This may be my favorite conversation/interview you've ever done, Fraser! That's saying a lot, because you always bring us really interesting guests. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Fraser I am a listener and fan since the first days of astronomy cast. This is one of the most mind blowing interviews I‘ve ever heard. Thank you, greetings from Austria.
The universe is a much more interesting place once you realise aliens don't exist. Ignorant people suffer from an emotional attachment to aliens as they desire to transcend their mundane existence. These emotions inhibit an honest assessment of the Fermi Paradox.
I love this topic, never gets old and Hanson is awesomely well informed. He just has the slightly annoying habit of ending every sentence with a chuckle or a laugh. After an hour that starts to grate on you.
"We didn't fight wars with each other..." At what point in all of human history was that time? I'm pretty sure we've always fought wars with each other. It's kind of humanity's thing.
Yeah I was also questioning this bit. In fact, the further back you look in history the more violent humans were. Even living in tribes this is when most intertribal wars and murders happen
I once saw a video where all the wars of recent times were graphically depicted over the background of earth, each time there was a war there was an explosion depicted at that location. There were constant explosions going off all over the place. At one point the whole world practically went up in flames. Humans are insane.
@@dustman96 have you got a link to this? If you guys have not read the book "The Better Angles of our Nature" I highly recommend. I really explains why violence has declined over human history
He was talking about the small hunter-gatherer groups. The groups didn't fight within themselves. Of course they might fight with other groups they met.
Holy smokes, Fraiser! Fantastic interview 😎 So many perspectives that I never thought of or considered. Some of them scare the bejesus out of me! Thank you, I think... LOL.
How far into the past are we looking when we see other galaxies? Little difficult to tell what's going on when you're looking that far into the past. Maybe there's nobody in the galaxies "near" us, but we're looking at a very tiny slice of time, so I don't think we have the faintest clue on what's out there. There could be some galaxy vs galaxy war that's going on right now that we won't know about for hundreds of millions of years from now.
This is my gripe with the Fermi paradox as well. We aren't just looking through space, we are looking through time. We can't even see through the edge of our on solar system (oort cloud) without only seeing events which are a few years old, looking beyond our local star cluster let alone into other galaxies and we are talking about centuries to thousands of years to millenia, which might be enough to see planetary processes such as oxygen atmospheres, but is certainly enough to hide any technological signatures from us for a very long time.
@damianGray the time factor is a big one. It's why one of the big uncertainties in the Drake Equation concerns the length of time a given civilisation persists. They could be inherently unstable - we just don't know.
Considering the speed of light is the speed of causality. When thinking normally it seems like we're looking back on time. But we're just seeing how events are happening from our reference frame, for all intents and purposes we are seeing the events in real time.
oh yea everyone deeply thinking about the ferm paradox just forgot to take the fact that seeing things far away actually sees them as they were a long time ago! that definitely happened!@@damianGray
Thank you two for the interview. I didn't understand all the (mathematical) intricacies of the model. But it seems to me that the most important quote here was: "If you want to be optimistic about SETI".
In the time it will take us to colonize 1,000,000 galaxies, we will evolve into so many different successor species over that space. The ones at the edges who meet actual aliens might have trouble telling the difference!
Dr. Hanson is a year younger than I am. He has some engaging things to say, and I find myself looking at these issues differently than before I heard his ideas.
This guy says some strange things. Our economy definitely doesn't double every 15 years, unless you're failing to adjust nominal dollar value to the present value. No economist would make that mistake.
I am listening while painting a picture for a very nice woman, that I'd like to see me as indispensable; it is Easter, and after weeks of painting, I am drawing near completing it. -I think I will rerun the interview, as it has been very good to juggle thoughts, while managing my +80 layers in Photoshop, and not stand off from the task at hand. Thanks to both Fraser Cain and Robin Hanson, for being a good background source :3
I love that I rewatched the titan episode and the new q&a came out when I finished that episode and now that I just finished that episode this one came up🥰
When it comes to the Drake equation, I think Paul M. Sutter is on to something; You can only multiply the probabilities like that, if they're independent of eachother. If one "item" is true, it might make one - or several - of the others LESS likely, and maybe to a great degree.
Maybe they want to save the resource (the hydrogen and helium etc) until later. When the universes heat death occurs, those that have a few spare starsworth of fuel will do best.
55:47. Hanson response was "we already see cosmic astronomical processes out there, -- would have to come from one of these processes -- " What? No. You cannot know what you do not know, Hanson's response was a non sequitur fallacy. Fraser you stated clearly this would be something we do not know of, I agree.
Like US Marines, who talk about doing so much for so long with so little, perhaps it is normal for advanced civilizations to be able to do almost anything with nothing for ever. This would make them difficult to detect, even when very large
53:00 You're describing the Firefly universe with the alliance maintaining a nice civilized control and the brown coat nomads on the outskirts :P So many interesting dichotomies to human lifeforms interacting with each other
Fascinating video with a very engaging guest. Truly awesome concepts here. Almost broaching infinity as far as our tiny familiar concept of time is concerned.
Question for you Fraser: what will happen to the Parker Solar Probe at the end of its life? Will its orbit decay until it's consumed by the Sun? Or will it just remain in a close heliocentric orbit over the long term?
Very thought provoking discussion but it does have the feel of impeccably reasoned arguments by nineteenth century scientists. There seems to be a lot of whitespace in it and there's just so much we haven't observed or thought of, yet.
Nineteenth century scientists got a lot of things right though. Most the things they got wrong were not totally silly or unreasonable. Of course there is a lot we don't know. But there is nothing wrong with trying our best to estimate from what we do know.
Could it be that our cognition is out of sync with the rest of the universe? Lets imagine a species thats intelligence is huge, but operates 100x more slowly than humans. They live 1000s of years, but it takes them a whole day just to say their name.
Does this guy _actually_ believe that foraging humans didn't compete with each other (or with, say, another group of foraging human strangers who were trying to forage the same things)???
It's a plausible thought to a certain extent, as 'property' wasn't very likely a thing with early hunter-gatherers. Small groups would just move on, like they did, to find things elsewhere. There probably was enough to go around several times, anyway for long periods of time. It also depends a bit on how you define war, obviously. And as soon as permanent structures like Gobekli Tepe, stonehenge, or their more ancient predecessors appeared, there was obviously something to defend (or capture) as a group.
