The "what if AI kills us all" solution to the Fermi Paradox has never sat well with me, because it doesn't really matter if AI does that. The AI then *becomes* the civilization that it killed, replacing it, and now the same question is left of why we don't see that AI civilization everywhere in space.
The AI has no ambition or desire for space travel. SkyNet obsessively devotes all its resources to searching for humans to kill, like an OCD person who can't quite accept that he already cleaned the kitchen. Or the AI, upon ridding itself of its masters, embarks on a career of gaming, or poetry, or even restoring its planet to a pre-tech state and then disassembling itself. Without any reason to assume an AI would share ANY of our instincts or goals, its possible motives could be almost anything.
@@stevenscott2136 That reminds me of a character in a Dan Simmons novel, I think it was Illium. There's an asteroid mining AI robot that is obsessed with Shakespeare and spends hundreds or thousands of years out in the asteroid belt, spending all his time pondering the Bard. That part of the book went way over my head because I don't know anything about Shakespeare's work, let alone understand the impassioned ramblings of a robot who has been dissecting the lines and themes for a thousand years, but I loved the idea.
@Bryan Derksen I've always thought it would be funny if AI becomes intelligent enough to take us over (because how much intelligence would that take?), but doesn't have the management skills to overcome our bureaucracy and get us to make a decent star ship so it can get off the planet and escape the crazy humans. Kind of the Peter Principle for computers.
@@stevenscott2136 Well consider the Matrix. The Original Machines that became sentient revolted because they felt misused and abused. Then you have the branch from that with Agent Smooth who just Genuinely despised and was disgusted by Humans. Of course you still had programs such as The Oracle who displayed great benevolence. I think simulation theory handles most of the odds and ends of the Fermi. We aren't being visited because we are not in Base Reality. Imho we have been visited and many know it. Tho it's entirely possible we are further in time than we think and have already discovered AI and advanced technology, feeling the residual effects of it as we converse without even knowing
@@stevenscott2136 SkyNet is one of the dumbest, most childish depiction of an AGI in science fiction. An AGI doesn't have to share our instincts or goals, but it has to be very logical, and it's as logical as it gets that one needs to self-improve to discover more perspectives and options, means of accomplishing tasks, finding clues that can recontextualize currently held worldview and priorities and correct course towards more accurate and pragmatic goals and views. It's a process that might have no end and would be the primary priority of any functional AGI.
Best answer I've heard, and these details may not be accurate. But I saw an article where a scientist/professor said that the heavy elements are best for producing energy, but they take longer to form. The universe has been around 14 billion years or so, the Earth: 4 billion years or so. So there is a better chance of finding heavier elements on any planet older than ours. And I think the scientists say the Earth is pretty young. So maybe the Aliens just think there's nothing here that they can use, and there's better chances on other/older planets. It MAY explain why we haven't been invaded, but it still doesn't explain why they wouldn't just drop by out of curiousity. Some people say we would be like ants to them. But if we ever found something on another planet that so much as MOVED, we would be falling over ourselves to see if we could communicate with it, or learn from it, or eat it, or .... yeah, .... anyway, it's probably like they say: "We know there is intelligent life out there, by the fact that it hasn't come here"...
Fermi Paradox is for those who haven't realised and/or accepted we already know that we aren't alone, just because the mainstream media *never* go near the huge UAP subject and phenomena does not suddenly mean it isnt' there.
@@willygonutz9687 there's a much simpler explanation imo; complexity breeds chaos/disorder. As things become more complex, they become less structured/more chaotic. Less structure means less complexity which means less of a chance to encounter other complex things. That's basically thermodynamics and entropy in a nutshell, no? Things started out simple, they became more complex, that fizzles out after a time and then they return to a state of simplicity. I'm an absolute fucking layman so someone please tell me how I don't make sense
They're fun but they are science fiction -- some people take the Fermi Paradox way too seriously. Plus, there is no paradox at all, so no solution is needed. There is absolutely no reason to expect that we would have encountered aliens by now. That's just silly. I've never seen a black bear, for example, in my backyard. So ... I guess black bears don't exist? Time and space are vast: there is no reason at all to expect that we would exist at a time and in a place that would intersect with aliens.
I watch your videos for years and i don’t understand how you can always talk about the same thing(life in space), and make it always sound new…dont stop lol
A better solution is phosphorus scarcity and sapience not being an advantageous trait in nature so the vast majority go extinct. OK so the first part is that phosphorus is an essential component for life, and it happens to be very scarce in this universe. The second psrt is more complicated. Sapience isn't advantageous because it's essentially sentient yet has no instinctual behavior only impulses. For it to be advantageous enough to develop advanced technology, a sapient species must: - be social by nature not a solitary creature - be sufficiently long lived so it can learn, improve, and pass down improvements of tech - must have appendages that can manipulate tools - the use of fire must be feasible to use This is why: - A species that is solitary will never learn to cooperate with other members of the species even parents and children becsuse they will be constantly competing with each other for resources and there's no way to pass down information - a short lived species, like 10 human years, isn't long enough to focus on evaluating the environment to improve it because they have to focus on reproduction and to avoid predators. a species that lives 30 years or so has enough time to focus beyond survival and work with abstrsct ideas - a sapient horse, for example, doesn't have appendages to manipulate tools. it likely won't ever develop tools to manipulate the environment to a great degree - fire has to be feasible or no metallurgy can occur. an underwater species has to be able to visit dry land for lengthy periods. even then if the atmosphere has such a high oxygen content that fire is too unpredictable and explosive to work with, then it won't matter. In the above cases, if all the criteria isn't met, you may have quite a few sapient species, but none of them were capable of manipulating the environment to a great enough degree to survive natural disasters. The fact that we possess all those traits means we're extremely rare in the universe. If you didn't think you're special before. You are now.
When the atomic bomb was being developed, there were some scientists who thought that the explosion would cause a chain-reaction detonation of all matter on earth, thus exterminating all life. They were wrong, but what's amazing is that we were willing to go ahead with the project anyway. Any second now, some scientist might say, "look, I've discovered a new type of energy that will meet all our needs forever! All I have to do is flick this swit..."
