A question to ponder: should robots be equipped with a weapon, even a nonlethal one? I wonder how easy it is to distinguish between a twitchy customer and a gunman. If you are uncomfortable with an armed robot patrolling a mall, then how would you feel about using one in the military?
QUESTION OF ETHICS
It is time to wonder what happens when the peanut butter and jelly get together. Until a strong AI is developed, and most probably after, intelligent machines will remain emotionless (unless there are adrenaline algorithms) and mathematical. Put this AI into a robot, say, a war-drone, and send it out to hunt enemies. The drone will use cold calculations to search and destroy an adversary based on a preprogrammed probability. What should that threshold be? Fifty-one percent? Eighty percent?
As robots become more competent at decision making, what is the moral limit to what we can demand of them? If you program a robot to act happy, how different is this from when you cheer up a friend? Is a simulated emotional response very different from a “real” human reaction?
PARTING COMMENTS
To begin with, I'm happy to say that, as of May 2017, two operational robotic rovers named Opportunity and Curiosity are puttering along the surface of Mars doing science stuff. Robots do so much for us. Humans started out controlling machines remotely, but as we made incremental changes and conceded more control to the machine, we ended up with autonomous cars driving us to malls where we can be protected by K5 the robocop. The future sneaks up on us.
The evolution of robots in human society will be slavery, servant, coworker, and master. Okay, the last stage was a joke. I'm sure our benevolent friends will help humanity.
In science fiction, the stories of Isaac Asimov in particular, misunderstandings and consequences can arise from blindly accepting human commands. Do you think this could happen in real life?
CHAPTER 14 BONUS MATERIALS
BONUS: A FEW CELEBRITY SCIENCE FICTION ROBOTS
Gort (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
R2-D2, C-3PO, BB-8, K-2SO (Most things Star Wars)
Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet)
T-800 (The Terminator)
Futura (Metropolis)
Marvin (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; apparently, robots can be depressed)
Delores and Wyatt (Westworld, the TV series)
TARS (Interstellar)
Number 6 (Battlestar Galactica)
The Robot (formally known as B-9, Lost in Space)
Johnny 5 (Short Circuit)
David and Teddy (A.I. Artificial Intelligence; I have a soft spot for helper teddy bears)
Tobor (Tobor the Great; the creativity of spelling robot backward, alone, gets Tobor on my list)
Mechagodzilla (various Godzilla movies; science may not be able to explain Godzilla, but there is hope for this guy)
The Gunslinger (Westworld, the original movie; I like Yul Brynner)
Twiki (Buck Rodgers in the 25h Century)
Bender (Futurama; included because of his positive outlook)
Klaatu barada nikto.
—Gort, robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
In the 1940 short story “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates, we are introduced to Klaatu and his companion robot Gort.1 This first contact wasn't pleasant, especially for Klaatu, who is shot. If you haven't read the story, you might have seen the movie based on it, The Day the Earth Stood Still (original 1951, remake 2008).
Both ask an important question: could the world's governments create a unified policy if extraterrestrials popped in for a visit? Or might some governments decide to “shoot first and ask questions later”? Would this shot be interpreted by the aliens as representative of the world?
The original movie was made during the Cold War when politics dominated and science fiction aliens represented our worst fears of outsiders. The Day the Earth Stood Still played against this theme by calling for an end to global hostilities. If you have not read the original short story, I suggest you give it a try. Its twisted surprise ending is very different than the movie treatment.
Many other examples of first contact with aliens occur in science fiction. In the movie adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, alien black monoliths make first contact with hominins. A dialog between civilizations isn't as important as supercharging hominin evolution; eventually future humans are guided to head toward Jupiter. In the 1997 movie Contact, communication is established using prime numbers to translate messages. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a tune was used in the belief that melodic harmonics don't change across the galaxy.
Fig. 15.1. Illustration of The Day the Earth Stood Still. (Twentieth Century Fox.)
The 2016 movie Arrival plays on the theory of linguistic relativism known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Linguistic relativism proposes that language shapes our thoughts, or at least influences them. When we learn a new language, therefore, our thinking can be rewired. The lead character learns bits of the alien language by acting out words and decrypting written replies. The more she learns, the more her thinking changes.
Who says communication with alien cultures has to be written or verbal? What prevents aliens from attempting communication through scent or touch?
Sometimes first contact is last contact.
—Captain Janeway, from the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Waking Moments” (first broadcast January 14, 1998)
Whatever the method of communication, the world needs a protocol for first contact with an extraterrestrial expedition. There is one, sort of. Read the International Academy of Astronautics’ proposed “Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”2 It is included in a chapter bonus.
NEVER MIND MEETING THEM. DO ALIENS EXIST?
Are we alone? I'm talking big picture here, not just you and me. I'm asking if the earth is the only place in the universe with intelligent life. Of course, more than one definition of intelligent life is possible. I'll stick to the definition of intelligence we used in chapter 14.