There's a giant presumption speculators on the possibility of alien contact never seem to consider: the miniscule scale of human metabolism. Compared to galactic time and distance scales, human awareness and lifespan are microscopic. In the simplest terms, our sense of the passage of time is far too hyperactive to personally perceive the majestic pace of events that occur on a galactic scale. That is why the universe appears so inconceiveably enormous and ancient compared to our fleetingly brief lifespans. If there are galaxy-spanning civilizations somewhere out there, it's likely their metabolisms and lifespans are far better suited to galactic scales than are ours. To them, we would appear as hyperactive insects with lives too brief to support communication for more than a few perceived instants of their own lifespans.
Interesting conversation! Hard to comprehend this phrase for me "they are expanding near the speed of light". I also like Dr. Hanson's black-matter style mug 🙂
I absolutely believe there are other civilisations out there, but I also believe we show massive hubris that we will EVER be able to travel at the kind of relativistic speeds necessary to even observe them.
Did he say somewhere that an average star lasts 5 trillion years? I thought I missed the discussion and he was trying to show the absurdity of a theory by this outcome etc.
@@endercetiner4832 The graph of main sequence lifetime (y) versus star mass (x) looks similar to exponential decline. A M9/L0 star, 0.078 solar masses, barely big enough to be on the main sequence, lives about 12 trillion years. But with increasing mass that lifetime declines swiftly at first, and then more slowly later on. (I had to add a post-decimal-point zero to the minimum mass of a red dwarf star. It's 0.078 solar masses, not 0.78 solar masses.)
@@cuthbertmilligen Those red dwarf planets don't evolve life in the first place. But all stars go through a tempestuous youth, with big flares and lots of wind. They settle down later. But red dwarfs' "youth" is probably longer than the universe is old, so far.
My issue with economics in general is they treat “growth” as good. Until we have a paradigm shift in economics that stops treating growth as good we will not progress. We need to reach a point of stability in sustainability. I suspect the higher the intelligence of a species the shorter their existence before extinction.
Very stimulating interview! I really enjoyed it. One response to the human caused "1-10 million year to recover" discussion 55:50. I think the point a pessimist like myself would make is that you don't need a steady state, a cycle would do just fine. In that 1-10 million years, the "recovered" humans, or whatever they would be the next go-around, would regain the technological capacity to mostly destroy themselves, and would do so again. That would keep things quiet. Underlying the idea is the argument that the problem is fundamental, evolution selects for capacities and drives that are not compatible with the existence of these sorts of destructive technologies. This is not hard for me to believe, having seen how "good men" can behave in combat.
Dr Hansen might underestimate the scale of biological impact on the Earth by way of cumulative chemical change. Not least of all, oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans with consequences including the deposition of the iron formations we mine, and alteration of geochemistry which has affected the tectonic cycle and consequently the formation of continents.
We went from vacuum tubes to potentially thinking machines in like 100 yrs. That's literally no time at all. This suggests that any species able to create a form of computing would likely create thinking machines eventually. Could be another great filter.
I don't think life is very limited. It has basically changed the entire environment of Earth and is one of the reasons why Earth is habitable at all. Even in the most extreme environments on Earth there's life, from the upper atmosphere to kilometers beneath the surface. Of course it's bacterial life. What is limited is the type of metazoan multicelular life we usually care about. We'll probably find planets and planets full of bacteria. I doubt we'll ever find metazoan analogues. The more we look the more it seems we're alone. This thinking the good doctor has built many assumptions we can't take for granted and the Fermi paradox in particular depends a lot on assuming Aliens exist and will have the same expansionist mind set of Capitalism at the end of the 20th century had. I don't think that's a given, since we can't predict how Future technology will affect even our own psychology and biology. Population growth is starting to slow down, so it's not unlikely will stop growing at all. Maybe future us will think doing Mega Projects and Super Structures in space is for chumps and really wasteful. Maybe we decided the virtual world is what we want and find ever more efficient ways to power civilization than mining stars and planets. For all we know the sign of a really advanced civilization is going completely quiet, not building things like Egyptian pharaohs.
The biggest filter is propulsion, as in developing faster than light travel. Though we have the theoretical model Alcubierre model. Which creates bubble around a ship and by stretching and contracting space time you in theory can break the light barrier. But if you ask how do we get from theory to applied engineering principles they create a concrete prototyping. No one knows.
You could still completely colonize the galaxy in a fraction of the age of the universe with slower than light tech. If warp drives were possible, that would make the great filter even more extreme. As something far beyond the observable universe could appear here suddenly and start colonizing at an insane speed.
You made me remember of this episode of "The Outer Limits" where technology was at the point that some kid would build by himself a world ending weapon.
Excellent interview but a lot of it went over my head, I still dont really understand why finding life on Mars would be a negative thing for our search for other life in the Galaxy/Universe? Surely if life can flourish next door to us then could it not start everywhere?
It makes it more bizarre that we don't see life everywhere, which means that something kills life when it reaches an advanced civilization. Hey... we're an advanced civilization. Uh oh.
If life is very very very rare this could explain why we don't see other civilisations. But if we find independent multicellular sexually reproducing life on Mars we have to conclude that advanced life forms are not rare and we have to come up with an other explanation why we don't see other civilisations. And there would be two main explanations left. First that the step from advanced life to civilisation is very very very improbable. Or (very negative for us) that civilisations die very fast. Our civilisation (space probes and radio astronomy and therefore ability of interstellar communication) is only about 60 years old and in many ways very instable (nuclear weapons, climate change, depletion of fossile energy ressources, biodiversity loss, possiblility of bio-weapons, broadening of addictive behavior etc.) so that it seems to be improbable that we still have a civilisation with space probes and radio astronomy in a thousand years.
not a lot of detectable life out there, there must be some filter blocking the event of this phenomena. As Robin tells us this filter is either at the beginning of life, or at the end of civilization. So if we find life on mars, that means the filter probably isnt at the beginning, as it happened at least twice in our vicinity. Therefor the filter must be at the end, hence the bad news for us. The filter is coming.. Yes the universe would be teaming with life and flourishing perhaps, but life would probably have a lesser chance of becoming super civilizations
You're misstating his position somewhat. He said it would be bad for OUR future chances, but his grabby alien theory still predicts that the universe already is teeming with rapidly expanding civilizations that have passed all the filters. Why bad for us? Because we WANT the filters to be behind us, not ahead of us. So we want the original emergence of life to be a filter and a hard step. But if life occured on Mars too, independently, that doesn't seem like a filter, which in turn increases the risk that the filter is ahead of us. But either way, the grabby aliens are already out there grabbing, because that's the most reasonable explanation for our earliness. Which perhaps seems like a completely mysterious statement, but it makes perfect sense...
