Can you explain why you see a SETI attack as so high? If you are civilization doing this not only does it require extremely hostile motivations but also a) making everyone aware of where you are (making you a potential target) and b) being able to make extremely subtle aspects of an AI that apparently looks non-hostile and c) is something which declares your own deep hostility to anyone who notices it.
It results from exponential growth of victims in case of successful SETI-attack. The new victims will send the signal further. It is like virus behaviour.
a) we know only location of the previous victim, not the starter.
b) not so difficult if sender is more advanced civilization and AI may looks like a helper or gateaway of space Internet.
с) the same as a. We don’t know who started it. We could see only victims.
Anthropic selection effects make hostile expansive aliens improbable.
Assume that life is plentiful and hostile civs are common. If that was the case then most observers such as ourselves would find themselves on unusually early planets. Instead our planet is somewhate late in the order of all habitable planets to form in our galaxy, and is roughly in the middle for all habitable planets in the universe.
But in fact last research said that our planet is in only first 8 per cent of all habitable planets in the Universe, so probably the opposite is true and future universe is full planet-colonizing alien civilizations.
But if SETI attack is only way of space colonization, no starships, in this case before-radio civilizations will be distributed randomly.
But in fact last research said that our planet is in only first 8 per cent of all habitable planets in the Universe, so probably the opposite is true and future universe is full planet-colonizing alien civilizations.
As I pointed out in the other thread, first 8% is not early at all—it is firmly in the middle, statistically speaking. Early would be first 0.000001%. 8% is much closer to the middle than uncertainty in the estimate—well within one std.
But if SETI attack is only way of space colonization, no starships, in this case before-radio civilizations will be distributed randomly.
Well yeah if there are SETI attacks but no colonization, then sure there could be lots of civs like ours that get snuffed out, and that scenario is still compatible with our observations. I think it’s unlikely though for the same reasons any SETI broadcasts are unlikely, as SETI broadcasts don’t have much of a purpose, and the scope is narrow. (attack or communication only makes sense between civs at similar development points, and such temporal encounters are unlikely—the number of civs in the galaxy that are within +- 100 years of our dev level is probably < 1, even if the total number of civs in the galaxy is large)
I think that once a civilization fail victim of a SETI atack, it could broadcast for millions or even billions years, spending almost all its resources on it. It will build Dyson sphere and use all it energy to broadcast on maximum possible distance.
I think that once a civilization fail victim of a SETI atack, it could broadcast for millions or even billions years, spending almost all its resources on it.
The SETI attack civ can’t touch civs more elder than it—they could prevent the SETI attack civ before it even forms. So it can only attack civs that come after.
But there are probably much easier attacks available for an elder civ. Dyson sphere broadcasting is a rather ludicrous waste of energy—the same energy budget could allow observation and then simulation of all other bio worlds at a lower level of dev. For a small energy budget the elder civ could launch small probes which could then intervene on each planet as necessary, arbitrarily influencing later civ development—accomplishing anything and more than any SETI attack (constrained to pure photons).
Dyson sphere broadcasting is a rather ludicrous waste of energy—the same energy budget could allow observation and then simulation of all other bio worlds at a lower level of dev.
How do you figure that? A SETI attack can be launched simply by transmitting a signal. How is that a waste of energy compared with vehicular travel?
A realistic SETI attack would need to transmit a very large quantity of information broadcast over very large distances, where the cost is quadratic with distance.
With a physical attack the ‘energy’ payload can be very dense and targeted, and it can use adaptive computations to decompress based on local information, harness energy from the local star, do physical manipulations, etc.
There is related analysis showing that sending particles or physical objects at high speeds can beat photons for interstellar communication in terms of energy efficiency.
With a physical attack the ‘energy’ payload can be very dense and targeted, and it can use adaptive computations to decompress based on local information, harness energy from the local star, do physical manipulations, etc.
This is an interesting point. However, while it is true that a physical attack can be precisely targeted, it is also true that it must be precisely targeted. One of the advantages of a SETI type attack is that it can be launched with no specific target in mind at all. The quadratic drop-off in signal strength that you allude to comes with a corresponding cubic increase in coverage space/volume, provided you run the signal continuously.
