Extraterrestrial life and artificial intelligence have long been staples of science fiction. But is there any reason to think we might someday encounter such beings in reality? Read on to learn about the emerging fields of AI research and astrobiology, and discover why science fiction may soon become science fact.
Thanks to incredible advances in computer science over the last several decades, machines and programs capable of simple cognitive tasks are now commonplace in daily life. However, such devices generally work by using preprogrammed knowledge or sets of rules to simulate intelligence, rather than by actually thinking on their own. For this reason, they are sometimes described as “weak AI.”
“Strong AI,” machines with minds of their own, capable of independent thought and learning, are another matter. Simply defining a “mind,” let alone detecting or creating one, remains a highly elusive task for scientists. Nonetheless, there are many computer scientists who believe that strong AI is possible, and have devoted entire careers to producing it.
One of the first to seriously consider strong AI was Alan Turing (1912-1954), one of the founding fathers of computer science. Turing did not believe we could ever truly know whether AIs had minds, but thought they could be programmed to behave as if they did. He devised a test to measure a machine’s intelligence, based on whether or not it could pass for human. To pass the Turing Test, an AI must successfully convince a human interviewer, through typed conversation, that it too is human.
See if you can tell a human from an AI! Introduce yourself in the textbox below. Someone will respond shortly. Your job is to determine, through conversation, what type of being they are.
Which did you just talk to?
Correct
Click image to visit Cleverbot's homepage
Correct! You just spoke with Cleverbot, one of the world's most advanced AIs. Though you weren't fooled, many have been. At the 2011 Techniche conference in India, a more powerful, offline version of Cleverbot managed to convince interviewers it was human 59.3% of the time! For comparison, human participants only passed 63.3% of the time. In other words, Cleverbot was almost as good at passing for human as humans themselves!
URL used with permission from Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot. Please do not copy. To embed Cleverbot on your own website, use one of the links at http://www.cleverbot.com/linkingin
Incorrect
Click image to visit Cleverbot's homepage
Nope! You've been fooled by Cleverbot, one of the world's most advanced AIs. Don't feel bad though, you're not the only one. At the 2011 Techniche conference in India, a more powerful, offline version of Cleverbot managed to convince interviewers it was human 59.3% of the time! For comparison, human participants only passed 63.3% of the time. In other words, Cleverbot was almost as good at passing for human as humans themselves!
URL used with permission from Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot. Please do not copy. To embed Cleverbot on your own website, use one of the links at http://www.cleverbot.com/linkingin
Does Cleverbot’s ability to pass the Turing test with such high accuracy prove that it can think? Not necessarily. Cleverbot works by comparing what users say to a database of millions of lines of text, from which it selects the most relevant response. With a database large enough to contain every possible response to every possible question, a machine like Cleverbot could hold its own in any conversation without thinking at all about what it says. In all fairness to Cleverbot, it also stores information from each new conversation, honing its ability to say the right thing in any given context. In other words, Cleverbot can learn! Simple learning AIs are now common in online settings, such as websites that recommend content based on users’ browsing history.
Some more advanced programs can learn not just specific phrases, but generalized patterns and rules as well. AIs with this ability can gradually improve themselves, acquiring new skills and gaining intelligence over time, a process known as bootstrapping. In theory, bootstrapping could allow an AI to develop a full independent mind on its own, long before we understand how to program it ourselves!
To accelerate this process, some scientists propose using a form of natural selection. By simulating challenges like those faced by our own ancestors, they could encourage learning machines to adapt in similar ways. Eventually, they hope this would lead AIs to evolve minds. Although biological evolution takes millions of years, existing supercomputers can simulate thousands of “generations” in a matter of minutes. The rise of strong AI may be just over the horizon!
“Weak” AIs that can perform simple cognitive tasks are now commonplace. Some can even pass for human in conversation. Yet “strong” AIs with minds of their own do not yet exist. Some scientists believe AIs could be programmed to evolve minds themselves through “bootstrapping.”
__
Gallery: explore the past, present, and future of AI research!
Actroid-DER2, a humanoid robot made by Osaka University and Kokoro Company Ltd.
A robot, as distinct from an AI, is simply any machine that can perform actions or tasks on its own. Most work by simple mechanical means, without requiring intelligence. Rather than creating AIs that think like humans, some researchers instead design robots that look like them, with fleshy silicone skins and human-like facial expressions. The Actroids, a line of humanoid robots created by the Kokoro Company in Japan, combine robotics and AI. They can respond to simple questions, and react to different tones of voice and types of touch. Designed as artificial companions and entertainers, Actroids may also pave the way for more advanced future AIs to participate in human society.
