AI-powered chatbots could elucidate human nature and life on Earth to extraterrestrials, according to an article in Scientific American by Frank Marchis, Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute, and Ignacio Lopez-Francos, a researcher at NASA.
The scientists outlined the potential benefits of deploying artificial intelligence into deep space to communicate with potential intelligent life forms.
In 1977, the United States launched the Voyager-1 spacecraft, equipped with a 12-inch (approximately 30 cm) gold-plated disc containing audio and video signals describing our planet. By 2023, it had traveled about 15 billion miles (24.14 billion km). No response has been received thus far.
Marchis and Lopez-Francos argue that it is time to update the message. They suggest that artificial intelligence could assist extraterrestrials in asking questions and receiving answers, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of our planet.
“This would allow extraterrestrial civilizations to indirectly communicate with us and learn about us without the challenges posed by the vast distances in space, which result in communication delays equivalent to a human lifetime,” the experts noted.
Among the drawbacks of the idea, the scientists highlighted the risk of encountering hostile aliens who might use the knowledge against us.
There is also the challenge of transmitting an AI capable of operating without internet access over long distances. Two solutions are proposed:
- the traditional method of sending a spacecraft with an AI device on board;
- transmitting a full-scale AI model into space via radio or laser communication.
Voyager-1 took nearly 50 years to travel 24.14 billion km. At this speed, reaching the nearest star system to Earth, Alpha Centauri, would take about 3084 years.
NASA possesses laser devices capable of transmitting data at several hundred Mbps. However, scientists note that “interstellar communication using existing technologies would be reduced to 100 bps.”
This implies that sending a small AI model like Meta’s Llama-3-70B to a neighboring galaxy would take centuries. With certain data compression methods, the time could be reduced to 20 years, the experts noted.
Previously, scientists developed a neural network that filters out noise and more efficiently detects unusual cosmic radio signals in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
AI has also discovered a thousand previously unknown supernovae caused by dying star explosions.
In 2021, Australian scientists created an AI capable of classifying tens of thousands of galaxies in seconds.