when we talk about humans communicating
with aliens first we have to kind of
define what we might mean by aliens
we have just one kind of intelligence
that we're familiar with which is human
intelligence question is what what does
it even mean to talk about other
intelligences so what one needs in order
to have something one can reasonably
call intelligence is something that is
computationally as sophisticated as a
brain for example it turns out as a
result of a bunch of basic science that
I've done actually that there's a thing
called principle of computational
equivalence which strongly suggests that
out in the universe in nature there are
just tons of things that have the same
computational sophistication as brains
whether it's some pattern of fluid flow
in the Earth's atmosphere whether it's
the magnetosphere of a pulsar whether
it's all kinds of other things these are
things which are computationally just as
sophisticated as human brains the issue
is that they don't seem to us like
intelligence because they're not aligned
with kind of the human goals and
purposes that we have as our one example
of human intelligence we have our first
sort of team in a sense example of alien
intelligence which is AI so learned
asked the question can we communicate
with a eyes well you know when we build
computational intelligence languages
like wealth and language we are
specifically setting those up in order
to provide a way for us to communicate
with the AIS so when we say well how can
we communicate with that well our best
hope I think and maybe this is because
I've spent a large part of my life as a
language designer is to create a
language which is a good way of
representing human precise thinking and
also a good way of representing the kind
of quotes thinking that our alien
intelligence particularly the form that
we have in
official intelligence that that that
that can can control now when it comes
to sort of communicating with
extraterrestrial intelligence as I say
the main issue is people say well you
know it's remarkable how rare
extraterrestrial intelligence is after
all we haven't seen a single example of
it I think that's ultimately going to
turn out to be completely wrong I think
ultimately we're going to realize that
there's there's alien intelligence all
around us when we see those those weird
signals from some you know pulsar
magnetosphere eventually we'll say well
actually that's an example of an
intelligence it's just not an
intelligence that's well aligned with
with with what we're used to us as
humans in fact my guess is that what's
going to happen is as as time goes on AI
will get more and more well absorbed by
it by us and we will get more and more
familiar with the notion that there's an
intelligence that's alien to us and
eventually we'll realize well actually
there really was intelligence all around
us in the universe we just didn't
recognize that and it's you know alien
intelligence much like AI acts as alien
intelligence