| ▲ | isomorphic_duck 3 hours ago |
| Tangential, but really looking forward to what Europa Clipper[0] finds in its flybys. The delay in communication makes ambitious manoeuvres challenging - perhaps advances in AI (and by extension robotics) helps build much more autonomous space rovers. This could enable us, for example, to evaluate the samples by sending wet microscopes with the rover itself. [0]: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/ |
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| ▲ | root-parent 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Too much radiation for anything close to Jupiter. You will find life on Venus clouds and in Titan.... Everybody looking at the wrong targets. Mars is a dead, radiation cooked, burned, poisonous place. Forget about it, leave it to the trillionaires. |
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| ▲ | ceejayoz 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Too much radiation for anything close to Jupiter. Europa's water is an excellent radiation shield. | |
| ▲ | isomorphic_duck 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I am not an astrophysicist, but I have read that the thick layer of ice is supposed to protect the miles-deep ocean against radiation, which might harbour life. |
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| ▲ | timmg 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Tangential to your tangential: The era of AI makes me realize that if we ever get visited by aliens: it will probably not be actual aliens -- just an AI probe. And the idea of it really intrigues me. Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing. And it would likely be better at figuring out how to communicate with us (than the human-equivalent might). We need some new sci fi movies like that! |
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| ▲ | lelanthran 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing. Why? Why would you expect it to be any more benevolent or any less murderous than the actual aliens visiting? Presumably it would be trained on their values, not ours. | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Our values are murderous, I wouldn't want to be visited by aliens that shared out values. A galactic version of human society would quite reasonably identify that earth couldn't fight back then special interests would have our planet liquidated for its natural resources without making headlines in space-news. Possibly colonise us, kill all the humans then offer an apology a few generations later and maybe a small local holiday to commemorate the process. Regardless, there aren't that many possible values aliens could have. It is hard to come up with something outside basic game theory - you can see how most religions tend to converge on the same practical principles over time, like basic property rights and not causing trouble pointlessly. | |
| ▲ | timmg 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wouldn't expect it to be less murderous than the aliens themselves. That wasn't my point at all. I'd expect it to contain all their knowledge and be able to live "forever". But I generally wouldn't expect aliens to be "murderous" at all. Why send a group or probe lightyears away just to kill or enslave a primitive species? If they have the ability to do that, we wouldn't really have anything of interest for them. | | |
| ▲ | clickety_clack an hour ago | parent [-] | | At most points in time resources are scarce and not all life can be supported. At those times beings with a tendency to say “them” will give way to beings who most strongly assert “us”. |
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| ▲ | mbil 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You might like Blindsight by Peter Watts | | |
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