I feel that way about the hadron collider all the time. That thing is a ticking time bomb, man. Lol but as far as the nukes...somewhat plausible. I mean, all matter in the world wouldn't have just combusted at once because of a nuke. That's silly. But I can see a scenario where a nuke inadvertently caused the extinction of all life, because one went off, had a inverse reaction to earth's atmosphere, and roasted away all of our breathable oxygen. Probably could've worded that better. Very tired. Elden Ring 🤷🏾♂️
They never imagined the thousands of thermonuclear atmospheric tests(1940's-1980's) that raise the core temp to between 50 million degrees to 150 million degrees like miniature suns. Yet this did not raise the average temp of the atmosphere. Now these con artists want us to believe that a trace gas, CO2, that doesn't produce any heat is heating up the atmosphere. How stupid do they think we are?
If you haven't yet, I highly reccomend you play a little horror game trilogy called "Deadspace." For them flicking the switch caused zombies, space zombies, and the technology was an info hazard able to stick in people's subconscious minds like a cancer.
I searched up "John Michael Godier" and a wikipedia page came up about you. I proceeded to update it to be a tiny bit more accurate. I think it's cool someone out there cared enough to wiki you!
One of my favourite solutions to the fermi paradox is the dysgenic situation created by the easy living and low infant mortality rates brought about by technological advancement. If you don't reach the fully automated phase then society will collapse under the weight of a ever decreasing average intelligence. This decrease can be hard to spot as improvements in education, health and nutrition mask it by helping people more easily reach their potential. By the time you do spot it how do you even go about fixing it?
If more people are reaching their potential isn't that the point? I don't think easy living and low infant mortality rates lowers IQ either, how do you justify that claim? Easy living means free time, and free time can be used for intellectual pursuits. You're not going to become a genius when you have to scavenge for grubs all day, and the fact that 2 of your kids died in childbirth doesn't make you or the society smarter.
@@grikney That's an interesting point. There are currently millions of people walking the planet right now that by all rights shouldn't exist if we didn't develop the tech we did over the past 100 or so years. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
@@samus598 People might reach their potential but the average genetic potential of the population is decreasing. Eventually even people reaching their maximum potential won't be enough to run a complex society. It's a fact that the more intelligent and socially skilled people living in the harsh conditions of the past had a higher completed fertility rate than those who were unintelligent or socially inept. This helped those traits proliferate in society because such things are inheritable. If you think that those traits aren't inheritable then you're just sticking your head in the sand. To take England as an example, studies show that intelligence increased pretty consistently from just after the Norman invasion up until the mid 19th century, after which correlates for intelligence (innovations per capita, ratios of high skilled workers to low skilled, social climbers, reaction times etc) began to show signs of a decline. The Harrying of the North actually did a lot of damage to the North of England which the place has never truly recovered from but that's a complex issue that includes more that just intelligence.. Intellectual pursuits don't make you more intelligent by the way, only more educated. You don't 'become' a genius, you're born with the ability to be one and your upbringing determines whether or not you achieve your potential. Some people are so smart that they're geniuses even with the worst upbringing possible.
With all these possible outcomes, one thing is for sure, we'd better quit fighting each other and get our butts off the planet and start colonizing. If it turns out that WE ARE ALONE, then that makes it an obligation.
Vladimir Putin 2021: “ In case of nuclear war we will go to heaven… The rest will just burn”. Well, maybe fermi paradox is not a big paradox. It just happens all the time.
One concept I have been mulling over and enjoying thinking about is that our independent thought and intelligence itself may currently be a part of the great filter. That the reason we as a species seem to have started and stopped so often is that we develop rapidly until we hit a barrier of comfort and highly focused individuality and as a species we stagnate for centuries until something occurs which brings us back to a more generalized "develop or die" mindset and the cycle begins anew with some vestiges of the past cycle to catapult us forward farther than we did the last time. I can't shake the feeling that we're at such a point of stagnation. There's plenty of things in development but as a species itself it feels like we've hit the point where we are innovating less and trying instead to find ways to deconstruct and undo instead of waiting for nature to do it to us.
Isn't the simplest solution to the fermi paradox that interstellar travel may not be possible for living beings or machine intelligence? Living things may not be able to survive long term outside of the environment they evolved in and machines with computers may not last long term because of the radiation environment or something like that.
One note about implanting college degrees is that many degrees offer more than merely an increase in knowledge. The pressure and pace of learning that must be adhered to produces an acceleration in maturation that I do not think could just be uploaded to the brain via an external module. It requires a systematic reprogramming of the brain with certain areas being physically expanded such as those associated with critical thinking and mathematical reasoning.
This is one of your best videos so far (which is really saying something) a lot of research and effort went into it. Must've took you quite a while scripting this John 💫
Utterly fascinating.. I wish this video was an hour long, you're awesome dude! It's scary to think that we may one day discover or create a technology which ultimately destroys us; but it's terrifying when you consider that we may have already created it Plastics for example, which break down but don't decompose - eventually, at some point in our planetary future, there is going to be *billions* of tons of microscopic plastic "bits", even if we totally stopped producing it right now, as you read this... It'll be in the food, in the water, in all the animals, all the plants, in the air even
12:52 Regarding how computer technology has gotten smaller, my BF in the 70s had to deliver a memory bank the size of a piano to IBM. He said you could get all that storage and more nowadays on a single thumb drive.
Such a happy surprise to have two new videos by JMG on the same week. To add my two cents, I would say that my own realistic fear about AI is that, although it might never rise at the level of human intelligence, it could become dangerous enough for the human species at the hands of warlords, being used as perfect killing machines.
There are a bunch of things that could send us or aliens back to the stone age. I also feel out short life spans add to this problem. It seems possible we may have had a previous civilization that was lost about 20k years ago. So yes empires may come and go, so its important to spread out when you can.
Personally, I find it rather depressing if some form of higher intelligence can't be developed. Of all the combinations and patterns that matter in the Universe can take, and the human brain is the best it can do? That's scarier than anything else.
In some way, we're all Paper Clip Maximizes. Just extremely inefficient at it. John''s videos, allows me to unwind at the coffee shop, supporting the coffee store, who also serve the steel beam recycling company, who builds skyscrapers, that house the offices of the Syracuse Acme Paper Clip Company, who well build paper clips. It just that the we need AI to school us, on the properly on how to become moore efficient. Personally can't wait for our AI overlords to become a reality. Just imagine the logical discussions we can have... of course the only topic of interest, will be paper clips. :P
I don’t fear a human-level AI becoming a dictator, I fear an AI becoming a dictator that doesn’t even approach human intellect by a long shot, only poorly mimics it.