There is related analysis showing that sending particles or physical objects at high speeds can beat photons for interstellar communication in terms of energy efficiency.
This is an interesting point. However it would seem to apply to a targeted, point-to-point communication whereas a signal would not need to be precisely targeted.
One of the advantages of a SETI type attack is that it can be launched with no specific target in mind at all.
That isn’t a practical advantage—by the time the attack civ is capable of launching a SETI attack they will know where the other stars are located, and they will probably also know which ones are likely habitable. More elder civs may exist in the interstellar medium or elsewhere, but that hardly matters because they are immune anyway.
If civilization are rare in space, like one in a million light years, observation would be difficult. And if probe speed is 0.5 с, SETI attack will cover 8 times more volume of space during the same time interval.
So SETI attack usefulness depends of two unknowns—civilizations density and probe speed. EY by the way said that he believes that StrongAI will be able to expand on almost speed of light so there is no need of SETI attack.
EY by the way said that he believes that StrongAI will be able to expand on almost speed of light so there is no need of SETI attack.
The fact that EY said that strong AI can expand almost at the speed of light does not rule out SETI attacks being useful/efficient to an expansionist AI; perhaps the SETI attack is one of the mechanisms the strong AI uses to expand.
If civilization are rare in space, like one in a million light years, observation would be difficult.
This doesn’t help SETI attack, as the energy cost increases with dist squared.
A SETI attack may be faster in terms of latency, but that doesn’t matter unless the variance in development time is very low. Realistically the temporal dist is probably spread out over say a billion years or so. The difference between 1c and say 0.1c is just the difference between 100k years and 1,000k year latency and doesn’t matter much.
The 1c attack only matters for the tiny fraction of civs that are on the brink of elder status at the time at which the attacking civ achieves said tech level.
A SETI attack may be faster in terms of latency, but that doesn’t matter unless the variance in development time is very low.
I think that you are understating the importance of latency. Earlier, in this post you pointed out some of the difficulties in a civilization 1480 ly away launching an attack on Earth’s civilization due to the distances involved. It seems to me that a SETI attack would eliminate these difficulties; the attack could be launched with no knowledge of Earth or Earth’s civilization whatsoever, so the attack would not have to wait 1400 years for our radio signals to bring us to the attention of a (hypothetical) advanced civilization. And, a SETI-type attack would not require expensive and time consuming vehicular scouting/probe missions.
Earlier, in this post you pointed out some of the difficulties in a civilization 1480 ly away launching an attack on Earth’s civilization due to the distances involved.
I started that with the unrealistic assumption that the attacking civ is close to us in age. In that specific scenario the latency does matter and a photon attack has a potential niche. But that scenario is rare.
Can you explain why you see a SETI attack as so high? If you are civilization doing this not only does it require extremely hostile motivations but also a) making everyone aware of where you are (making you a potential target) and b) being able to make extremely subtle aspects of an AI that apparently looks non-hostile and c) is something which declares your own deep hostility to anyone who notices it.
It results from exponential growth of victims in case of successful SETI-attack. The new victims will send the signal further. It is like virus behaviour. a) we know only location of the previous victim, not the starter. b) not so difficult if sender is more advanced civilization and AI may looks like a helper or gateaway of space Internet. с) the same as a. We don’t know who started it. We could see only victims.
Anthropic selection effects make hostile expansive aliens improbable.
Assume that life is plentiful and hostile civs are common. If that was the case then most observers such as ourselves would find themselves on unusually early planets. Instead our planet is somewhate late in the order of all habitable planets to form in our galaxy, and is roughly in the middle for all habitable planets in the universe.
But in fact last research said that our planet is in only first 8 per cent of all habitable planets in the Universe, so probably the opposite is true and future universe is full planet-colonizing alien civilizations.
But if SETI attack is only way of space colonization, no starships, in this case before-radio civilizations will be distributed randomly.
As I pointed out in the other thread, first 8% is not early at all—it is firmly in the middle, statistically speaking. Early would be first 0.000001%. 8% is much closer to the middle than uncertainty in the estimate—well within one std.