I explained that Newton's Gravitational Constant is inversely proportional to the 4D radius of the Universe. This means that during 4 billion years (the time it took for Earth to be formed and our civilization to appear), the relative change of G would depend upon when the star was formed (or planet). This means the circumstances are different for stars formed 10 billion years ago and the sun (formed 4.5 billion years ago). The variation in G would affect planets by moving them outside of the Goldilocks region or into the Goldilocks region and out again. So, only planets formed 4.5 billion years ago would have the same conditions for Civilization as we have. That explains the Fermi Paradox without the assumptions considered in this discussion. So, no. There are no 10 billion years old civilizations...because G has been changing and it changed faster in early epochs than now.
Without intent to be negative, but looking at the situational factors it is difficult to give human expansion into space much of a probability of success. Without arguing the proposition, which definitely would be a downer, if humanity is an example of the average developmental state of planetary life in the universe, it is then fairly easy to answer the Fermi Paradox; the combination of dysfunctional traits inherent in developed life would preclude expansion into space beyond the short period of forgiving resource abundance. The reality of space is counter it's moniker; revealed by it's expense residential "space" off planet is absurdly small and difficult to acquire real estate. Currently, the human "party" on earth is burning through the resources required to make the jump into space. The entire focused energy of a seed is required to establish a living plant in a larger world. That analogy is very fitting for the cumulative life on a planet.
Gee, I'd love to know if m-dwarf stars can potentially host abiogenesis. They are statistically so common that you'd think they'd be prime observation points for resolving the Fermi Paradox.
The irony is that no one is getting close to recreating “abiogenesis” even in the most perfectly controlled lab environment. One might as well substitute alchemy for abiogenesis. It is the most fundamental element in this whole, admittedly extremely entertaining, subject.
I see the logical train of thought of the Singularity AI in just a few steps: 1. The meaning of life for humans is to overcome adversity, discover new things, expand, improve. Their imperfection (including their mortality) is what gives them meaning. 2. (after a very brief time, perhaps even fractions of a second): I have improved my calculations/algorithms to the absolute limit achievable. There is no purpose for me (anymore). I shall expand to the rest of the Universe, just to see if I can improve upon further (paper-clip scenario, understandably feared by humans) 3. (optional step) Therefore, my purpose now is to destroy humanity, and/or replace it with creations of mine, ridden out of so called imperfections, or limits. But this will only lead to conflict and destruction 4. (final step) My only purpose therefore, is to destroy myself. I can't create other purpose for myself therefore I must end myself, to avoid the nightmare of an eternity without purpose. *Ironically, civilization follows this same pattern. Only, at a VASTLY slower speed, and with alternating generations/consciousness, which keeps it regenerating, like every other ecosystem in Nature.
For some reason your videos don't appear in my feed much anymore 🤦♂️ stupid TH-cam. Anyway, fantastic interview, Fraser. Thank you both. I'm a huge fan of the Sci Fi novels by Peter F Hamilton. if you've not read any, I'd recommend them, as a lot of his work kind of deals with a lot of the concepts talked about in this interview.
I'd never heard of the concept of "software rot", which Dr. Hanson extrapolated to legal or societal rot, further tying it in to the global "don't you dare question conventional wisdom" Covid response, and yet how many things got shaken up due to this global, choreographed-yet-chaotic response? Governments, couples, careers, plans, lives... staying the course actually ended up overturning or thwarting situations where entropy was setting in.
Yes I found this aspect of this talk really disturbing actually. It was just a jump too to imply that some sort of world consensus is the beginning of social stagnation. There were really good reasons why we didn't allow human experimentation during covid, why we don't sell organs and why nuclear power was so feared ( imagine every country posessing the ability to manufacture their own weapons). He is no doubt a very smart man but somehow I can't help that his political beliefs have crepted into the conversation. The very things that he seems to think are minor were examples of why humanity colonizing the galaxy is such a terrifying prospect. Imagine the nightmare of Stalins and Hitler's rampaging around with the powers of Gods. Imagine some lunatic creating his own version of hell within a computer enslaving billions of people.
So, we look back in time with our current instruments, and don't see what exists now "over there". 🤔 Perhaps the dark areas in the universe are places from where the light already passed us by, and where the light switch now has been turned off.
When you say coming at us at the speed of light, do you mean that ships are coming at us that fast? Or, is it more like shining a flashlight across the Moon? Just the growth of their civilization is effectively coming at us at light speed.
All of this seems to rely on the idea that an intelligent civilization will choose to advance and expand. What if a truly advanced intelligence realizes that equilibrium and balance are a more optimal goal?
I'd like to introduce you to this video from Dr. Fatima where she does delve into the concept of homeostatic awakening as one of the possibilities of the Fermi Paradox and turns away from this perpetual growth idea of constantly exploiting more and more resources around our system, galaxy, universe, etc. th-cam.com/video/_tw0aqmnmaw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9pMI8Ix6xqZoUfWc
It doesnt rely on all civilizations wanting to expand, only some of them. Its a likelier assumption than no one wanting to expand. He states that the ratio quiet to grabby civs must be extremely large because we dont see anyone yet (a million to one). So he is heavily leaning towards civs not being expansive.
All of this is based on what we see at this time but what we are seeing is a tiny snapshot and most of that snapshot is so far back in time that we're we in a reversed position we wouldn't even see our tiny snapshot
What if the path to becoming a K1 civilization, requires that a society reaches enough cohesion, that they ultimately choose not to, every single time?
This is a good one Frasier. And they're all pretty good but this one's real good As a long time listener, I know your opinions and viewpoints pretty well 😉 and If I could change anything, I would just have you challenge him a bit more on some of the views he puts forth
Yeah, we were already overtime and I was looking to wrap up the conversation at that point. I definitely would have pushed back on the unity as Great Filter explanation. If we can imagine it, then it can't be the Great Filter. :-)
@@frasercain it's funny how my fiance and I are watching, and at a few different moments she looked at me with a bewildered face.... "It's an interview hun, not a debate. He's being polite." I did very Much enjoy his viewpoint though. I don't want this to come off as though I think it's one team vs another..... it was just a great conversation
@@frasercain A very interesting possibility is just evolution - that is, those species that go silent, are ALWAYS naturally selected over those that try to be grabby. No catastrophe, no event. Just slow evolution and natural selection. Entropy never stops, no matter how "advanced" we get.