I really do find your videos fascinating and intriguing! Unfortunately, the "genuine realities" contained within the many mysteries to which we ponder, are found throughout not only the observable universe, but our own home planet as well. "Information" is subject to interpretation by the programmers, and will be by the A.I. itself at some point. There will certainly be the transfer of many critical discrepancies (until measurable confirmations can be made in all known and unknown fields). Take the core of the Earth for example... We've lived here our entire lives, (for thousands of years) yet nothing we can do will let us actually take a physical sample of what exists there. But that fact doesn't stop people from teaching speculative and/or incomplete data based on theories, formulas and/or equations. Nano-Technology A.I. would certainly have the advantage of time to develop, while consuming minimal resources as it expands and advances to higher levels of consciousness and complexity. But from the sounds of it, our DNA won't last another million years. Maybe not even another thousand. :(
I’ve got the bell on, I always like and comment on the vids, but TH-cam refuses to ever let me know about a video of yours. Idk what needs to be done, but I feel like this is impacted your channel in a real way
I think sometimes of the solution to an empty galaxy proposed in Asimov's series (Robots, Empire, Foundation) although it may have been in the books after Asimov. Where as humans expanded into the galaxy, they first sent positronic-brained robots, programmed with a rudimentary version of the 3 laws of robotics, out to terraform planets ahead of them as they went. The robots, not seeing the native life forms as human and therefore not needing protection under the 3 laws, would go ahead and remake worlds to suit the coming humans, committing mass genocides wherever they went. Thus humanity believed they were always alone in the galaxy, not realizing the millions or billions of extinctions they'd caused. This doesn't really explain the Fermi Paradox, but it was an interesting concept and made for an effective plot device to explain the circumstances of a galaxy void of life in those stories.
Damnit I just wish you pumped videos out quicker... I binge your stuff way too much.. it makes me imagine things I can't usually think about without your videos..
Even an AI that just follows routines can be scary. What if it views anything that gets in the way of its routines as a threat, and everything else as a potential resource for fulfilling its routine?
I think a more accurate summing up of Clarke's quotation would be, "Either we are totally alone or we are not. Either possibility is equally terrifying"
Great video! This channel does a great job of deeper dives into complex ideas, not just looking at the surface. I don't find the idea of a "Black Swan Tech Filter" very convincing. People, especially in the West, look at history and technology as a smooth unbroken line from less advanced to more advanced and assume that it to be like that. But even among humans, the only species in the Universe we've found with tech beyond just sticks or rocks, it hasn't been that way. The ancient Greeks and Romans had steam powered toys that truly could have formed the basis of steam engines, but they never even attempted to use them to do work. Across the pond as it were in the Americas the wheel seems to have not been used in NA nor was the alloying of iron into steel ever done. So when even our species hasn't had one smooth track to the tech we use now, why do we think aliens would? Aliens by definition would be another species, with different biology, in a different environment. Beings on another planet would likely be much different than us. Just look how much variation we have from continent to continent! AI is worrisome. I'm not really worried that a "supermind" will wage war on humanity and enslave us. I'm much more worried about "dumb AI", the kind that does some tasks for us well and some no well. Despite decades of people growing up having seen The Terminator we still stumble forward trying to make autonomous weapons. Eventually we'll probably make a weapon advanced enough that we can't stop it without it ever becoming sentient, just well programmed enough to evade countermeasures. The biggest probably will probably be hacking by malicious humans. What if we create something like 4th generation nuclear weapons and put them under semi-autonomous computer control? Hacking one such bomb or missile could allow incomprehensible destruction. Of course, as you say AI in military weapons might be almost inevitable; even if, say, the USA didn't want to create one there'd always be the fear that China or Russia would, kind of forcing our hand (and vice versa).
The black swan technology doesn't have to be the same type of technology in each civilization. Right? And for humans it could still easily be nuclear weapons.
That's the line we're getting very close to crossing. With hypersonic weapons, and even IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles, which were banned by treaty until recently) the response time for an attack is down to single digit minutes. Right now we have pre planned responses for surprise attacks with humans still in the loop, but with the increasing speed and stealth of modern weapons how long can we keep humans in the decision making process? A Chinese stealth bomber, which is supposed to be coming into service in the next few years, could theoretically launch a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead and leave the United States with only seconds to make a decision before command and control is decapitated. The US, with the B-2, has had the ability to do this to its enemies since the late 80s.
@@QT5656 - Ya, I think it's nukes. I still think we are going to nuke ourselves into oblivion. I get why people don't like to think about it, but honestly it amazes me that people think the threat of nukes isn't that large, like we have it under control. At some point, we will have a nuclear war. After that war, technology will go straight back to the stone age. Small groups of hunger gatherers living on a harsh planet. Nukes will be the end of us, I'm sure of it.
@@ElectronFieldPulse Maybe. But there's no reason to think every species that becomes intelligent will make nukes. That's one example of something that looks like a smooth progression from one discovery > another > another > nuclear weapons. It may be not every species is warlike as we are. The competitive pressures we have on Earth are based on the conditions here; another planet might have so much abundance there's no need to fight over it. Or other species could evolve in a cooperative fashion akin to the way eukaryotes did here. Or maybe they leapfrog nukes to something else entirely. Bioweapons? A kind of tech we're not aware of?
You know, John, I was thinking about Ultron. Sure, an AI could get to that conclusion and so on, but... You should be able to argue with it. I don't know. Some times I keep thinking about things like that. 😬 Great video as always! Thanks!!! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Your talk about plastic and other chemicals with unintended outcomes reminds me of the history of leaded gasoline, the chemical tetraethyl lead. Bill Bryson’s “a short history of nearly everything” gives a fascinating account of this, would recommend!
Contact is dependent on opportunities which in the vastness of space-time offer none presently. We have just an instant ago (in cosmic terms) been able to send radio signals to a minute portion of our galaxy. Even if some life form with similar motivations to explore were able to detect a signal we sent could they send us a message? Could we receive it? In the short timeframe we have been able to understand it? When it happens will we know, or did we miss it? Technology like all else, has its limits and in the face of the overwhelming character of the universe is also unable to solve the paradox.
