Extraterrestrial Intelligence

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: 5 Questions for SETI Senior Astronomer and Britannica Contributor Seth Shostak

Seth Shostak, author of Britannica’s articles on extraterrestrial intelligence, astrobiology, and unidentified flying object, is Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, whose central focus is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Shostak has long been fascinated by the universe and the search for intelligence from other worlds. He has devoted much of his career to communicating scientific knowledge of astronomy to the public and is host of the SETI Institute’s weekly radio program Are We Alone?
Curious about what kinds of intelligent life might be out there and what its detection might mean for humans, Britannica science editors Kara Rogers and Erik Gregersen had a few questions of their own for Shostak, whose knowledge and SETI experience has helped shed light on the subject of extraterrestrial intelligence.

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Britannica: What kinds of intelligent life, or remnants thereof, are being looked for currently by SETI?

Shostak: Our definition of intelligence is both very practical and very straightforward. If you can build a radio transmitter, or a powerful laser, then we consider you to be intelligent! This, of course, makes sense, as SETI researchers spend their time looking for radio signals or brief flashes of light coming from other star systems. There are certainly other types of intelligence possible: Many people consider dolphins intelligent, but these denizens of the deep haven’t the technology to make their presence known across great distances, and therefore they are not the type of clever beings that SETI experiments try to find.
Britannica: In your work, you’ve considered the concept of thinking machines and synthetic forms of intelligence. Can you briefly describe the thinking-machine concept and the search for synthetic versus biological intelligence?

Shostak: We tend to imagine intelligent aliens as being something like us: biological beings that have evolved on a watery world with a thick atmosphere. But consider that within a century after the invention of radio, we invented fairly complex computers. Within another century or two, we may invent our successors—thinking machines. If this happens on other worlds, then the majority of the sentience in the universe could very well be non-biological, artificial intelligence.

Britannica: Where would thinking machines exist and how could they be detected?

Shostak: Artificial intelligence wouldn’t need to stay on the kind of world that is necessary to support biological beings. They could head into deep space and, because they might be very long-lived, could travel throughout the galaxy. But just where would they go? We have little idea, but it seems reasonable that they might congregate where there are large sources of energy—for example, the neighborhoods of very bright stars or around black holes. We could detect these machines only if they are, for whatever reason, sending signals into space, or have constructed devices that are large enough for us to find with our telescopes.
Britannica: If extraterrestrial intelligence is mechanical and near black holes and the centers of galaxies, then what would need to change in the current SETI program and would radio detection remain the best approach?

Shostak: Radio still seems like a very good approach for SETI. For one thing, it allows messages to be easily “broadcast” to a wide range of receivers, and for another it can slice through the dust that hangs between the stars like a knife through butter. But it would probably be a good strategy to spend a little bit of SETI observing time examining the types of environments where machines might hang out—such as the center of our own galaxy or the regions around very hot stars.

Britannica: Earlier this year, Stephen Hawking said that “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” If humans were to find extraterrestrial intelligence and life, would it be something that you think we should celebrate or fear?

Shostak: Celebrate, absolutely. Keep in mind that receiving a signal is without any danger whatsoever, as the extraterrestrials won’t know that you’ve picked up their transmission. But what if we respond, telling them that we’re here, and it turns out that they’re aggressive? Might that not threaten our existence? No one knows, but there’s little point in worrying about this, simply because any society that is technologically advanced enough to do us any harm from many light-years away can also pick up the television, FM radio, and radar signals that have been leaking off our planet for the last 70 years. We’ve already sent the evidence of our existence.