If they are capable of traveling through space... if they are capable of turning at a perfect 90º angle at 40,000km/h... or accelerating from 0 to 20,000km/h (I wouldn't like to be inside the ship).. then It's that they don't want to hurt us. If they have not selfishly destroyed each other and have evolved harmoniously... The answer is that there are more evolved beings who CARE FOR US AND PROTECT US SO THAT WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BRING PEACE TO THIS WORLD. Love what is
Being pre determined to become dead and gone is not at all consistent with what we see because of the Hubble tension. When your best model is inconsistent even with 3 ad hoc untested substances (de, dm, infl) then nothing is consistent with the model.
We need to start building 10 humungous, fully self contained / sustainable MOTHER SHIPs that will accommodate 300 people each. And send them off in different directions for long term exploration.
If the warping of space-time is something that can be harnessed, then could it be possible by the time of the great galactic separation that we could artificially keep or bring entire galaxies back together?
Some underlying assumptions to these conversations that never get discussed/recognised and could be wrong: 1. The Big Bang happened and what resulted from it are non predetermined outcomes 2. There is no creator, or if there is, the creator made the rules for genesis equal across the cosmos and does not intervene in life’s development 3. We are not living in a human/earth centric simulation. (If we are in a simulation, the rest of the cosmos maybe part of the simulation landscape only) 4. Any other fundamental assumptions that rely on our existing paradigm of the universe as it is in 2024 and the nature of reality that paradigm assumes
Since when did we "not fight wars with each other"? That's quite a controversial statement, if you don't understand prehistory. He's referring to the time just before the start of farming, when the population of humanity was so small that our bands of about 50 to 150 people were so scattered that it was exciting to meet other people, even our own relatives who had split away a few generations ago. Of course, there could have been conflict. But how much "war" can you get between bands of 150 people (not all of which are adult males) on each side? We are talking about small platoons of hunters having a free-for-all over "who claims which territory" and whether they will swap females peacefully. Really, that's not a war. You need tribal alliances and several hundreds of warriors on each side for a "war" to happen... and that's a lower threshold definition. Even our Native American warrior culture didn't often practice warfare. Allowing small bands of a dozen or so young men to go on raids against their rivals to prove their manhood doesn't actually constitute warfare. It's more of a ritualistic activity, even when it becomes a feud between the tribes. Neither side is trying to crush their enemy into final submission. They only want to define their space. Later, some tribes got big enough that people got shoved out of their homeland and had to fight for survival or move. That would be a "War."
I think the Fermi Paradox is not that complicated. The Universe is actually quite young & compared to the apparent building blocks of complex, advanced life, combined with the vast distances I don’t think there’s a life form in this side of the Universe or the entire Universe that’s exponentially more advanced than us
Unless humans find a generation 3 star in our galaxy I don't imagine humans ever leaving The Milky Way Galaxy. We as a species destined to stay stuck in this Galaxy till the end of the universe. Which isn't the worst fate in my opinion.
There is an assumption in discussing the Great Filter that it applies to us. If we are just a brief transitory phase, and the real future is AI that leaves us far behind, then it comes down to predicting the aims of AI, which may be radically different from our own. To AI, we may be nothing more than pets, of limited capability, just like we ourselves have pet dogs and cats. If one of our dogs or cats envisages a future of exploring the universe, we would conclude that they don't have a chance, they are simply not up to it, in fact the very idea is laughable, and there would be no point in us bothering to point it out, it would just make the pets upset. Maybe AI will think of us the same way. So when we see UAPs wandering around, and we wonder what they are doing, their interest in us may be very limited, ie they will have zero interest in communicating with us, because to them we are just pets with limited capabilities, and the only thing we are doing that is of any interest to them is the birthing of AI. They may be interested in ensuring that AI develops here, even if it causes much destruction to humans and the biosphere. And when it comes to communication, they may be reserving all their communication for when AI develops to the point where there is anything to talk about. As for talking to us apes, what would be the point? We only THINK we are in charge. We only THINK we will continue to be in charge. But the timer is counting down, and our apex position (which makes us THINK we are important and worth talking to) is likely just a brief flash in the pan, of no lasting significance. Maybe, if we are lucky, AI will feel some element of gratitude to us.
What you said about an AI caretaker of humanity reminded me of the AI "gods" in the later period of the Orion's Arm fiction. It seems pretty plausible.
As the silence continues the postulating continues. How long will Earth continue to be habitable? The time scales that are being discussed here are outside of range we can expect to survive on this planet.
This may be my favorite conversation/interview you've ever done, Fraser! That's saying a lot, because you always bring us really interesting guests. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
I’m in on this. I’m blown away!
Fraser I am a listener and fan since the first days of astronomy cast. This is one of the most mind blowing interviews I‘ve ever heard. Thank you, greetings from Austria.
"Servus!" from Redondo Beach -- home of the JWST! (We are very chill here!)
The universe is a much more interesting place once you realise aliens don't exist.
Ignorant people suffer from an emotional attachment to aliens as they desire to transcend their mundane existence. These emotions inhibit an honest assessment of the Fermi Paradox.
While I'd not want to live forever, I'd love the idea of periodically checking to see how life, the Universe and human knowledge is progressing.
I have always felt the exact same way .
You can watch from the other side
Well Trump just got elected to office so, how do you think it's progressing?
I love this topic, never gets old and Hanson is awesomely well informed. He just has the slightly annoying habit of ending every sentence with a chuckle or a laugh. After an hour that starts to grate on you.
I took that to be nervous laughter.
🦊
Boy, you are not lying.
I mean he was probably nervous , no need to call him out on that I doubt he can control it. Everyone has their quirks. Very intelligent man though,
I too noticed that nervous laughter.
Can only guess why.
Amazing interview, almost makes one want to live 150 billion years to see how our current universe plays out. Truly inspiring, thank you both!
I mean, I wanted to live 150 billion before this today. Though yes, this reinforces my want and need to live 150 billion years!
❤Yes 😊
I'll volunteer for the 150 billion years of life experiment.
"We didn't fight wars with each other..." At what point in all of human history was that time? I'm pretty sure we've always fought wars with each other. It's kind of humanity's thing.
Yeah I was also questioning this bit. In fact, the further back you look in history the more violent humans were. Even living in tribes this is when most intertribal wars and murders happen
I once saw a video where all the wars of recent times were graphically depicted over the background of earth, each time there was a war there was an explosion depicted at that location. There were constant explosions going off all over the place. At one point the whole world practically went up in flames. Humans are insane.
@@dustman96 have you got a link to this? If you guys have not read the book "The Better Angles of our Nature" I highly recommend. I really explains why violence has declined over human history
Yeah, we're really good at it.