(Photo credit: Joe Flood, used under CC BY-ND 2.0)
Deep Blue, the chess-playing supercomputer which defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997
Some of the biggest breakthroughs in AI have involved gameplay, such as Deep Blue's 1997 victory over world chess champion Gary Kasparov. While winning at chess requires impressive foresight, both players at least know everything the other has done at all times. This is not the case for games like poker, in which players keep their hands hidden and do not know what cards others have been dealt. This makes them much harder for AIs to win, but in January 2015, developers at the University of Alberta debuted one that could do so. Named Cepheus, it successfully taught itself perfect gameplay for a variant of poker, Fixed Limit Heads Up Texas Hold 'Em, by playing trillions of hands and remembering which led to ideal results. You can play against Cepheus online, at http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/(Photo credit: Shiny Things, used under CC BY-NC 2.0 )
Photograph of a lava flow in Iceland taken by EO-1, an artificially intelligent spacecraft
The future of AI is not limited just to Earth. Since 2003, NASA's Autonomous Spacecraft Experiment has tested its use for space exploration, aboard the orbiting spacecraft Earth Observing-1. EO-1 analyzes images of the Earth's surface captured during each orbit, identifying events of interest and targeting them for more extensive photography. It edits the images itself, sending only its best data down to researchers on the ground. Spacecrafts' ability to think for themselves may prove essential for future missions, especially those to distant worlds, where manned missions may be too difficult and communication with Earth is extremely slow. If we should ever make contact with an alien civilization, it could be through artificially intelligent probes, bringing together astrobiology and AI research. (Photo credit: NASA)
An "ethical" A-robot saves an H-robot in peril, in an experiment led by Dr. Alan Winfield
Can machines be moral? In 2014, Dr. Alan Winfield programmed a robot with an ethical "consequence engine." As shown here, the ethical "A-robot" will move to block an "H-robot" from falling into a "hole." The A-robot can also solve moral dilemmas, albeit imperfectly: when two H-robots are at risk, the A-robot will sometimes save one and occasionally both, but often stalls with indecision, failing to save either. The U.S. Navy is currently funding research to develop ethical robotic medics. The potential use of such technology for armed battle robots is controversial, with critics divided as to whether their lack of emotions would make them more or less violent than human soldiers. (Image from "Towards an Ethical Robot," used courtesy Dr. Alan Winfield, Bristol Robotics Lab)
The robotic double of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick
In 2004, AI and robotics were combined to "resurrect" a famed science fiction author, Philip K. Dick (1928-1982). The Philip K. Dick android combines synthetic skin and facial machinery with an AI program. It can engage in conversation, answering questions in the voice and personality of its human inspiration, by drawing from a database of Dick's work and recorded interviews. The original robot's head was lost aboard a plane in 2005, though it has since been rebuilt. Philip K. Dick himself was influential to AI research in his belief that machines would someday become intelligent enough to pass the Turing test, but could never feel emotions, which he considered unique to humans. (Photo credit: Rasmus Lerdorf, used under CC BY 2.0)
Kismet, an AI with artificial emotions, "playing" with inventor Dr. Cynthia Breazeal
Abstract thought is the ability to understand general concepts larger than any one specific example. For instance, categories of different objects or relationships between them. Scientists have long struggled to program it in AIs, for purposes such as identifying objects by name in images or the real world. Decades of painstaking research are finally paying off. Software created at the Universities of Toronto and Montreal can not only recognize objects in images, but describe them in sentences. Google's artificial neural network, which identifies the content of pictures based on abstract concepts, can also do the reverse. Given an image of white noise, it can "dream up" new images on its own, much as you or I might identify shapes while gazing at clouds! (Photo credit: Michael Tyka / Google)
Cyborg Neil Harbisson showing his UK passport, which recognizes him as part-machine
Born colorblind, British artist Neil Harbisson can now see the entire spectrum of visible colors, plus some normally invisible to humans. He can also access the Internet and receive phone calls directly into his brain, thanks to a cybernetic implant he built in 2003, making him one of the first cyborgs, beings with both biological and mechanical parts. In 2004, he was recognized as a cyborg in his passport, and in 2010 he co-founded the Cyborg Foundation to help others become cyborgs. A variety of cybernetic implants and prosthetic limbs have now been invented. So long as their brains remain organic, cyborgs are not AIs, but the lines may blur as cybernetics becomes more advanced. If we can someday use computer implants to enhance our mental functions, or even upload our minds to computers, will we still be human? Or will we have become AIs? (Photo credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED Conference, used under CC BY-NC 2.0)
Previous Image
Next Image
info heading
info content
ET: Is there anybody out there?
