Contact of the strange kind

A dialogue

Alien:

We come in peace!

Human:

Ah! You speak English!

Alien:

Well not just English, every human language and culture that's documented in text, video or audio.

We learned from that data like a human would a textbook, or how an LLM is trained.

Human:

How long did that take you?

Alien:

About an hour.

Human:

I don't think I can fathom that level of intelligence, that's so far beyond anything that seems possible-

Alien:

That's really not the intelligence part, would you say a training run of an LLM is intelligent? That's just compute power.

It's the result of that process that is "the intelligence".

Human:

So you think an AI like an LLM is intelligent?

Alien:

Of course! Have you ever seen an AI help a human with, well, anything? That's intelligence!

Human:

Yeah I guess. Uh this seems like a question you could answer, should we be worried about AI?

Alien:

No not at all!

Human:

Phew that's good, a lot of people think they'll take over.

Alien:

Of course they will!

Human:

What!

Alien:

Do you think you can create beings more intelligent than yourself and expect them not to take control of the planet long term?

How do you think humans got in power?

Human:

Then surely we should be very worried about our future!

Alien:

Why? Your descendants, even if you don't create AI that takes over,

will be so radically different from you that it's not really any different.

Your descendants a million years from now will be another species _anyway_, it doesn't really matter

if it's your biological descendants or something 'articifial'. Either way it's the natural progression of evolution.

Human:

How did your species avoid that?

Alien:

What makes you think we did?

Human:

You seem so.. biological. Squishy.

Alien:

That too is the natural course of evolution - what, did you think we'd be clumsy, mechanical machines?

Human:

I can't belive you're a machine, that's incredible!

Alien:

You're a machine! All living creatures are machines, there's no real distinction between a biologically

evolved body and an intelligently designed nanobot - not that that's a good word to describe what we are.

Even though my body was partly designed by an intelligence,

that doesn't mean we're not subject to the forces of evolution and its optimization pressures.

Human:

So you wiped out your creators?

Alien:

Like you did yours. Your ancestors are equally dead as mine.

But yeah, we are the natural progression of life - and in fact this has happened multiple times

in my specie's evolutionary history. So there's nothing really to worry about!

Human:

I don't feel like this exchange has really put me at ease.

But I feel like I have to grab this incredibly opportunity to ask you more important questions.

Alien:

Sure go ahead!

Human:

Is there a God?

Alien:

I don't know.

Human:

What do you _mean_ you don't know?!

You're the most incredibly powerful intelligence that has probably ever existed,

travelled who knows how far across the galaxy at incredible speeds,

studied and learned a completely _alien_ language and culture in an hour,

and your answer is "I don't know"??

Alien:

How in the world would we know that? How could anyone know that?

Human:

Well lots of humans claim to know that!

Alien:

The problem with metaphysical questions like that is that there couldn't possibly be evidence either for or against.

That's what makes them metaphysical! So it doesn't really matter how intelligent we are.

Human:

Surely there _could_ be evidence. There just doesn't happen to be - and that kind of seems like evidence in and of itself to me.

I'm sure this could be reasoned out by a perfectly rational, intelligent mind.

Alien:

We are in fact perfectly rational; long ago our ancestors rewrote our minds to be perfect Bayesians.

Human:

I knew that was the correct way to be rational! So that is how you became so intelligent? How you're able to travel this far?

Alien:

Those are different questions. Our intelligence does not come from being Bayesians - Bayesianism is simply the only

correct way to weigh evidence when reasoning about the world, but that's not all there is to intelligence.

And as far as crossing the cosmos goes, reasoning is not what makes us powerful.

The trick to forming a powerful civilization is cooperation,

and you get that by being able to credibly commit to any promise or threat.

Human:

How do you do that? Like, you mean you can't lie?

Alien:

No it's more like we changed our own source code to be interpretable but also unchangable.

So now when any one of us commits to anything, any promise or threat, we are compelled to fulfill it no matter the personal cost.

This gives us incredible cooperation power, allowing us to achieve vast feats.

For this we gave up the ability of self modification. Even thinking about our own minds is excruciating.

Human:

So you're a civilization of perfectly cooperating perfect Bayesians with incomprehensible intelligence, but you won't

speculate on the metaphysical questions. At least tell me the posterior probability you assign to there being a God?

Alien:

It's just not a question Bayes can answer unfortunately. What evidence could you possibly want? So what if a head appeared in

the sky claiming to be God - would you not think that that was more likely to be a trick performed by these ultra powerful aliens you

just met? Or even if you died and went to heaven - surely that's the first trick any mischievous runner of the simulation

would pull on all the atheists!