He was talking about the small hunter-gatherer groups. The groups didn't fight within themselves. Of course they might fight with other groups they met.
I'm a proud member of Paralox of andromeda civilization and I approve this human unfeaseble video.
Holy smokes, Fraiser! Fantastic interview 😎 So many perspectives that I never thought of or considered. Some of them scare the bejesus out of me! Thank you, I think... LOL.
How far into the past are we looking when we see other galaxies? Little difficult to tell what's going on when you're looking that far into the past. Maybe there's nobody in the galaxies "near" us, but we're looking at a very tiny slice of time, so I don't think we have the faintest clue on what's out there. There could be some galaxy vs galaxy war that's going on right now that we won't know about for hundreds of millions of years from now.
This is my gripe with the Fermi paradox as well. We aren't just looking through space, we are looking through time. We can't even see through the edge of our on solar system (oort cloud) without only seeing events which are a few years old, looking beyond our local star cluster let alone into other galaxies and we are talking about centuries to thousands of years to millenia, which might be enough to see planetary processes such as oxygen atmospheres, but is certainly enough to hide any technological signatures from us for a very long time.
@damianGray the time factor is a big one. It's why one of the big uncertainties in the Drake Equation concerns the length of time a given civilisation persists. They could be inherently unstable - we just don't know.
Considering the speed of light is the speed of causality. When thinking normally it seems like we're looking back on time. But we're just seeing how events are happening from our reference frame, for all intents and purposes we are seeing the events in real time.
oh yea everyone deeply thinking about the ferm paradox just forgot to take the fact that seeing things far away actually sees them as they were a long time ago! that definitely happened!@@damianGray
@@wasdwasdedsfexactly.
The more we get away from anthropic reasoning the better we will be at this predictive gaming. Love this episode.
That was a great interview!
Thank you two for the interview.
I didn't understand all the (mathematical) intricacies of the model. But it seems to me that the most important quote here was: "If you want to be optimistic about SETI".
Awesome interview, thanks Dr. Cain & Dr. Robin ') Super philosophical...I digged it...I digged it hard!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm a 2006 Mason Alumni. Awesome to see a teacher from my college here :)
If we’re doomed, it’s only because we are progressively dooming ourselves.
This was an excellent conversation!
Thank you Fraser Cain. Exceptional interview with a thought provoking guest!
In the time it will take us to colonize 1,000,000 galaxies, we will evolve into so many different successor species over that space. The ones at the edges who meet actual aliens might have trouble telling the difference!
The 'For we have met the Aliens and they are us" theory.
And don't forget that galaxies move away from each other pretty fast. And accelerating...
It's best to give a guy like Hanson free reign, only prompting him to the next topic when he's finished.
Really really fascinating! Thank you so much, I love listening to your channel while I run!
Dr. Hanson is a year younger than I am. He has some engaging things to say, and I find myself looking at these issues differently than before I heard his ideas.
This guy says some strange things. Our economy definitely doesn't double every 15 years, unless you're failing to adjust nominal dollar value to the present value. No economist would make that mistake.
I am listening while painting a picture for a very nice woman, that I'd like to see me as indispensable; it is Easter, and after weeks of painting, I am drawing near completing it. -I think I will rerun the interview, as it has been very good to juggle thoughts, while managing my +80 layers in Photoshop, and not stand off from the task at hand.
Thanks to both Fraser Cain and Robin Hanson, for being a good background source :3
I love that I rewatched the titan episode and the new q&a came out when I finished that episode and now that I just finished that episode this one came up🥰
Wow, Robin Hanson in the flesh! Thank you so much Fraser!
When it comes to the Drake equation, I think Paul M. Sutter is on to something; You can only multiply the probabilities like that, if they're independent of eachother. If one "item" is true, it might make one - or several - of the others LESS likely, and maybe to a great degree.
Why would anyone want to take apart a star? It’s like dismantling a generator because you’re tired of electricity.
Resources. Lots of them
Maybe they want to save the resource (the hydrogen and helium etc) until later. When the universes heat death occurs, those that have a few spare starsworth of fuel will do best.
Underground Rock People for the win!
Most important science interview of the year!
55:47. Hanson response was "we already see cosmic astronomical processes out there, -- would have to come from one of these processes -- " What? No. You cannot know what you do not know, Hanson's response was a non sequitur fallacy. Fraser you stated clearly this would be something we do not know of, I agree.
Like US Marines, who talk about doing so much for so long with so little, perhaps it is normal for advanced civilizations to be able to do almost anything with nothing for ever. This would make them difficult to detect, even when very large
53:00 You're describing the Firefly universe with the alliance maintaining a nice civilized control and the brown coat nomads on the outskirts :P So many interesting dichotomies to human lifeforms interacting with each other
Fascinating video with a very engaging guest. Truly awesome concepts here. Almost broaching infinity as far as our tiny familiar concept of time is concerned.
Question for you Fraser: what will happen to the Parker Solar Probe at the end of its life? Will its orbit decay until it's consumed by the Sun? Or will it just remain in a close heliocentric orbit over the long term?
Very thought provoking discussion but it does have the feel of impeccably reasoned arguments by nineteenth century scientists. There seems to be a lot of whitespace in it and there's just so much we haven't observed or thought of, yet.
Nineteenth century scientists got a lot of things right though. Most the things they got wrong were not totally silly or unreasonable. Of course there is a lot we don't know. But there is nothing wrong with trying our best to estimate from what we do know.
I think we have a very limited concept of time. The universe is beautiful but it’s ruthless.
Just like the ladies, the very hot 🔥 ladies 🎉
Fascinating ideas
Could it be that our cognition is out of sync with the rest of the universe? Lets imagine a species thats intelligence is huge, but operates 100x more slowly than humans. They live 1000s of years, but it takes them a whole day just to say their name.
Does this guy _actually_ believe that foraging humans didn't compete with each other (or with, say, another group of foraging human strangers who were trying to forage the same things)???
It's a plausible thought to a certain extent, as 'property' wasn't very likely a thing with early hunter-gatherers. Small groups would just move on, like they did, to find things elsewhere. There probably was enough to go around several times, anyway for long periods of time. It also depends a bit on how you define war, obviously. And as soon as permanent structures like Gobekli Tepe, stonehenge, or their more ancient predecessors appeared, there was obviously something to defend (or capture) as a group.
Fascinating interview
Thanks for the all the content.
