If the AI doomsayers are right, our best hope is that some UFOs are aliens. The aliens likely could build Dyson spheres but don’t so they probably have some preference for keeping the universe in its natural state. The aliens are unlikely to let us create paperclip maximizers that consume multiple galaxies. True, the aliens might stop us from creating a paperclip maximizer by exterminating us, or might just stop the paperclip maximizer from operating at some point beyond earth, but they also might stop an unaligned AI by a means that preserves humanity. It could be the reason the UFOs are here is to make sure we don’t destroy too much by, say, creating a super-intelligence or triggering a false vacuum decay.
If the AI doomsayers are right, our best hope is that some UFOs are aliens. The aliens likely could build Dyson spheres but don’t so they probably have some preference for keeping the universe in its natural state. The aliens are unlikely to let us create paperclip maximizers that consume multiple galaxies. True, the aliens might stop us from creating a paperclip maximizer by exterminating us, or might just stop the paperclip maximizer from operating at some point beyond earth, but they also might stop an unaligned AI by a means that preserves humanity. It could be the reason the UFOs are here is to make sure we don’t destroy too much by, say, creating a super-intelligence or triggering a false vacuum decay.
I wonder what kind of signatures a civilization gives off when AGI is nascent.