been primed. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.280 mean it's kind of like imagine, you know, you're thinking 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.600 about Fleetwood Mac albums and then you learn, oh, um, 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.800 you know one of this, you know, Watson AI or 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:14.120 whatever has determined that Tusk is the best Fleetwood Mac album. 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.800 And you might think, well, you know, it wasn't my favorite, 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.160 but the AI has identified it as the best Fleetwood 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.080 Mac album. Perhaps it is the best Fleetwood Mac album, 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.720 even though deep down you know it's rumors, even if 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:28.800 deep down you know it's one of those early albums 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.880 before Stevie Nicks was in the band. Yeah, I mean 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.480 exactly basically, Yeah, it comes back to that, but it 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.680 has come back to the idea, yeah that we we're 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.920 we're entire we're very susceptible to priming, and we could 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:43.880 And the argument here by the authors is that you 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.160 could set up a situation where where your AI dragging 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:52.200 in certain biases is setting you up, is priming you 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.560 to to with it see things that aren't there, which 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.120 could ultimately just make the search for actual, you know, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.920 evidence of intelligent alien life elsewhere in the galaxy all 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.240 the more difficult. So this is kind of a conundrum 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.560 because the AI could it could be helpful and harmful, 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.520 Like it could help with the problem of the gorilla effect, 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.160 where we uh, you know, we just totally miss things 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.760 that we should have seen. But it can also, on 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.280 the other end, cause us to see things that aren't there. Yes, 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.840 absolutely uh and and a lot of some of this 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.320 isn't completely crucial to where we're going from from here 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.640 in the episode. It's worth thinking and thinking about because 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.000 here's the other side of things. What's out there might 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.200 not simply be the mechanical utterances of biological life as well, 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.880 it could be the mechanical echoes of biological life, what 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.800 is sometimes referred to as post biological life, and even 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:50.840 post biological intelligence. And this this has some huge implications 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.480 um all its own. Okay, So the idea here would 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.880 be not that you know, we we already expect that 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.440 it's possible we could encounter alien technology rather than biological 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:06.640 aliens themselves, just because alien technology is say a you know, 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.600 an artifact of their previous occupation of a planetary surface, 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:15.040 or a piece of technology could be their probe like 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.360 our voyager probes. You know, these do not have humans 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.280 in them, They're just going out there. Yeah, but this 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.680 idea goes beyond that to say, well, maybe it's not 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:27.360 just that we're encountering the mechanical residue of biological life, 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.320 but we're encountering a civilization that at this point only 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:37.400 consists of machines that there that is inherently post biological. Yeah. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.200 At what point does the residue become the thing itself 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.480 as a civilization becomes increasingly technological. At what point is 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:48.680 the technology the defining or soul aspect of the civilization. Yeah, Now, 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.280 this is an idea that's certainly been disgusted in science 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.440 fiction a lot. I think gene Wolfe had had one 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.600 version of this, where you have an entire mechanical society 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.560 and they have evolved from advance space suits for biological 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.840 beings that no longer exist. Uh that sort of thing. 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.720 Oh yeah, okay, not to give away too much, but 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.720 this is also explored in one of our favorite video 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.320 games that we've talked about on the show before, a 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.320 really cool game called Soma that is sort of an 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:22.000 undersea sci fi horror game that involves a post biological existence. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.200 a good connection. I wasn't even thinking about Soma, but 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.080 but that that is a great example of this as well. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.440 So a couple of sources that we we looked at 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.639 for this that I want to go and mention here, 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.600 and of course we'll get into in greater depth the 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.879 work of Sti's Seth show Stock and the work of 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:44.040 Susan Schneider, a cognitive scientist and philosopher. I was just 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.080 trying to look up Susan Schneider's affiliation. I think at 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.800 some point she was affiliated with the University of Connecticut. 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:51.679 It looks like maybe the more recent one is Florida 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.160 Atlantic University. But anyway, yeah, she She is a philosopher 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.560 whose work we have discussed on the show before. Actually, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.680 her work came up in an episode we did about 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.600 whether machines could be conscious, because she was one of 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.320 the authors who advanced the idea of a test for 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:13.359 AI consciousness that I thought was pretty interesting, and it 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:17.120 was actually very simple. The test was basically just variations 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:23.720 on can this machine grasp and manipulate supernatural concepts from 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:28.240 fiction and folk belief, such as ghosts and astral projection 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.639 and body swapping like in the movie Freaky Friday and stuff. 