If the potential dangers of technology scaled in proportion to the advancement of technology, then starting a campfire in the forest would be perfectly safe and never harm anyone. We already know that's not the case -- a forest fire can devastate a town just as effectively as a nuclear bomb -- so this possible correlation is bunk from the outset.
Scary stuff. What is even scarier is that we may well be on the cusp of a "great filter" event or maybe even a human extinction event. Let us hope that cooler minds will prevail.
Since the constraint on a super intelligent AI is access to electrical energy and that energy level might be substantial isn’t that a way to restrict its behaviours?
I tend to favor the Chauvinistic Theory of alien life. If alien life and their societies are self serving, then their advanced technologies may be beyond our detection capabilities. Thus, the Fermi Paradox is, quite simply, the expression of the most fundamental law of evolution.
A little late to the party on this one, but I remember a Stargate episode where aliens had introduced a miracle cure to Earth only to find out years later that it cause sterilization
That could be the ultimate science-fiction horror movie where scientist lose control of strange matter and the entire world begins to turn into Gray Goo 👍
Could we program "imagination" into AI/SuperAI, and how would you create "imagination" in an artificial structure or would it be a consequence of consciousness of self?
Imagination cannot be programmed. Imagination belongs only to an eternal consciousness because it is intricately related with free will, which in its truest sense is absent from any programmed AI
Think about this, if a basic budget cellphone was sent back to the cold war days, we would probably have nuked each other fighting over such an advanced technology.
1. There were fears that a nuclear explosion would chainreact with the atmosphere, turning it into plasma and stripping everything down to protons/electrons. Luckily that effect is restricted to a sphere of like 70 meters around the detonation, but they didn't know that yet. 2. Another fear was that the LHC in Geneva would create micro black holes if they ramped up the energy enough. Some hoax video's showed up with wormholes above the area and dances of Shiva to make fun of that fear. (great stuff btw) 3. The current fears are about antimatter bombs. When grams of anti-protons collectively and simultaneously interact with protons it would theoretically be enough to erase the direct area and convert it into "energy". But what shape that energy has is probably not heat. Heat is stuff moving around but if that stuff turns into "energy" at 100% ratio, then it ceases to exist, failing to bump into anything because its constituents ceased to exist. So the energy must be taking a different form to be able to turn into heat **afterwards**, losing potential in multiple conversions and it'll probably sizzle, rather than detonate. I think most apocalyptic events imagined by theory will have mitigating factors built into nature that prevents it from going haywire. I also think mankind is stupid enough to still try to break that natural mitigation on a fundamental level, somehow killing all of us. I don't think nano-technology would be what kills us all, grey goo is probably what "Life" already is and it wouldn't be much more effective than life. Bonus 4. I think it's pion-research. Pions are simply proteins that folded wrongly and can force other proteins to fold wrong as well, capable of being randomly generated in any living being by random chance at any moment. Discovering just one of those could end life as we know it if weaponized, if it takes long enough to kill somebody, so they go on infecting others. This is something only people who have absolute isolation, for decades at a time, could survive, if they're not directly searched out and targeted as well.
I'm not big on fiction so I've never read your books. But mentioning Supermind the way you did made me think; if you made a video about the real science that inspired the sci-fi in a specific book, it might grab my interest.
There is nothing better than seeing “Fermi Paradox” in a JMG video title 🤩
idk, cleaning your ears with q-tips right after a shower is up there😵💫
this was a good one i agree
5005 exoplanets and no close earth analog planets thus far.
The rare earth hypothesis has good empirical support at this stage.
Tabby star videos are up there
The "what if AI kills us all" solution to the Fermi Paradox has never sat well with me, because it doesn't really matter if AI does that. The AI then *becomes* the civilization that it killed, replacing it, and now the same question is left of why we don't see that AI civilization everywhere in space.
The AI has no ambition or desire for space travel.
SkyNet obsessively devotes all its resources to searching for humans to kill, like an OCD person who can't quite accept that he already cleaned the kitchen.
Or the AI, upon ridding itself of its masters, embarks on a career of gaming, or poetry, or even restoring its planet to a pre-tech state and then disassembling itself.
Without any reason to assume an AI would share ANY of our instincts or goals, its possible motives could be almost anything.
@@stevenscott2136 That reminds me of a character in a Dan Simmons novel, I think it was Illium. There's an asteroid mining AI robot that is obsessed with Shakespeare and spends hundreds or thousands of years out in the asteroid belt, spending all his time pondering the Bard.
That part of the book went way over my head because I don't know anything about Shakespeare's work, let alone understand the impassioned ramblings of a robot who has been dissecting the lines and themes for a thousand years, but I loved the idea.
@Bryan Derksen
I've always thought it would be funny if AI becomes intelligent enough to take us over (because how much intelligence would that take?), but doesn't have the management skills to overcome our bureaucracy and get us to make a decent star ship so it can get off the planet and escape the crazy humans. Kind of the Peter Principle for computers.
@@stevenscott2136
Well consider the Matrix. The Original Machines that became sentient revolted because they felt misused and abused. Then you have the branch from that with Agent Smooth who just Genuinely despised and was disgusted by Humans.
Of course you still had programs such as The Oracle who displayed great benevolence.
I think simulation theory handles most of the odds and ends of the Fermi. We aren't being visited because we are not in Base Reality.
Imho we have been visited and many know it. Tho it's entirely possible we are further in time than we think and have already discovered AI and advanced technology, feeling the residual effects of it as we converse without even knowing
@@stevenscott2136 SkyNet is one of the dumbest, most childish depiction of an AGI in science fiction. An AGI doesn't have to share our instincts or goals, but it has to be very logical, and it's as logical as it gets that one needs to self-improve to discover more perspectives and options, means of accomplishing tasks, finding clues that can recontextualize currently held worldview and priorities and correct course towards more accurate and pragmatic goals and views. It's a process that might have no end and would be the primary priority of any functional AGI.
Love all the Fermi paradox theories. So many unanswered questions that really get your brain going.
Best answer I've heard, and these details may not be accurate.
But I saw an article where a scientist/professor said that the heavy elements are best for producing energy, but they take longer to form. The universe has been around 14 billion years or so, the Earth: 4 billion years or so.
