2001 & then some

2001: A Space Odyssey, the greatest SF movie ever made, asks the cosmic question, are we alone? With Clarke and Kubrick, the question extends to the notion of an extraterrestrial  intelligence of a different kind, pointing to an AI of a different kind, something way beyond the confines of the HAL 9000, man's existence and the quant notion of an earth bound civilization. In BRT, the question of the survival rate of civilizations, on rocky planets come to mind as it seem societies of other worlds at our stage of development would exploit their environments just as we have and would build planet killing technologies just as we have which leaves us with the existential question, how many civilizations survive? 

For all the debate about the future of artificial intelligence here on earth, at least one prominent astrobiology researcher thinks that much of the cosmos may have already been touched by what he terms post-biological intelligence.

There are three possibilities of the kind of universe we live in, Steven Dick, former NASA Chief Historian and the author of “Astrobiology, Discovery and Societal Impact,” told me recently in Copenhagen.

One possibility is that we live in a physical universe in which life is a fluke; a biological universe in which life is common; or a post-biological universe in which biological life has mostly or partly transitioned to AI, says Dick. In my view, the universe is most likely at least partly post-biological, he says.

In a post-biological world, carbon-based intelligences like our own would have been replaced by advanced AI civilizations, perhaps even creating ‘Matrix’-styled artificial realities.

But is it a foregone conclusion that our own species will be replaced by earth-based AI?

Post-biologicals are not a fait accompli on earth or anywhere else, says Dick. But I think a post-biological universe is likely because of the potential age of extraterrestrials, he says.

The age of the universe spans at least a 13.7-billion-year timeframe. And because the first sunlike stars appear to have been present some 12 billion years ago, truly long-lived intelligent species could be several billion years old. Thus, post-biological AI is likely to be far beyond anything we might imagine.

2001 & then some applies, does it not?