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.199 You know, it might sound kind of silly, but actually 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.919 these are concepts that I think you can make a 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.119 good argument only intuitively make sense to us because we 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:48.480 have a subjective internal experience, and to an intelligent machine 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.679 or even a biological automaton that didn't have an internal experience, 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.800 it would not make any sense to to envision something 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.680 like being a ghost or an astral projection where your 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.600 consciousness leaves your body, because what would be doing the 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.200 leaving of the body? Mm hmmm. Yeah, you know now 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.400 that I'm thinking about Susan Schneider, I think I saw 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.600 her at World Science festival at some point in the past. Um, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:15.480 but I didn't think of it till now. I forgot 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:17.280 to check my my old notes to see if I 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:27.040 had anything I wanted to start with with show Stack though, 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:31.600 uh specifically his two thousand tin paper what ET Will 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:35.280 look Like and why Should We Care? And this Uh, Basically, 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:40.200 this paper discusses um uh, this idea of post biological life, 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.040 the search for extraterrestrial life, and it starts off by 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.479 discussing our carbon bias in the hunt for for for 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.760 e t s uh. You know, we we look for 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.159 rocky worlds that contain liquid water as this is the 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.280 path towards organic life. This is where organic life emerges from. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.600 All of our models are built on this, uh. And 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.520 and that's that's the softer version of our bias, while 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.600 the harder version is what what he references an individual 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.200 by the name of Simon Conway Morris who argues that 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.320 any evolved intelligent life form is going to roughly look 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:20.000 like us, at least in show Stacks words quote in 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.399 a dark night and from a distance. And I believe 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.000 we've discussed this idea at length on the podcast. Yeah, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:27.359 I think this was one of the earliest episodes of 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:28.960 the show I ever did, so it was a years 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.119 and years ago at this point, but we talked about 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.960 Simon Conway Morris, who I think is an evolutionary biologist 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.920 from Great Britain if I'm not mistaken, but he uh oh, 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.160 it was the episode called Grizzly Bears from Outer Space, 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.040 where so they're there are two very opposing schools of 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.520 thinking about, you know, the forms intelligent aliens could take. 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.000 Some people say, you know it, we can't even imagine 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.240 how different they could be from us. You know, it's 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:55.560 it's impossible for us to get outside of our own 0:20:55.600 --> 0:21:00.480 anthro anthropomorphic paradigm to imagine how biologically your friend and 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.119 strange aliens could be. And Morris was on the other side. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:07.400 He was saying, no, they're actually principles of evolution and 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.960 sort of bio chemical constraints on what life could evolve. 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.520 And basically he says, there's a pretty narrow range for 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.439 what types of organisms can evolve, just based on the 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:21.800 physics and chemistry of the universe, and so we actually 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.359 shouldn't expect aliens to be all that different from us. 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.600 We should actually expect them to be pretty similar. In uh, 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.520 in very dependable ways. Yeah, this kind of the idea 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.640 whereherever you go, they're probably gonna be things like crabs, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:35.840 and there is going to be something like a human 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.399 um chasing those crabs around with some sort of a 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.840 tool that's made to catch those crabs. Yeah. I mean 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.080 it's been a while, so I'm sure i'm somewhat oversimplifying. 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.080 Apologies to Conway Morris, but but that's the rough outline. 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.199 It is that that that biology is constrained by physics 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.480 and chemistry and evolution, and those factors are going to 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:55.719 be universal no matter what kind of planet you're on 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.440 or you know, what star you're orbiting, and so there 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.200 are some patterns we should repeating all throughout the galaxy. 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.960 So so that's one part of it. But then apparently 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.639 a lot of this bias is present. Arguably the show Stacks, 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.360 you know, argues to this in the Drake equation itself, 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.800 as we factor in the time it would take for 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:18.080 life to evolve and the average lifetime of a technological society. 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.520 Now we're called the Drake equation was a hypothetical way 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.919 of trying to calculate the number of technological civilizations that 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.320 would be present in our galaxy by multiplying together a 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.800 bunch of numbers, and I don't remember what all the 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:32.679