Well yeah if there are SETI attacks but no colonization, then sure there could be lots of civs like ours that get snuffed out, and that scenario is still compatible with our observations. I think it’s unlikely though for the same reasons any SETI broadcasts are unlikely, as SETI broadcasts don’t have much of a purpose, and the scope is narrow. (attack or communication only makes sense between civs at similar development points, and such temporal encounters are unlikely—the number of civs in the galaxy that are within +- 100 years of our dev level is probably < 1, even if the total number of civs in the galaxy is large)
I think that once a civilization fail victim of a SETI atack, it could broadcast for millions or even billions years, spending almost all its resources on it. It will build Dyson sphere and use all it energy to broadcast on maximum possible distance.
The SETI attack civ can’t touch civs more elder than it—they could prevent the SETI attack civ before it even forms. So it can only attack civs that come after.
But there are probably much easier attacks available for an elder civ. Dyson sphere broadcasting is a rather ludicrous waste of energy—the same energy budget could allow observation and then simulation of all other bio worlds at a lower level of dev. For a small energy budget the elder civ could launch small probes which could then intervene on each planet as necessary, arbitrarily influencing later civ development—accomplishing anything and more than any SETI attack (constrained to pure photons).
How do you figure that? A SETI attack can be launched simply by transmitting a signal. How is that a waste of energy compared with vehicular travel?
A realistic SETI attack would need to transmit a very large quantity of information broadcast over very large distances, where the cost is quadratic with distance.
With a physical attack the ‘energy’ payload can be very dense and targeted, and it can use adaptive computations to decompress based on local information, harness energy from the local star, do physical manipulations, etc.
There is related analysis showing that sending particles or physical objects at high speeds can beat photons for interstellar communication in terms of energy efficiency.
This is an interesting point. However, while it is true that a physical attack can be precisely targeted, it is also true that it must be precisely targeted. One of the advantages of a SETI type attack is that it can be launched with no specific target in mind at all. The quadratic drop-off in signal strength that you allude to comes with a corresponding cubic increase in coverage space/volume, provided you run the signal continuously.
This is an interesting point. However it would seem to apply to a targeted, point-to-point communication whereas a signal would not need to be precisely targeted.
That isn’t a practical advantage—by the time the attack civ is capable of launching a SETI attack they will know where the other stars are located, and they will probably also know which ones are likely habitable. More elder civs may exist in the interstellar medium or elsewhere, but that hardly matters because they are immune anyway.
If civilization are rare in space, like one in a million light years, observation would be difficult. And if probe speed is 0.5 с, SETI attack will cover 8 times more volume of space during the same time interval. So SETI attack usefulness depends of two unknowns—civilizations density and probe speed. EY by the way said that he believes that StrongAI will be able to expand on almost speed of light so there is no need of SETI attack.
The fact that EY said that strong AI can expand almost at the speed of light does not rule out SETI attacks being useful/efficient to an expansionist AI; perhaps the SETI attack is one of the mechanisms the strong AI uses to expand.
This doesn’t help SETI attack, as the energy cost increases with dist squared.
A SETI attack may be faster in terms of latency, but that doesn’t matter unless the variance in development time is very low. Realistically the temporal dist is probably spread out over say a billion years or so. The difference between 1c and say 0.1c is just the difference between 100k years and 1,000k year latency and doesn’t matter much.
The 1c attack only matters for the tiny fraction of civs that are on the brink of elder status at the time at which the attacking civ achieves said tech level.
I think that you are understating the importance of latency. Earlier, in this post you pointed out some of the difficulties in a civilization 1480 ly away launching an attack on Earth’s civilization due to the distances involved. It seems to me that a SETI attack would eliminate these difficulties; the attack could be launched with no knowledge of Earth or Earth’s civilization whatsoever, so the attack would not have to wait 1400 years for our radio signals to bring us to the attention of a (hypothetical) advanced civilization. And, a SETI-type attack would not require expensive and time consuming vehicular scouting/probe missions.
I started that with the unrealistic assumption that the attacking civ is close to us in age. In that specific scenario the latency does matter and a photon attack has a potential niche. But that scenario is rare.