Artificial intelligence may enable real-time communication with extraterrestrial civilizations, prompting us to consider what we should tell them about humanity.
The power of large language models: Recent advancements in AI, particularly the development of transformer neural network architecture and large language models (LLMs), have the potential to revolutionize communication with extraterrestrial intelligence:
- LLMs, trained on vast datasets, contain a wealth of human knowledge and are already poised to significantly impact global employment, according to the IMF.
- By transmitting a well-curated LLM to extraterrestrial civilizations, we could enable them to indirectly converse with us and learn about humanity without being hindered by the vast distances between stars.
Rethinking our approach to SETI and METI: Despite decades of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and attempting to communicate with them (METI), we have yet to find evidence of alien civilizations, prompting a need to reassess our methods:
- Recent discoveries of numerous Earth-like exoplanets suggest that several worlds could potentially harbor technological civilizations curious to learn about us.
- Frank Drake, the pioneer of SETI and METI, recognized the potential for our galaxy to host other technological civilizations and initiated early communication attempts, such as the Arecibo message.
Curating an AI for interstellar communication: To effectively represent humanity to extraterrestrial intelligences, experts from various fields should collaborate to create a well-curated, compact LLM:
- Smaller, open-source language models like Meta’s Llama-3-70B and Mistral AI’s Mixtral 8x22B could be trained with curated datasets and compressed to a few gigabytes for transmission.
- The AI’s content, personality, and tone should be determined by researchers, philosophers, historians, and other experts to represent humanity at large, generating not only text but also images and sounds.
Overcoming technological challenges: Current technology poses limitations on interstellar communication, but various solutions are being explored to improve data transmission rates and reduce transmission times:
- Combining multiple high-powered lasers or using the sun as a gravitational lens to amplify signals could enable faster data transmission across light-years.
- Equipping space missions with ruggedized onboard computers containing well-curated LLMs could serve as digital time capsules, extending the legacy of the Voyager golden record.
Broader implications: Sending well-curated LLMs into the cosmos opens the door to unprecedented exchanges with extraterrestrial intelligences, ensuring that our legacy endures and potentially revealing that we are not alone in the universe:
- An intelligent civilization encountering a spacecraft equipped with an ancient computer or receiving a signal to rebuild our AIs could gain insight into our past, ambitions, and essence as a technological species.
- This indirect communication could show extraterrestrial life-forms that a civilization of humans once existed, perhaps not so different from their own and potentially still thriving.
As we leverage AI advancements for a new era of interstellar communication, it is crucial to carefully consider the content and representation of humanity that we send into the cosmos. While the idea of transmitting LLMs to extraterrestrial civilizations is radical and potentially risky, it is a discussion worth having as we continue to explore the vast expanse of the universe and the possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth.
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