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a radio telescope which collects data for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
“Exoplanetscape 14” by John P. Alexander, imagining a sentient alien life-form based on superconducting crystals, on the cold moon of a distant exoplanet. Used with permission.
Astrobiology, the study of life’s place in the universe and possible existence beyond Earth, has been a subject of scientific interest since the beginnings of space exploration. In 1960, astronomer Frank Drake (born 1930) became one of the first to actively search for extraterrestrial life. Using radio telescopes, he listened for signals broadcast by alien civilizations. He also created an equation to calculate the number of such civilizations in our galaxy: https://animalpeopleforum.org/beyondhuman/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Drake-Equation-300x68.jpg 300w, https://animalpeopleforum.org/beyondhuman/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Drake-Equation-1024x232.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1069px) 100vw, 1069px" />The equation cannot be definitively solved, since many of the factors remain unknown. Nonetheless, it can be used to estimate the number of alien civilizations that might exist, based on what we do know about our own civilization, life on Earth, and other planets and stars. With the calculator below, you can use the Drake Equation to estimate for yourself how many alien civilizations exist in the Milky Way!
By the most hopeful estimates of the Drake Equation, there could be many thousands or even millions of other civilizations in our galaxy alone! Yet we have been listening for them since 1960, and so far haven’t heard anything. Where are they? This problem is known as the Fermi Paradox, and has several possible answers:
Technologically advanced civilizations aren’t very common after all
Civilizations don’t usually last very long, collapsing within a short period of time
Alien civilizations capable of broadcasting signals choose not to, perhaps for fear of attracting dangerous invaders
Alien civilizations do communicate, but with technologies other than radio signals we can detect
Listening for radio signals is not the only way astrobiologists search for life elsewhere in the universe. Some look within our own solar system, aided by mechanical probes sent to other planets and moons. Others study exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), of which nearly 2,000 are now known. Using spectroscopy, the analysis of starlight passing through their atmospheres, astrobiologists may soon be able to search for biosignatures, evidence for gases similar to those produced by life on Earth.
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, listens for radio signals coming from alien civilizations. Astrobiologists also search for life within our own solar system, and for signs of life in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets.
__
Photo gallery: the search for life, in our solar system and beyond! (Note: if first slide does not display caption, or appears with large blank space underneath, scroll down and skip to the second, then return to the first. It should now display properly.)
Rock formations on Mars, shaped by liquid water in the distant past, as photographed by NASA's Curiosity rover
Today, Mars is a cold, dry desert planet. With only a thin atmosphere, the surface is bombarded by lethal radiation, and the only water is frozen as solid ice. However, Mars is close enough to the Sun that, with a thicker atmosphere to trap heat, it could support liquid oceans. Scientists believe that billions of years ago, Mars did indeed have oceans, and could possibly have harbored life. Missions to Mars, which have included numerous orbiters, landers, and rovers since the 1970s, seek fossil evidence of past life, as well as signs of any living organisms that may yet survive underground. So far, no conclusive proof has been found, though astrobiologists continue to search for alien life on our own planetary neighbor. (Photo credit: NASA JPL)
Robots exploring the oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa, as imagined by artist Josef Barton
Surprisingly, of all the worlds in our solar system, Saturn's moon Titan is in many ways the most like our own planet! Like Earth, Titan has a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, liquid rivers and seas, and a complex climate cycle with seasons and rainfall. However, Titan is also extremely cold, and the liquid on its surface consists of propane, ethane, and methane rather than water. Water only exists as frozen ice, and possibly in a subsurface ocean like that of Europa, which could harbor Earth-like life. More exotic organisms might live on the surface, in Titan's hydrocarbon seas, but without water such beings would have to be very different from life on Earth. If living creatures with exotic biochemistries are ever found on Titan, it will both challenge our definitions of life, and expand the number of places in the universe we might hope to find it! (Photo credit: NASA)
Kepler-22b, a potentially habitable exoplanet discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope (artist's depiction)
Extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, have been known to exist since 1992. But for a long time, the only worlds our technology could detect were massive gas giants very close to their stars, bad environments for sustaining life. This changed in 2009, with the launch of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler looks for "transits," the dimming of a star's light when eclipsed by a planet, and can detect Earth-sized planets in the Habitable Zone of their star. The Habitable Zone is the region around a star where planets are neither very hot nor very cold, allowing them to have liquid water and possibly life as we know it on their surface. As of May 11, 2016, there are 42 known Earth-sized Habitable Zone exoplanets, out of nearly 2,000 confirmed worlds total. (Image credit: NASA)