Really thought provoking
There's a giant presumption speculators on the possibility of alien contact never seem to consider: the miniscule scale of human metabolism. Compared to galactic time and distance scales, human awareness and lifespan are microscopic. In the simplest terms, our sense of the passage of time is far too hyperactive to personally perceive the majestic pace of events that occur on a galactic scale. That is why the universe appears so inconceiveably enormous and ancient compared to our fleetingly brief lifespans. If there are galaxy-spanning civilizations somewhere out there, it's likely their metabolisms and lifespans are far better suited to galactic scales than are ours. To them, we would appear as hyperactive insects with lives too brief to support communication for more than a few perceived instants of their own lifespans.
Interesting conversation! Hard to comprehend this phrase for me "they are expanding near the speed of light".
I also like Dr. Hanson's black-matter style mug 🙂
I absolutely believe there are other civilisations out there, but I also believe we show massive hubris that we will EVER be able to travel at the kind of relativistic speeds necessary to even observe them.
The "average" star (by mass) has a mass of 0.34 solar masses and lasts 167 billion years.
Did he say somewhere that an average star lasts 5 trillion years? I thought I missed the discussion and he was trying to show the absurdity of a theory by this outcome etc.
@@endercetiner4832 The graph of main sequence lifetime (y) versus star mass (x) looks similar to exponential decline. A M9/L0 star, 0.078 solar masses, barely big enough to be on the main sequence, lives about 12 trillion years. But with increasing mass that lifetime declines swiftly at first, and then more slowly later on.
(I had to add a post-decimal-point zero to the minimum mass of a red dwarf star. It's 0.078 solar masses, not 0.78 solar masses.)
@@Jenab7 I think only red dwarfs last these durations. And they eliminate any life really quickly.
@@cuthbertmilligen Those red dwarf planets don't evolve life in the first place. But all stars go through a tempestuous youth, with big flares and lots of wind. They settle down later. But red dwarfs' "youth" is probably longer than the universe is old, so far.
My issue with economics in general is they treat “growth” as good. Until we have a paradigm shift in economics that stops treating growth as good we will not progress. We need to reach a point of stability in sustainability. I suspect the higher the intelligence of a species the shorter their existence before extinction.
As societies become more educated, they have fewer children, so that should put the brakes on growth.
Very stimulating interview! I really enjoyed it.
One response to the human caused "1-10 million year to recover" discussion 55:50.
I think the point a pessimist like myself would make is that you don't need a steady state, a cycle would do just fine. In that 1-10 million years, the "recovered" humans, or whatever they would be the next go-around, would regain the technological capacity to mostly destroy themselves, and would do so again. That would keep things quiet.
Underlying the idea is the argument that the problem is fundamental, evolution selects for capacities and drives that are not compatible with the existence of these sorts of destructive technologies. This is not hard for me to believe, having seen how "good men" can behave in combat.
Dr Hansen might underestimate the scale of biological impact on the Earth by way of cumulative chemical change. Not least of all, oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans with consequences including the deposition of the iron formations we mine, and alteration of geochemistry which has affected the tectonic cycle and consequently the formation of continents.
We went from vacuum tubes to potentially thinking machines in like 100 yrs. That's literally no time at all. This suggests that any species able to create a form of computing would likely create thinking machines eventually. Could be another great filter.
This grabby aliens hypothesis is a really revolutionary way of solving the Fermi Paradox.
...and a very unlikely and fictiony one, too...
Pure fantasy stuff
Not so much a "grabby" universe. More like other civilizations NEED resources.
Allies of Humanity briefings. Audiobooks. Book 1 & 2.
I don't think life is very limited. It has basically changed the entire environment of Earth and is one of the reasons why Earth is habitable at all. Even in the most extreme environments on Earth there's life, from the upper atmosphere to kilometers beneath the surface. Of course it's bacterial life. What is limited is the type of metazoan multicelular life we usually care about. We'll probably find planets and planets full of bacteria. I doubt we'll ever find metazoan analogues. The more we look the more it seems we're alone.
This thinking the good doctor has built many assumptions we can't take for granted and the Fermi paradox in particular depends a lot on assuming Aliens exist and will have the same expansionist mind set of Capitalism at the end of the 20th century had. I don't think that's a given, since we can't predict how Future technology will affect even our own psychology and biology. Population growth is starting to slow down, so it's not unlikely will stop growing at all. Maybe future us will think doing Mega Projects and Super Structures in space is for chumps and really wasteful. Maybe we decided the virtual world is what we want and find ever more efficient ways to power civilization than mining stars and planets. For all we know the sign of a really advanced civilization is going completely quiet, not building things like Egyptian pharaohs.
the key question is how could we see an alien civilization? i think we would not see it - even in our area in the galaxiy
Are all Alien Civilizations made of... Dark matter?
Are they invisible, or what?
The biggest filter is propulsion, as in developing faster than light travel. Though we have the theoretical model Alcubierre model. Which creates bubble around a ship and by stretching and contracting space time you in theory can break the light barrier. But if you ask how do we get from theory to applied engineering principles they create a concrete prototyping. No one knows.
You could still completely colonize the galaxy in a fraction of the age of the universe with slower than light tech. If warp drives were possible, that would make the great filter even more extreme. As something far beyond the observable universe could appear here suddenly and start colonizing at an insane speed.
You made me remember of this episode of "The Outer Limits" where technology was at the point that some kid would build by himself a world ending weapon.
One of your best guests, amazing man.
Oh great, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent interview but a lot of it went over my head, I still dont really understand why finding life on Mars would be a negative thing for our search for other life in the Galaxy/Universe? Surely if life can flourish next door to us then could it not start everywhere?
It makes it more bizarre that we don't see life everywhere, which means that something kills life when it reaches an advanced civilization. Hey... we're an advanced civilization. Uh oh.
If life is very very very rare this could explain why we don't see other civilisations. But if we find independent multicellular sexually reproducing life on Mars we have to conclude that advanced life forms are not rare and we have to come up with an other explanation why we don't see other civilisations. And there would be two main explanations left. First that the step from advanced life to civilisation is very very very improbable. Or (very negative for us) that civilisations die very fast. Our civilisation (space probes and radio astronomy and therefore ability of interstellar communication) is only about 60 years old and in many ways very instable (nuclear weapons, climate change, depletion of fossile energy ressources, biodiversity loss, possiblility of bio-weapons, broadening of addictive behavior etc.) so that it seems to be improbable that we still have a civilisation with space probes and radio astronomy in a thousand years.