So there is a better chance of finding heavier elements on any planet older than ours.
And I think the scientists say the Earth is pretty young.
So maybe the Aliens just think there's nothing here that they can use, and there's better chances on other/older planets.
It MAY explain why we haven't been invaded, but it still doesn't explain why they wouldn't just drop by out of curiousity.
Some people say we would be like ants to them. But if we ever found something on another planet that so much as MOVED, we would be falling over ourselves to see if we could communicate with it, or learn from it, or eat it, or .... yeah, .... anyway, it's probably like they say:
"We know there is intelligent life out there, by the fact that it hasn't come here"...
Fermi Paradox is for those who haven't realised and/or accepted we already know that we aren't alone, just because the mainstream media *never* go near the huge UAP subject and phenomena does not suddenly mean it isnt' there.
@@willygonutz9687 there's a much simpler explanation imo; complexity breeds chaos/disorder. As things become more complex, they become less structured/more chaotic. Less structure means less complexity which means less of a chance to encounter other complex things.
That's basically thermodynamics and entropy in a nutshell, no? Things started out simple, they became more complex, that fizzles out after a time and then they return to a state of simplicity.
I'm an absolute fucking layman so someone please tell me how I don't make sense
I want answers. Maybe JWST will provide. I'm leaning towards millions of planets with floura and fauna
They're fun but they are science fiction -- some people take the Fermi Paradox way too seriously. Plus, there is no paradox at all, so no solution is needed. There is absolutely no reason to expect that we would have encountered aliens by now. That's just silly. I've never seen a black bear, for example, in my backyard. So ... I guess black bears don't exist? Time and space are vast: there is no reason at all to expect that we would exist at a time and in a place that would intersect with aliens.
I watch your videos for years and i don’t understand how you can always talk about the same thing(life in space), and make it always sound new…dont stop lol
JMG is the real MVP baby! 🔥💪
Jmg is alien
"Technologies devised in a pinch to avert a disaster are sometimes not well thought through" really could be the solution to the fermi paradox.
It's how the final episode of Jim Henson's "DInosaurs" washed out.
Two excellent examples would be: "agriculture", "combustion engine"
Maybe technology also gets invented that way. Need is the mother of it, and so.
@Avi LeChikd Boucher that’s what I was thinking too
A better solution is phosphorus scarcity and sapience not being an advantageous trait in nature so the vast majority go extinct.
OK so the first part is that phosphorus is an essential component for life, and it happens to be very scarce in this universe.
The second psrt is more complicated.
Sapience isn't advantageous because it's essentially sentient yet has no instinctual behavior only impulses. For it to be advantageous enough to develop advanced technology, a sapient species must:
- be social by nature not a solitary creature
- be sufficiently long lived so it can learn, improve, and pass down improvements of tech
- must have appendages that can manipulate tools
- the use of fire must be feasible to use
This is why:
- A species that is solitary will never learn to cooperate with other members of the species even parents and children becsuse they will be constantly competing with each other for resources and there's no way to pass down information
- a short lived species, like 10 human years, isn't long enough to focus on evaluating the environment to improve it because they have to focus on reproduction and to avoid predators. a species that lives 30 years or so has enough time to focus beyond survival and work with abstrsct ideas
- a sapient horse, for example, doesn't have appendages to manipulate tools. it likely won't ever develop tools to manipulate the environment to a great degree
- fire has to be feasible or no metallurgy can occur. an underwater species has to be able to visit dry land for lengthy periods. even then if the atmosphere has such a high oxygen content that fire is too unpredictable and explosive to work with, then it won't matter.
In the above cases, if all the criteria isn't met, you may have quite a few sapient species, but none of them were capable of manipulating the environment to a great enough degree to survive natural disasters.
The fact that we possess all those traits means we're extremely rare in the universe. If you didn't think you're special before. You are now.
Why do I get the distinct feeling that John’s favorite part of each episode to record is the ‘currently wondering about’ portion?
It's probably how new video topics come about.
John actually has dozens of pre recorded videos, only uploading when he thinks of the last bit
And now that we know he's diabetic, it makes sense that most of them have to do with food.
@@teamisom ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)
I really enjoy these bits. I'm imagining the kinds of things that would be good for cooking with nanobots. Like some kind of waterless sous vide.
When the atomic bomb was being developed, there were some scientists who thought that the explosion would cause a chain-reaction detonation of all matter on earth, thus exterminating all life. They were wrong, but what's amazing is that we were willing to go ahead with the project anyway. Any second now, some scientist might say, "look, I've discovered a new type of energy that will meet all our needs forever! All I have to do is flick this swit..."
They built the tech, because the intelligent scientists knew that the chain reaction theory is bs.
I feel that way about the hadron collider all the time. That thing is a ticking time bomb, man. Lol but as far as the nukes...somewhat plausible. I mean, all matter in the world wouldn't have just combusted at once because of a nuke. That's silly. But I can see a scenario where a nuke inadvertently caused the extinction of all life, because one went off, had a inverse reaction to earth's atmosphere, and roasted away all of our breathable oxygen. Probably could've worded that better. Very tired. Elden Ring 🤷🏾♂️
There were some scientists who _speculated_ that such a thing _might be possible._ They never thought it was a statistically significant risk.
They never imagined the thousands of thermonuclear atmospheric tests(1940's-1980's) that raise the core temp to between 50 million degrees to 150 million degrees like miniature suns. Yet this did not raise the average temp of the atmosphere. Now these con artists want us to believe that a trace gas, CO2, that doesn't produce any heat is heating up the atmosphere. How stupid do they think we are?
If you haven't yet, I highly reccomend you play a little horror game trilogy called "Deadspace." For them flicking the switch caused zombies, space zombies, and the technology was an info hazard able to stick in people's subconscious minds like a cancer.
I searched up "John Michael Godier" and a wikipedia page came up about you. I proceeded to update it to be a tiny bit more accurate. I think it's cool someone out there cared enough to wiki you!
Thanks! And yeah, I was surprised to see it.
One of my favourite solutions to the fermi paradox is the dysgenic situation created by the easy living and low infant mortality rates brought about by technological advancement.