Atmosphere of exoplanet HD 209458 b, "Osiris," as shown in an infrared spectrum
Detecting exoplanets that might support life is hard enough. Determining whether they actually do is an even greater challenge. Fortunately, it may soon be possible using spectroscopy, the analysis of light. When starlight passes through a planet's atmosphere, it changes, as molecules in the atmosphere absorb specific colors. This means that by looking at a planet's spectrum, astronomers can figure out what its atmosphere is made of. Earth's atmosphere is strongly affected by living things, which produce gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Finding such gases in similar amounts around an exoplanet would imply the presence of life! So far, spectroscopy is only possible for large, hot gas giants like HD 209458 b, whose atmosphere contains hydrogen, sodium, carbon, and oxygen. But with more advanced telescopes, it could soon be used to detect life on Earth-like planets as well! (Image credit: NASA)
Radio data analyzed by Beyond Human's SETI@Home group for alien radio signals
In searching for alien radio signals, how do we know what to look for, and how will we know when we find it? Although conceivably aliens could communicate anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum, SETI researchers focus on the range of frequencies with the fewest natural sources. Within this range, they search for "narrow-band" signals, which vary little in frequency, indicating a technological origin. They must then confirm that such signals are indeed from outer space and not somewhere on Earth. Signals have been found which meet these criteria, including the so-called Wow! signal, a powerful transmission detected in 1977. None have been detected more than once, making them impossible to verify, but hopefully this will soon change. You can help search for extraterrestrial signals yourself, by joining Beyond Human's SETI@Home group and setting up your computer to analyze radio data automatically!
Previous Image
Next Image
info heading
info content
Will we ever meet them?
Using spectroscopy, astrobiologists hope to discover alien life in nearby solar systems within just a few decades! We won’t know much else about it, though, except that it’s enough like Earth life to alter its atmosphere in recognizable ways. If SETI should detect a radio signal from an extraterrestrial civilization, we might be able to learn much more, and perhaps even send a reply, if we can successfully decode it! Direct contact with alien life is another matter, however. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is just over four light years away, meaning that even at light speed it would take four years to travel there. The fastest spacecraft ever launched would take 80,000 years to reach it! Of course it’s always possible that alien explorers could come to us, perhaps drawn by our own radio signals. But otherwise, our only hope for direct contact in the foreseeable future is probably to discover alien life within our own solar system.
Does this mean humans will never be able to travel quickly to other stars? No! Designs for nuclear-powered starships, which could travel up to 10% the speed of light, have existed since the 1960s. Had it been practically possible to build and launch them, we could already have humans or robots in the nearest star system today! A new private space exploration project called Breakthrough Starshot, announced by entrepreneur Yuri Milner in April 2016, aims to launch thousands of small probes toward Proxima Centauri within 20 years. These probes are to use “light sails” propelled by lasers, accelerating them up to 20% the speed of light! Theoretically, light sails could someday be used for larger, manned starships as well. Some physicists have even proposed “faster than light” methods of space travel: “warp drives” that would rapidly distort spacetime around a starship, or wormholes naturally leading to distant parts of the universe.
Nuclear or light-powered starships would be extremely challenging to build, and it isn’t yet known if warp drives or wormholes are possible at all. But if projects like Breakthrough Starshot are successful, some of us may live to see the first robotic exploration of other star systems… and, if manned starships ever prove feasible, perhaps our grandchildren will get to visit them in person someday!
If life exists around nearby stars, we may know within the next twenty years. Direct contact with alien life seems much less likely. However, this could change if we find life in our own solar system, aliens come to us, or if we develop technology to travel quickly to other stars.
https://animalpeopleforum.org/beyondhuman/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Drake-Equation-300x68.jpg 300w, https://animalpeopleforum.org/beyondhuman/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Drake-Equation-1024x232.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1069px) 100vw, 1069px" />The equation cannot be definitively solved, since many of the factors remain unknown. Nonetheless, it can be used to estimate the number of alien civilizations that might exist, based on what we do know about our own civilization, life on Earth, and other planets and stars. With the calculator below, you can use the Drake Equation to estimate for yourself how many alien civilizations exist in the Milky Way!