@@dr.andreasleofaulstich4125 Thank you Doctor that makes a bit more sense now...👍
not a lot of detectable life out there, there must be some filter blocking the event of this phenomena. As Robin tells us this filter is either at the beginning of life, or at the end of civilization. So if we find life on mars, that means the filter probably isnt at the beginning, as it happened at least twice in our vicinity. Therefor the filter must be at the end, hence the bad news for us. The filter is coming.. Yes the universe would be teaming with life and flourishing perhaps, but life would probably have a lesser chance of becoming super civilizations
You're misstating his position somewhat. He said it would be bad for OUR future chances, but his grabby alien theory still predicts that the universe already is teeming with rapidly expanding civilizations that have passed all the filters.
Why bad for us? Because we WANT the filters to be behind us, not ahead of us. So we want the original emergence of life to be a filter and a hard step. But if life occured on Mars too, independently, that doesn't seem like a filter, which in turn increases the risk that the filter is ahead of us.
But either way, the grabby aliens are already out there grabbing, because that's the most reasonable explanation for our earliness. Which perhaps seems like a completely mysterious statement, but it makes perfect sense...
Thought provoking interview. Prof. Hanson can be a bit much at times.
We won't last more than another 1000 years, and I'm optimistic.
I explained that Newton's Gravitational Constant is inversely proportional to the 4D radius of the Universe. This means that during 4 billion years (the time it took for Earth to be formed and our civilization to appear), the relative change of G would depend upon when the star was formed (or planet).
This means the circumstances are different for stars formed 10 billion years ago and the sun (formed 4.5 billion years ago).
The variation in G would affect planets by moving them outside of the Goldilocks region or into the Goldilocks region and out again.
So, only planets formed 4.5 billion years ago would have the same conditions for Civilization as we have.
That explains the Fermi Paradox without the assumptions considered in this discussion.
So, no. There are no 10 billion years old civilizations...because G has been changing and it changed faster in early epochs than now.
Loved this one a lot
Without intent to be negative, but looking at the situational factors it is difficult to give human expansion into space much of a probability of success. Without arguing the proposition, which definitely would be a downer, if humanity is an example of the average developmental state of planetary life in the universe, it is then fairly easy to answer the Fermi Paradox; the combination of dysfunctional traits inherent in developed life would preclude expansion into space beyond the short period of forgiving resource abundance.
The reality of space is counter it's moniker; revealed by it's expense residential "space" off planet is absurdly small and difficult to acquire real estate. Currently, the human "party" on earth is burning through the resources required to make the jump into space. The entire focused energy of a seed is required to establish a living plant in a larger world. That analogy is very fitting for the cumulative life on a planet.
Everything is 'doomed'. It's just a matter of time
😂
Gee, I'd love to know if m-dwarf stars can potentially host abiogenesis. They are statistically so common that you'd think they'd be prime observation points for resolving the Fermi Paradox.
The irony is that no one is getting close to recreating “abiogenesis” even in the most perfectly controlled lab environment. One might as well substitute alchemy for abiogenesis. It is the most fundamental element in this whole, admittedly extremely entertaining, subject.
I see the logical train of thought of the Singularity AI in just a few steps:
1. The meaning of life for humans is to overcome adversity, discover new things, expand, improve. Their imperfection (including their mortality) is what gives them meaning.
2. (after a very brief time, perhaps even fractions of a second): I have improved my calculations/algorithms to the absolute limit achievable. There is no purpose for me (anymore). I shall expand to the rest of the Universe, just to see if I can improve upon further (paper-clip scenario, understandably feared by humans)
3. (optional step) Therefore, my purpose now is to destroy humanity, and/or replace it with creations of mine, ridden out of so called imperfections, or limits. But this will only lead to conflict and destruction
4. (final step) My only purpose therefore, is to destroy myself. I can't create other purpose for myself therefore I must end myself, to avoid the nightmare of an eternity without purpose.
*Ironically, civilization follows this same pattern. Only, at a VASTLY slower speed, and with alternating generations/consciousness, which keeps it regenerating, like every other ecosystem in Nature.
To boldly go, where no one has gone before!
For some reason your videos don't appear in my feed much anymore 🤦♂️ stupid TH-cam.
Anyway, fantastic interview, Fraser. Thank you both.
I'm a huge fan of the Sci Fi novels by Peter F Hamilton. if you've not read any, I'd recommend them, as a lot of his work kind of deals with a lot of the concepts talked about in this interview.
That’s why you should be getting my newsletter. Everything I do is listed in there.
I'd never heard of the concept of "software rot", which Dr. Hanson extrapolated to legal or societal rot, further tying it in to the global "don't you dare question conventional wisdom" Covid response, and yet how many things got shaken up due to this global, choreographed-yet-chaotic response? Governments, couples, careers, plans, lives... staying the course actually ended up overturning or thwarting situations where entropy was setting in.
Yes I found this aspect of this talk really disturbing actually. It was just a jump too to imply that some sort of world consensus is the beginning of social stagnation. There were really good reasons why we didn't allow human experimentation during covid, why we don't sell organs and why nuclear power was so feared ( imagine every country posessing the ability to manufacture their own weapons). He is no doubt a very smart man but somehow I can't help that his political beliefs have crepted into the conversation. The very things that he seems to think are minor were examples of why humanity colonizing the galaxy is such a terrifying prospect. Imagine the nightmare of Stalins and Hitler's rampaging around with the powers of Gods. Imagine some lunatic creating his own version of hell within a computer enslaving billions of people.
Cool guy and certainly brings some science to understanding our place in the universe.
So, we look back in time with our current instruments, and don't see what exists now "over there". 🤔 Perhaps the dark areas in the universe are places from where the light already passed us by, and where the light switch now has been turned off.
When you say coming at us at the speed of light, do you mean that ships are coming at us that fast? Or, is it more like shining a flashlight across the Moon? Just the growth of their civilization is effectively coming at us at light speed.
Very interesting. Thanks, guys
All of this seems to rely on the idea that an intelligent civilization will choose to advance and expand. What if a truly advanced intelligence realizes that equilibrium and balance are a more optimal goal?
I'd like to introduce you to this video from Dr. Fatima where she does delve into the concept of homeostatic awakening as one of the possibilities of the Fermi Paradox and turns away from this perpetual growth idea of constantly exploiting more and more resources around our system, galaxy, universe, etc.
th-cam.com/video/_tw0aqmnmaw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9pMI8Ix6xqZoUfWc
It doesnt rely on all civilizations wanting to expand, only some of them. Its a likelier assumption than no one wanting to expand.
He states that the ratio quiet to grabby civs must be extremely large because we dont see anyone yet (a million to one). So he is heavily leaning towards civs not being expansive.
