According to the latest reports, alien intelligence is more likely to be artificial rather than biological. Cehck out the details for which this could be happening.
Alien intelligence could be artificial
Many people have been discussing for centuries whether there is intelligent life somewhere in the cosmos. However, with programs like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) using radio telescopes to actively listen for radio messages from alien civilizations, we now have a real chance of finding out. If these searches are successful, what can we expect to find?
Assuming that life exists on other planets and has evolved through Darwinian evolution (although this may not be the case), it is unlikely that technology and intelligence would advance at the same pace as on Earth.
If it differed significantly, then it would be impossible for us to detect any signs of extraterrestrial life through our radio telescopes. However, life might have evolved on a star older than the Sun, giving it a head start of billions of years.
The history of human technological civilization only spans a few millennia at most, and it may only take a century or two for inorganic intelligence like artificial intelligence (AI) to surpass humans, who are made up of organic materials like carbon.
As computer processing power continues to grow exponentially, AI may be able to process enormous amounts of data in the future and become exponentially more intelligent, potentially surpassing the general intelligence of humans.
It has been suggested that we could use technology and genetic engineering to enhance ourselves, creating cyborgs that have a combination of organic and inorganic components.
This could lead to a potential shift towards artificial intelligence that evolves over billions of years, surpassing the rate of Darwinian evolution. As a result, the existence of organic intelligence, such as humans, would be just a brief chapter in our history before machines take over.
Therefore, it is highly unlikely that we would be able to “catch” alien intelligence during the brief period of time when it is still embodied in biological form, assuming it evolved similarly.
If we do detect extraterrestrial life, it is far more likely to be electronic rather than flesh and blood, and it may not even exist on planets.
It’s worth noting that the lifespan of an organic civilization is typically only a few millennia, and its electronic diaspora might persist for billions of years.
As a result, one could argue that there are more civilizations out there than we previously thought, but that most of them would be artificial in nature.