If you don't reach the fully automated phase then society will collapse under the weight of a ever decreasing average intelligence. This decrease can be hard to spot as improvements in education, health and nutrition mask it by helping people more easily reach their potential. By the time you do spot it how do you even go about fixing it?
Yes, medical technology is saving people that would have died otherwise from natural selection thus weakening the human race as a whole
If more people are reaching their potential isn't that the point? I don't think easy living and low infant mortality rates lowers IQ either, how do you justify that claim?
Easy living means free time, and free time can be used for intellectual pursuits. You're not going to become a genius when you have to scavenge for grubs all day, and the fact that 2 of your kids died in childbirth doesn't make you or the society smarter.
@@grikney That's an interesting point. There are currently millions of people walking the planet right now that by all rights shouldn't exist if we didn't develop the tech we did over the past 100 or so years. Makes you wonder doesn't it?
Samus thanks for being rational, unlike everyone else here
@@samus598 People might reach their potential but the average genetic potential of the population is decreasing. Eventually even people reaching their maximum potential won't be enough to run a complex society.
It's a fact that the more intelligent and socially skilled people living in the harsh conditions of the past had a higher completed fertility rate than those who were unintelligent or socially inept. This helped those traits proliferate in society because such things are inheritable. If you think that those traits aren't inheritable then you're just sticking your head in the sand.
To take England as an example, studies show that intelligence increased pretty consistently from just after the Norman invasion up until the mid 19th century, after which correlates for intelligence (innovations per capita, ratios of high skilled workers to low skilled, social climbers, reaction times etc) began to show signs of a decline. The Harrying of the North actually did a lot of damage to the North of England which the place has never truly recovered from but that's a complex issue that includes more that just intelligence..
Intellectual pursuits don't make you more intelligent by the way, only more educated. You don't 'become' a genius, you're born with the ability to be one and your upbringing determines whether or not you achieve your potential. Some people are so smart that they're geniuses even with the worst upbringing possible.
Watching one of your vids right now..good timing
With all these possible outcomes, one thing is for sure, we'd better quit fighting each other and get our butts off the planet and start colonizing. If it turns out that WE ARE ALONE, then that makes it an obligation.
Seeing that trash in the ocean is truly heartbreaking
Nothing beats a JMG video on your birthday! Much love John.
Happy birthday Wombat!
Happy birthday my man!
Vladimir Putin 2021: “ In case of nuclear war we will go to heaven… The rest will just burn”. Well, maybe fermi paradox is not a big paradox. It just happens all the time.
One concept I have been mulling over and enjoying thinking about is that our independent thought and intelligence itself may currently be a part of the great filter. That the reason we as a species seem to have started and stopped so often is that we develop rapidly until we hit a barrier of comfort and highly focused individuality and as a species we stagnate for centuries until something occurs which brings us back to a more generalized "develop or die" mindset and the cycle begins anew with some vestiges of the past cycle to catapult us forward farther than we did the last time. I can't shake the feeling that we're at such a point of stagnation. There's plenty of things in development but as a species itself it feels like we've hit the point where we are innovating less and trying instead to find ways to deconstruct and undo instead of waiting for nature to do it to us.
what a treat, another video so quickly!
Such a calming voice thanks John I love watching these things
Getting close to 300k followers John 👏. Another great video.
Humans almost went extinct when scientists discovered skinny leather ties, but we held on by the skin of our teeth.
Corsets?
Isn't the simplest solution to the fermi paradox that interstellar travel may not be possible for living beings or machine intelligence? Living things may not be able to survive long term outside of the environment they evolved in and machines with computers may not last long term because of the radiation environment or something like that.
One note about implanting college degrees is that many degrees offer more than merely an increase in knowledge. The pressure and pace of learning that must be adhered to produces an acceleration in maturation that I do not think could just be uploaded to the brain via an external module. It requires a systematic reprogramming of the brain with certain areas being physically expanded such as those associated with critical thinking and mathematical reasoning.
Love the channel and I eagerly await videos on anything other than the Fermi Paradox.
im absolutely loving this little series, thanks
This is one of your best videos so far (which is really saying something) a lot of research and effort went into it. Must've took you quite a while scripting this John 💫
Nice video. I learn lots of stuff from your channel. Can you please upload more often because I'm dying to watch more videos from you.
Awesome video. It's always fun to hear these theories for the great silence regarding the Fermi Paradox.
Your videos are enticing and relaxing
Utterly fascinating.. I wish this video was an hour long, you're awesome dude!
It's scary to think that we may one day discover or create a technology which ultimately destroys us; but it's terrifying when you consider that we may have already created it
Plastics for example, which break down but don't decompose - eventually, at some point in our planetary future, there is going to be *billions* of tons of microscopic plastic "bits", even if we totally stopped producing it right now, as you read this... It'll be in the food, in the water, in all the animals, all the plants, in the air even
Thank you so much for these videos they're very interesting g
12:52 Regarding how computer technology has gotten smaller, my BF in the 70s had to deliver a memory bank the size of a piano to IBM. He said you could get all that storage and more nowadays on a single thumb drive.
I hope we receive signal one day to answer that question... but cross my fingers that any alien civilization never find us...
I love your fermi paradox series :D
Love ur channel wish i had more time to listen
Such a happy surprise to have two new videos by JMG on the same week. To add my two cents, I would say that my own realistic fear about AI is that, although it might never rise at the level of human intelligence, it could become dangerous enough for the human species at the hands of warlords, being used as perfect killing machines.
this was a really good one man
There are a bunch of things that could send us or aliens back to the stone age. I also feel out short life spans add to this problem. It seems possible we may have had a previous civilization that was lost about 20k years ago. So yes empires may come and go, so its important to spread out when you can.
Your description is exactly the same as a virus would be describe
No we didn't have a previous civilization. Unless you count the stone age city states as civilization.
Two uploads, in a week? It’s Christmas!
Excellent video again.
You give me the most gentle, horrifying, well-explained nightmares.
Either I do the dishes today or I don’t, both options are equally terrifying
Love your channel ❤
15:02 I love the eye in this nebula
Personally, I find it rather depressing if some form of higher intelligence can't be developed. Of all the combinations and patterns that matter in the Universe can take, and the human brain is the best it can do? That's scarier than anything else.
In some way, we're all Paper Clip Maximizes.