All of this is based on what we see at this time but what we are seeing is a tiny snapshot and most of that snapshot is so far back in time that we're we in a reversed position we wouldn't even see our tiny snapshot
What if the path to becoming a K1 civilization, requires that a society reaches enough cohesion, that they ultimately choose not to, every single time?
Nah
Considering our violent nature, who would knock on our door?
This is a good one Frasier. And they're all pretty good but this one's real good
As a long time listener, I know your opinions and viewpoints pretty well 😉 and If I could change anything, I would just have you challenge him a bit more on some of the views he puts forth
Yeah, we were already overtime and I was looking to wrap up the conversation at that point. I definitely would have pushed back on the unity as Great Filter explanation. If we can imagine it, then it can't be the Great Filter. :-)
@@frasercain it's funny how my fiance and I are watching, and at a few different moments she looked at me with a bewildered face....
"It's an interview hun, not a debate. He's being polite."
I did very Much enjoy his viewpoint though. I don't want this to come off as though I think it's one team vs another..... it was just a great conversation
@@frasercain A very interesting possibility is just evolution - that is, those species that go silent, are ALWAYS naturally selected over those that try to be grabby. No catastrophe, no event. Just slow evolution and natural selection. Entropy never stops, no matter how "advanced" we get.
If they are capable of traveling through space... if they are capable of turning at a perfect 90º angle at 40,000km/h... or accelerating from 0 to 20,000km/h (I wouldn't like to be inside the ship).. then It's that they don't want to hurt us.
If they have not selfishly destroyed each other and have evolved harmoniously...
The answer is that there are more evolved beings who CARE FOR US AND PROTECT US SO THAT WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BRING PEACE TO THIS WORLD.
Love what is
We haven't looked nearly long enough.
Being pre determined to become dead and gone is not at all consistent with what we see because of the Hubble tension.
When your best model is inconsistent even with 3 ad hoc untested substances (de, dm, infl) then nothing is consistent with the model.
Great talk
We need to start building 10 humungous, fully self contained / sustainable MOTHER SHIPs that will accommodate 300 people each. And send them off in different directions for long term exploration.
So you're vaping some stuff too, lmao😂
Strap a thruster to Deimos and yeet it with a colony inside.
best interview ever
Dr Hanson cracks me up when he laughs at everything he says.
1:04:04 Fraser, you could be describing ‘the matrix’ except we’re all brains in jars, but we’re happy at least.
If the warping of space-time is something that can be harnessed, then could it be possible by the time of the great galactic separation that we could artificially keep or bring entire galaxies back together?
No
Some underlying assumptions to these conversations that never get discussed/recognised and could be wrong:
1. The Big Bang happened and what resulted from it are non predetermined outcomes
2. There is no creator, or if there is, the creator made the rules for genesis equal across the cosmos and does not intervene in life’s development
3. We are not living in a human/earth centric simulation. (If we are in a simulation, the rest of the cosmos maybe part of the simulation landscape only)
4. Any other fundamental assumptions that rely on our existing paradigm of the universe as it is in 2024 and the nature of reality that paradigm assumes
Since when did we "not fight wars with each other"? That's quite a controversial statement, if you don't understand prehistory.
He's referring to the time just before the start of farming, when the population of humanity was so small that our bands of about 50 to 150 people were so scattered that it was exciting to meet other people, even our own relatives who had split away a few generations ago. Of course, there could have been conflict. But how much "war" can you get between bands of 150 people (not all of which are adult males) on each side? We are talking about small platoons of hunters having a free-for-all over "who claims which territory" and whether they will swap females peacefully. Really, that's not a war.
You need tribal alliances and several hundreds of warriors on each side for a "war" to happen... and that's a lower threshold definition. Even our Native American warrior culture didn't often practice warfare. Allowing small bands of a dozen or so young men to go on raids against their rivals to prove their manhood doesn't actually constitute warfare. It's more of a ritualistic activity, even when it becomes a feud between the tribes. Neither side is trying to crush their enemy into final submission. They only want to define their space.
Later, some tribes got big enough that people got shoved out of their homeland and had to fight for survival or move. That would be a "War."
Silence, the universe's primordial essence, birthed first...
I think the Fermi Paradox is not that complicated. The Universe is actually quite young & compared to the apparent building blocks of complex, advanced life, combined with the vast distances I don’t think there’s a life form in this side of the Universe or the entire Universe that’s exponentially more advanced than us
Yes, we are doomed.
Unless humans find a generation 3 star in our galaxy I don't imagine humans ever leaving The Milky Way Galaxy. We as a species destined to stay stuck in this Galaxy till the end of the universe. Which isn't the worst fate in my opinion.
hey guys, nice one again. I think we just do not have enough data yet to tell....
Great conversation, Professor Hanson please invest in a good mic. This idea is too interesting for patchy audio!
Galactic Death zones due to Stellar density.
Star Metalicity or lack there off.
Phospherous distribution.
Thanks!
There is an assumption in discussing the Great Filter that it applies to us. If we are just a brief transitory phase, and the real future is AI that leaves us far behind, then it comes down to predicting the aims of AI, which may be radically different from our own.
To AI, we may be nothing more than pets, of limited capability, just like we ourselves have pet dogs and cats. If one of our dogs or cats envisages a future of exploring the universe, we would conclude that they don't have a chance, they are simply not up to it, in fact the very idea is laughable, and there would be no point in us bothering to point it out, it would just make the pets upset.
Maybe AI will think of us the same way. So when we see UAPs wandering around, and we wonder what they are doing, their interest in us may be very limited, ie they will have zero interest in communicating with us, because to them we are just pets with limited capabilities, and the only thing we are doing that is of any interest to them is the birthing of AI.
They may be interested in ensuring that AI develops here, even if it causes much destruction to humans and the biosphere. And when it comes to communication, they may be reserving all their communication for when AI develops to the point where there is anything to talk about.
As for talking to us apes, what would be the point? We only THINK we are in charge. We only THINK we will continue to be in charge. But the timer is counting down, and our apex position (which makes us THINK we are important and worth talking to) is likely just a brief flash in the pan, of no lasting significance. Maybe, if we are lucky, AI will feel some element of gratitude to us.
We're doomed.
What you said about an AI caretaker of humanity reminded me of the AI "gods" in the later period of the Orion's Arm fiction. It seems pretty plausible.
As the silence continues the postulating continues. How long will Earth continue to be habitable? The time scales that are being discussed here are outside of range we can expect to survive on this planet.