Artificial intelligence is being hailed as the future of communications on Earth, and could even bridge the gap between us and alien civilizations.
According to SETI Institute astronomer Franch Marchis and NASA researcher Ignacio G. Lopez-Francois, AI could enable meaningful interactions with aliens, or at least a version of us that they can understand.
In a Scientific American editorialMarchis and Lopez-Francois, both deeply involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), advocate the use of AI for “transferring extraterrestrial intelligence” (METI). They believe that AI, and especially large language models (LLMs), could revolutionize our attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial life.
Humanity has been involved in METI since the 1960s, which involves sending various forms of communication into space, including music, scientific formulas, Morse code and maps. However, these efforts have yet to elicit a response from aliens.
Marchis and Lopez-Francois argue that AI could improve METI by making our messages more interactive. They propose sending an AI LLM into space, which aliens can use to learn our languages, ask questions and receive answers that reflect human knowledge and culture.
With research pointing to the existence of potentially hundreds of millions of habitable exoplanets in the Milky Way, these scientists think some of these worlds could host civilizations eager to communicate with us. While current LLMs may not be perfect, open source models from Meta and Mistral can be refined to serve as human ambassadors.
Once developed, these AI models can be compressed through a process called “quantization,” which reduces large data sets into smaller, more manageable data sets. They can then be transmitted via radio, laser or even physical media such as copper disks, although significant technological challenges still remain.
Marchis and Lopez-Francois conclude that sending well-crafted AI LLMs into space could pave the way for unprecedented exchanges with extraterrestrial intelligences, ensuring our legacy continues beyond our physical existence.