Here is a second question to ponder: if intelligent life does exist out there, will we be able to communicate with it? In science fiction, it's fun to shout, “Yes!”
A lot of science is involved in the potential answer, along with a lot of math. I know, I promised you early in this book that there would be no math. Don't worry, you won't need any scratch paper. I will do most of the work.
Of the two views on the possibility of intelligent communicating life outside our solar system, both rely heavily on statistical probability. The first group shouts, “Definitely, yes!” The second group taps the first's shoulder and says, “Don't be so sure.” First I will work out the numbers for the group telling you, “Heck, yeah.” Then I'll give you the other side of the argument. Both arguments are scientifically consistent.
The affirmative view comes from the famous Drake equation, which calculates the number of alien civilizations that can communicate with us right now. Professor Frank Drake wrote out the equation at the 1961 SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) meeting. You can look up a lot of fancy notations related to this, but I'll break it down for you in list form.
Begin by calculating the number of stars in the universe. The observable universe is estimated to have about one hundred sextillion (one hundred followed by twenty-one zeros) stars. It's probably best to focus on the Milky Way, which has a paltry two hundred billion stars (a low estimate).3 Because of the vast distances between galaxies, communication between them requires some very interesting science fiction to explain. The distance between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy is estimated at three million light-years.
Calculate the fraction of stars in our galaxy that have planets in their orbits. Let's be conservative and say 20 percent have planetary systems (20 percent of two hundred billion equals four hundred million stars with planetary systems).
Calculate the fraction of planets that can sustain life. Let's go with one planet for ea
ch star calculated in #2 above.
Calculate the fraction of life-sustaining planets where life has evolved. (Note that where life does occur, 100 percent of it has evolved.) Let's estimate that at 50 percent.
Calculate the fraction of planets where life has evolved intelligence. I'll assume 30 percent of planets where life exists have evolved intelligent life.
Calculate the fraction of planets where intelligent life has the ability for interstellar communication. I'll posit 10 percent to be conservative.
Calculate that civilization's longevity. What fraction of communicating civilizations are still around to set up a Twitter account? For example, they might have been able to communicate with us ten thousand years ago, but we weren't listening back then. Are they still around today? Do you think our civilization will still be able to send messages into space ten thousand years from now? As posthumans, would we want to? Let's set the chance of two civilizations existing at the same time, and being willing to communicate, to one in ten thousand.
Using these estimates, the Drake equation calculates six hundred communicating extrasolar civilizations in our galaxy. Feel free to tweak (or even tweet) some of my numbers and see what you come up with. My conclusion is on the low end of estimates.
SO, WHY HAVEN'T WE HEARD ANYTHING FROM ALIENS?
This question is known as the Fermi Paradox. Enrico Fermi was a physicist who received the 1938 Nobel “for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons.”4 His paradox addresses the contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life capable of communication (as determined by the Drake equation) and the absence of evidence for such life. This is pretty important. After all, the universe is very large and pretty old by our standards, so why haven't any advanced civilizations tried to contact us?
The science fiction universe wouldn't be much fun if authors accepted the simple answer: there is no contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life because it doesn't exist. So you can see why we need scientific reasons for the lack of contact (as well as proof that they exist).
It's possible they don't know about us because we are too far away. Our television and radio signals have only been leaking into the cosmos for a century. Traveling at the speed of light, the farthest they have spread is about one hundred light-years from home. The Milky Way is 100,000 light-years wide. It's more than possible that our radio signals haven't reached them yet. It could take thousands of years before they can binge watch the human-zombie series The Walking Dead.
Another possible answer to Fermi's paradox is the theory that another livable galaxy might have developed only recently. As it turns out, harsh environments are not conducive to life. Surprised? Back in the (relatively) old days, the universe was a lot smaller and more chaotic. Gamma-ray bursts from the hot and energetic activity might have sterilized any newly formed planets.
Only after the universe had expanded enough and galaxies were far enough apart did regions of space that were safe for life emerge. Planets like Earth that reside near the galactic edge would have breathing room for life. If this is true, few extraterrestrial civilizations would have flourished before Earth's. It is possible we are one of the first. The newbies who are too young to send signals might be wondering if life exists off their own planets.
PERHAPS EARTHLIKE PLANETS ARE RARE
The anti-Drake(ish) argument, called the Rare Earth Hypothesis, seeks to demonstrate how unlikely the existence of earthlike planets—i.e., populated by complex intelligent communicating life—might really be. As before, I will present the argument in list form. And it all begins with a star.