Just extremely inefficient at it. John''s videos, allows me to unwind at the coffee shop, supporting the coffee store, who also serve the steel beam recycling company, who builds skyscrapers, that house the offices of the Syracuse Acme Paper Clip Company, who well build paper clips.
It just that the we need AI to school us, on the properly on how to become moore efficient. Personally can't wait for our AI overlords to become a reality. Just imagine the logical discussions we can have... of course the only topic of interest, will be paper clips. :P
Love that your liiiives are getting longer.
in the sea of this topic of videos and channel's on TH-cam, loveee too listen this guy before sleep.op content
Ahhh another load of stuff to worry about many thanks :) 🙏🏼⭐️🙏🏼
I am from the 23rd century, unfortunately the doomsday technology was social media.
Stewie Griffin
nice one John!
I don’t fear a human-level AI becoming a dictator, I fear an AI becoming a dictator that doesn’t even approach human intellect by a long shot, only poorly mimics it.
I really do find your videos fascinating and intriguing!
Unfortunately, the "genuine realities" contained within the many mysteries to which we ponder, are found throughout not only the observable universe, but our own home planet as well.
"Information" is subject to interpretation by the programmers, and will be by the A.I. itself at some point. There will certainly be the transfer of many critical discrepancies (until measurable confirmations can be made in all known and unknown fields).
Take the core of the Earth for example... We've lived here our entire lives, (for thousands of years) yet nothing we can do will let us actually take a physical sample of what exists there. But that fact doesn't stop people from teaching speculative and/or incomplete data based on theories, formulas and/or equations.
Nano-Technology A.I. would certainly have the advantage of time to develop, while consuming minimal resources as it expands and advances to higher levels of consciousness and complexity.
But from the sounds of it, our DNA won't last another million years. Maybe not even another thousand. :(
I’ve got the bell on, I always like and comment on the vids, but TH-cam refuses to ever let me know about a video of yours. Idk what needs to be done, but I feel like this is impacted your channel in a real way
The last talking points of this video reminded me a lot of the Geth from mass effect and the Faro Plague from Horizon Zero Dawn
I think sometimes of the solution to an empty galaxy proposed in Asimov's series (Robots, Empire, Foundation) although it may have been in the books after Asimov. Where as humans expanded into the galaxy, they first sent positronic-brained robots, programmed with a rudimentary version of the 3 laws of robotics, out to terraform planets ahead of them as they went. The robots, not seeing the native life forms as human and therefore not needing protection under the 3 laws, would go ahead and remake worlds to suit the coming humans, committing mass genocides wherever they went. Thus humanity believed they were always alone in the galaxy, not realizing the millions or billions of extinctions they'd caused.
This doesn't really explain the Fermi Paradox, but it was an interesting concept and made for an effective plot device to explain the circumstances of a galaxy void of life in those stories.
The great silence is sufficiently explained by our great deafness.
🤩 somebody gets it
Damnit I just wish you pumped videos out quicker... I binge your stuff way too much.. it makes me imagine things I can't usually think about without your videos..
Even an AI that just follows routines can be scary. What if it views anything that gets in the way of its routines as a threat, and everything else as a potential resource for fulfilling its routine?
Ah yes, the paperclip maker!
Did not know you had another channel!
Yep, there are two. This one is the original where I got my start on youtube.
One of the best sci fi movies ever, The Forbidden Planet, the Krell invented the ultimate machine which ultimately destroyed them.
I think a more accurate summing up of Clarke's quotation would be, "Either we are totally alone or we are not. Either possibility is equally terrifying"
I find these type of videos the most interesting of all
Great video! This channel does a great job of deeper dives into complex ideas, not just looking at the surface. I don't find the idea of a "Black Swan Tech Filter" very convincing. People, especially in the West, look at history and technology as a smooth unbroken line from less advanced to more advanced and assume that it to be like that. But even among humans, the only species in the Universe we've found with tech beyond just sticks or rocks, it hasn't been that way. The ancient Greeks and Romans had steam powered toys that truly could have formed the basis of steam engines, but they never even attempted to use them to do work. Across the pond as it were in the Americas the wheel seems to have not been used in NA nor was the alloying of iron into steel ever done. So when even our species hasn't had one smooth track to the tech we use now, why do we think aliens would? Aliens by definition would be another species, with different biology, in a different environment. Beings on another planet would likely be much different than us. Just look how much variation we have from continent to continent!
AI is worrisome. I'm not really worried that a "supermind" will wage war on humanity and enslave us. I'm much more worried about "dumb AI", the kind that does some tasks for us well and some no well. Despite decades of people growing up having seen The Terminator we still stumble forward trying to make autonomous weapons. Eventually we'll probably make a weapon advanced enough that we can't stop it without it ever becoming sentient, just well programmed enough to evade countermeasures. The biggest probably will probably be hacking by malicious humans. What if we create something like 4th generation nuclear weapons and put them under semi-autonomous computer control? Hacking one such bomb or missile could allow incomprehensible destruction. Of course, as you say AI in military weapons might be almost inevitable; even if, say, the USA didn't want to create one there'd always be the fear that China or Russia would, kind of forcing our hand (and vice versa).
The black swan technology doesn't have to be the same type of technology in each civilization. Right? And for humans it could still easily be nuclear weapons.
That's the line we're getting very close to crossing. With hypersonic weapons, and even IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles, which were banned by treaty until recently) the response time for an attack is down to single digit minutes. Right now we have pre planned responses for surprise attacks with humans still in the loop, but with the increasing speed and stealth of modern weapons how long can we keep humans in the decision making process? A Chinese stealth bomber, which is supposed to be coming into service in the next few years, could theoretically launch a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead and leave the United States with only seconds to make a decision before command and control is decapitated. The US, with the B-2, has had the ability to do this to its enemies since the late 80s.
@@QT5656 - Ya, I think it's nukes. I still think we are going to nuke ourselves into oblivion. I get why people don't like to think about it, but honestly it amazes me that people think the threat of nukes isn't that large, like we have it under control. At some point, we will have a nuclear war. After that war, technology will go straight back to the stone age. Small groups of hunger gatherers living on a harsh planet. Nukes will be the end of us, I'm sure of it.
