Avi Loeb Suggests Alien Probes With AI Might Target Earth for Energy, Not Humans
Renowned astrophysicist Avi Loeb suggests that alien probes might target Earth, not for humans, but for its strategic location near the Sun, potentially for energy harvesting.
Renowned astrophysicist Avi Loeb suggests that statistically, alien intelligence is more likely to be artificial and self-replicating rather than biological. According to him, their visits have nothing to do with us but with our planet’s position relative to the Sun. Large language models (LLMs) powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are neural networks with hardware very different from the human brain. They consume gigawatts of power and are made of silicon. Their artificial neurons transmit signals at the speed of light. These signals travel much faster than neurotransmitter molecules traveling between synapses in the human brain. These material differences suggest that AI systems represent what we might consider as “alien” intelligence.
Of course, we can aim to make AI more compatible with humans through thorough training and supervision. However, in the long run, this attempt might be like trying to beautify something inherently flawed. The fundamental differences between AI and human intelligence might give us insight into what we could encounter with the discovery of extraterrestrial technologies created under unimaginable circumstances on a distant exoplanet.
The Drake equation needs to clarify the chances of such an encounter. Over billions of years, it would only take one advanced civilization in the Milky Way to fill interstellar space with self-replicating probes equipped with AI and 3D printers capable of making copies of themselves from raw materials found in remote locations. This process of self-replication is standard among terrestrial microbes, which reproduce and multiply regularly.
Habitable zones of stars as service stations
It’s fascinating to note that AI and the human brain are limited by the amount of energy available for computation. The human brain uses about one-fifth of the body’s metabolic energy, which early humans barely met through hunting and gathering. Due to limitations in the power supply, the rapid growth of AI systems is expected to slow down in the next decade or two. It’s reasonable to assume that extraterrestrial probes’ intelligence will also be constrained by their energy supply.
The amount of energy available from a star decreases as the probe’s distance from the star increases. In contrast, the time it takes to travel that distance also increases. Therefore, the further away a star is, the less energy the probe can collect. Compared to the energy available halfway between the Sun and its nearest star, an interstellar probe could collect 100,000 times more energy by reaching the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This strongly incentivizes interstellar probes to explore the habitable regions around stars.
“Approaching a star ten times closer could result in the probe melting, as its surface temperature would exceed a thousand degrees. The habitable region around a star provides energy at tolerable surface temperatures. It offers the potential to discover liquid water, which could be converted into hydrogen or oxygen fuel through electrolysis. For these reasons, interstellar probes could see habitable planets as gas stations. Functional interstellar probes could arrive near our planet for these reasons. It’s presumptuous to think that they do it for us. Given our self-centered approach, we may not be the main attraction on Earth, as science fiction movies often lead us to believe.
In a big city, we often encounter strangers who don’t care about us on our street. Similarly, alien probes might not see our nuclear weapons as a threat or a resource. Still, we might use them to benefit from their knowledge or align our interests with theirs. These are the same motivations that guide our interaction with AI systems. Given these similarities, the abbreviation AI could refer to the alien and artificial intelligence of our creation.”
Searching for self-replicating probes
Our most advanced telescopes can only detect the sunlight reflected by meter-sized probes unless they come from a distance similar to the diameter of the Earth. Considering the frequency of interstellar meteors like IM1 or IM2, millions of meter-scale objects should originate from interstellar space within Earth’s orbit around the Sun at any given time. The main question is whether these interstellar objects are of artificial origin.
More importantly, are there functional devices among the rocks and space junk that most of these objects represent? Theleo Project observatories in the US will collaborate closely with the Rubin Observatory in Chile to discover new interstellar objects beginning in 2025. If just one out of a million of these items is a functional device, finding it will significantly influence our actions, akin to realizing that our emails are being read or our phone calls are being listened to. Could the UFOs that visit us be related to alien artificial intelligence?
After identifying the nutrients an interstellar probe feeds on, we could attract it to our location by generously supplying these nutrients. Getting closer to the probe would enable us to understand its alien intelligence better. An alien probe’s intelligence level might be restricted by its energy supply. Still, the real mystery lies in whether it surpasses our intelligence. When dealing with alien intelligence, the biggest challenge lies not in what we know is unknown but in what we can’t even imagine. Our intelligence has evolved since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
The critical question is how many possess more complex characteristics than the human brain. At present, our limited knowledge allows us to speculate about the advantages of large numbers. We know there are around 100 billion neurons in the human brain, a figure similar to the number of stars in the Milky Way or galaxies in the observable universe. In the future, AI systems could enhance our physical capabilities, much like alien life forms. This has happened before, as there are about 100 trillion bacteria in the human gut, similar to the number of stars in a wealthy galaxy cluster.