An earthlike planet needs a host star in the galactic habitable zone. If the star is too close to the galactic center, radiation and black holes will cause problems. If it's too far away from the galactic center, too few metals will be available to form rocky planets. Approximately 10 percent of the stars in our galaxy appear to reside in a galactic habitable zone.5
The host star must be a singleton. Life under a binary system is tricky. I'm not saying impossible, but it is very unlikely. That being said, a long, long time ago, the population of Tatooine from Star Wars thrived beneath two suns.
The host star has to exist long enough for life to form on the orbiting planets. Our solar system has a nice 4.5-billion-year-old G-type star. Only about 7 percent of the stars in the Milky Way are G-type under astronomy's stellar classification known as the main sequence.6 An ordered series of letters (O, B, A, F, G, K, and M) are based on brightness and color. O represents the hottest type of star, while M sits on the other end wearing shades (it is totally the coolest of stars). In case you are ever tested on this, remember this mnemonic device: Oh Be a Fine Girl/Guy, Kiss Me. About one billion years passed before life kicked off on our planet. Our sun should make it to the ripe age of ten billion. Don't pop the cork yet because we don't get to use that entire time period. We must leave the planet within a billion years or risk extinction. But that is a topic of another chapter.
Now that we know what kind of sun is needed for life, let's consider life's planetary needs.
As we currently understand life, liquid water must exist for all the necessary chemical reactions. Therefore, an earthlike planet must have water. See bonus 2 of this chapter for details.
The earthlike planet must have a magnetic field to protect life from cosmic rays. Mars doesn't have such a field, which might be why we aren't regularly invaded by Martians.
The earthlike planet must have plate tectonics to circulate carbon. A chapter bonus will explain the importance of carbon and the carbon cycle.
Another large planet needs to hang around and deflect meteors attracted by the sun's gravity. This planetary guard must be nearby, yet it must be far enough away to avoid affecting the earthlike planet's orbit. For us, Jupiter plays this supporting role. It protects us from asteroids. Most of the time, anyway (sorry, dinosaurs).
For intelligent life to develop, the planet probably requires a long period of stable climate formed by a stable orbit and rotation. So, the earthlike planet needs a large moon to hold its rotational axis constant. Without that, a planet's axis can vary widely. For a moon as large as ours (relative to our planet's size) to exist is quite rare. Our moon (science believes) was created after a Mars-sized planet collided with Earth. The assaulting planet is named Theia for the Greek goddess who mothered Selene, the goddess of the moon.
Considering all the Rare Earth conditions, I estimate a one-in-a-billion chance for an earthlike planet to exist. So yes, Earth is indeed rare. Now for the important bit: my estimate is only for the existence of habitable planets. I have not calculated the chances that intelligent life actually evolved on any. I'll leave that to you. I suspect that only a fraction of the one-in-a-billion rare earthlike planets will have such life, perhaps only one or two per galaxy.
ANY IDEAS ABOUT WHAT ALIEN LIFE LOOKS LIKE?
Does how an alien looks matter to you? Would you be more trusting of aliens if they looked similar to us? Or had wide, sad puppy eyes? Sometimes the extraterrestrial life in science fiction is implausible because not only are they bipedal hominins, but they are somehow able to mate with us. I'm not arguing against evolution favoring bipedalism in intelligent life, but science fiction, television in particular, needs more biotype diversity!
So, what could an alien really look like? Probably a single cell, but if you are talking about intelligent life, that depends on planetary conditions and evolution. It's very possible they might have two eyes for binocular depth vision, which might be a standard survival trait everywhere. At the very least, they would evolve a light-sensitive, eyelike organ.
They will probably have a metabolic system to generate energy from some type of fuel, and a waste system to dispose of what isn't needed. In most cases, life on Earth appears biased toward symmetrical creatures: two arms, eight arms, etc. Only in rare exceptions do Ea
rth species have an odd number of limbs (e.g., the starfish).
One could possibly be the loneliest number (at least according to the Three Dog Night song), but single-limb species like snails or worms are still considered symmetrical. Will this symmetry hold for species on distant worlds, or will three legs and three arms offer better evolutionary advantages in an alien environment?
Another idea not excluded by science is that life on other planets might be dominated by an element other than carbon. Aliens could be what we would consider rocky monsters composed of silicon atoms. In a Star Trek episode, thanks to the wounded silicon Horta from Janus VI, we learned something very important about the doctor of the USS Enterprise. To quote the good Dr. McCoy, “I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.”7
Silicon atoms have the same number of electrons in the outermost shell (valence electrons, which are used to form chemical bonds), so they are able to form bonds similar to carbon, except they aren't as stable. Silicon life would experience respiration and waste concerns. Carbon-based life excretes CO2 gas while the equivalent for silicon is SiO2, and it isn't as easy to unload. It's a solid. Talk about exhaling chunks.
Something to ponder: The majority of the matter in the universe is dark matter, something we can't see or interact with directly. What if an alien race could interact with dark matter as easily as we do ordinary matter? Would we even be able to see them? How would this affect their evolution?
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