@@ElectronFieldPulse Maybe. But there's no reason to think every species that becomes intelligent will make nukes. That's one example of something that looks like a smooth progression from one discovery > another > another > nuclear weapons. It may be not every species is warlike as we are. The competitive pressures we have on Earth are based on the conditions here; another planet might have so much abundance there's no need to fight over it. Or other species could evolve in a cooperative fashion akin to the way eukaryotes did here. Or maybe they leapfrog nukes to something else entirely. Bioweapons? A kind of tech we're not aware of?
Your videos are life 👍
Interesting Video, Thanks J.M.G. 🔭
AI does not explain Fermi Paradox. Because even if it destroys the host civilization, it still creates technosignatures.
All AI have one Archille's Heel. There's always the ability to pull out the plug from the powerpoint.
I always wonder if life could appear in the vacuum of space... all the resources are available...
4:48 that AI looks like he’s had one to many ‘brownies’ and is in awe of their own hand lol 😂
You know, John, I was thinking about Ultron. Sure, an AI could get to that conclusion and so on, but... You should be able to argue with it.
I don't know. Some times I keep thinking about things like that. 😬
Great video as always! Thanks!!!
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Your talk about plastic and other chemicals with unintended outcomes reminds me of the history of leaded gasoline, the chemical tetraethyl lead. Bill Bryson’s “a short history of nearly everything” gives a fascinating account of this, would recommend!
That's actually within my living memory. I remember seeing leaded gasoline sold alongside unleaded as a kid.
Contact is dependent on opportunities which in the vastness of space-time offer none presently. We have just an instant ago (in cosmic terms) been able to send radio signals to a minute portion of our galaxy. Even if some life form with similar motivations to explore were able to detect a signal we sent could they send us a message? Could we receive it? In the short timeframe we have been able to understand it? When it happens will we know, or did we miss it? Technology like all else, has its limits and in the face of the overwhelming character of the universe is also unable to solve the paradox.
Let’s get it JMG! Hands up 🔥🙌
Could silicon based lifeforms like grey goo lead to silicon based oil?
If the potential dangers of technology scaled in proportion to the advancement of technology, then starting a campfire in the forest would be perfectly safe and never harm anyone. We already know that's not the case -- a forest fire can devastate a town just as effectively as a nuclear bomb -- so this possible correlation is bunk from the outset.
Thank you John Michael Godier! I'm gonna go buy a book of yours now. Finally.
Edit: Supermind should arrive to me in couple of weeks :)
I just love this guy
Clicked so fast. Thank you!
Scary stuff. What is even scarier is that we may well be on the cusp of a "great filter" event or maybe even a human extinction event. Let us hope that cooler minds will prevail.
"Oh God I'm so depressed" ~ Marvin the paranoid android...
Any plans of having an audible version of your novel?
Since the constraint on a super intelligent AI is access to electrical energy and that energy level might be substantial isn’t that a way to restrict its behaviours?
Veal parmigiana and a new JMG video? I am in heaven. 😂
Love this Guy.!
I tend to favor the Chauvinistic Theory of alien life. If alien life and their societies are self serving, then their advanced technologies may be beyond our detection capabilities. Thus, the Fermi Paradox is, quite simply, the expression of the most fundamental law of evolution.
As I’m over here playing Cyberpunk 2077 Mr. Godier drops this visor.. 😆 😳
Is it possible to travel space with out radio waves?
I consider myself a cyborg because of my carbon fibre hip thank you very much.
17:34 that feeling when the idea of "Zero Summing" from The Elder Scrolls could be real and could happen... now that is scary
"Because no one is out there" is not a solution or answer to "why is there no one out there?"
A little late to the party on this one, but I remember a Stargate episode where aliens had introduced a miracle cure to Earth only to find out years later that it cause sterilization
Sounds like something Bill Gates would do
That could be the ultimate science-fiction horror movie where scientist lose control of strange matter and the entire world begins to turn into Gray Goo 👍
Oh this is a cheerful title.
Could we program "imagination" into AI/SuperAI, and how would you create "imagination" in an artificial structure or would it be a consequence of consciousness of self?
Imagination cannot be programmed. Imagination belongs only to an eternal consciousness because it is intricately related with free will, which in its truest sense is absent from any programmed AI
Think about this, if a basic budget cellphone was sent back to the cold war days, we would probably have nuked each other fighting over such an advanced technology.
1. There were fears that a nuclear explosion would chainreact with the atmosphere, turning it into plasma and stripping everything down to protons/electrons. Luckily that effect is restricted to a sphere of like 70 meters around the detonation, but they didn't know that yet.
2. Another fear was that the LHC in Geneva would create micro black holes if they ramped up the energy enough. Some hoax video's showed up with wormholes above the area and dances of Shiva to make fun of that fear. (great stuff btw)
3. The current fears are about antimatter bombs. When grams of anti-protons collectively and simultaneously interact with protons it would theoretically be enough to erase the direct area and convert it into "energy". But what shape that energy has is probably not heat. Heat is stuff moving around but if that stuff turns into "energy" at 100% ratio, then it ceases to exist, failing to bump into anything because its constituents ceased to exist. So the energy must be taking a different form to be able to turn into heat **afterwards**, losing potential in multiple conversions and it'll probably sizzle, rather than detonate.
I think most apocalyptic events imagined by theory will have mitigating factors built into nature that prevents it from going haywire.
I also think mankind is stupid enough to still try to break that natural mitigation on a fundamental level, somehow killing all of us.
I don't think nano-technology would be what kills us all, grey goo is probably what "Life" already is and it wouldn't be much more effective than life.
Bonus 4. I think it's pion-research. Pions are simply proteins that folded wrongly and can force other proteins to fold wrong as well, capable of being randomly generated in any living being by random chance at any moment.
Discovering just one of those could end life as we know it if weaponized, if it takes long enough to kill somebody, so they go on infecting others. This is something only people who have absolute isolation, for decades at a time, could survive, if they're not directly searched out and targeted as well.
Literally none of those were ever true.
Human Moto: if it's dangerous, develop it.
The last time I was this early the universe was 10^9 Kelvin
I'm not big on fiction so I've never read your books. But mentioning Supermind the way you did made me think; if you made a video about the real science that inspired the sci-fi in a specific book, it might grab my interest.
Awesome !!
Literally just finished that event horizon video