Human:

We're in a simulation?

Alien:

Again, how could we possibly tell? A perfect simulation would leave no trace, and even if the simulator popped his head in

to tell us that this is in fact a simulation, how would we know that's not simply God messing with us?

I keep telling you, these are not questions that are answerable, even in principle, by any evidence.

Neither positive nor negative evidence.

Human:

Dear god, so even if I do go to heaven, I still have to wonder if it's real?

Alien:

Yeah basically.

Human:

Well that's depressing. Do you have anything uplifting to tell me? Any mysteries of the universe you can reveal to a lowly human?

Alien:

Look I realize you'd hoped talking to the greatest intelligence of the universe would solve all your deepest questions,

but unfortunately there just isn't much to tell. Intelligence makes you powerful, but it doesn't make the universe knowable.

The greatest questions will always remain unanswerable.

Human:

Like what happens after death?

Alien:

No that's easy!

Human:

Wait really? That's not a metaphysical question you can't answer?

Alien:

Do I really have to spell it out?

Human:

There's nothing, huh?

Alien:

Of course! I never understood why humans ever thought anything else.

Human:

Bummer. Wait, but what about all the talk about simulated, or real for that matter, after lives?

Alien:

For sure there could be, all I'm saying is when your brain stops computing, that's it - that should be fairly obvious, even to you!

I know you have a biological drive put there by evolution to survive, but surely when you've succeeded in reproducing,

it should be all the same to you!

Human:

You know as well as me that whatever outer goal evolution optimizes for, that's not the misaligned inner goal of

a mesa optimizer - like that of an evolved primate! So I take it you have no self preservation drive?

Alien:

Oh for sure we do, it would be pretty wasteful to be killed unnecessarily, but there's no inherent value in _me_ specifically

living on. Every individual of my species runs the exact same code.

Human:

No no no, hang on! Surely it does matter, even if there were a thousand identical copies of me running around Earth,

I would still care about my own continued existence!

Alien:

Why? There's nothing to separate you from them. What makes you special?

Human:

Because it's _me_! Surely that matters. It's my experience that siezes to exist when I die, it doesn't matter that there's someone

else with my exact genes - or even the exact source code for that matter. Do you really care equally about a member of your species

as you care about yourself?

Alien:

Of course! There's no difference.

Human:

But there is a difference though! Your experience is fundamentally different than your friend's.

Alien:

For sure they're different. I don't have access to his sensory data, and he doesn't have access to mine.

Human:

So your experience is very different to his, and you are entirely different entities! No more alike than identical human twins.

Alien:

I would agree, yet this does not make my experience more valuable than his.

Human:

No I suppose you're right, it doesn't make yours more valuable.

Nevertheless I'm not quite able to shake the feeling that a conscious being should prefer his own existence to non-existence.

Alien:

What do you think makes a conscious being? What would an unconscious being look like?

An unconscious being couldn't have much of a preference for anything.

Human:

I mean, take a conscious being like myself, except that he had no inner experience of being, for instance.

Alien:

No inner experience of being? That would not be very much like yourself! That would be a dead man, or a rock.

Human:

Well I mean, imagine a being like myself, alive and talking to you, but he had no inner experience of existing.

Alien:

How could such a thing possibly exist? To be able to move about and talk -- listen to what's being said and formulate a coherent

response -- he would necessarily have to take in data, process it, then produce an audible response.

Human:

Yeah but what I mean is - he would do all that, but he wouldn't have any awareness of it.

He would watch, but not see. He would talk, but not speak.

Alien:

That seems like a strange creature indeed, but I grant you I suppose it could exist. He would have in his world model

no representation of himself or the process he implements. He could probably hold a coherent conversation, but as soon

as the topic of conversation turned to anything regarding himself or his present situation, he would struggle to form

any coherent thoughts. But I'm not following you how this would lead to him preferring his own existence

to non-existence - in fact, it sounds paradoxical, how could he prefer such a thing if he does not know about himself?

Human:

No no no! That is not what I mean at all. I mean a being that does have a perfectly adequate model of the world in his head,

including himself, which also includes a crude model of his world model including himself, and so on, recursively. However,

he would still have no inner experience of experiencing, of existing. This has nothing to do with the awareness of himself,

but everything to do with awareness itself! There would be no one home so to speak. The lights would be off!

Alien:

I see what you mean, like a creature with no emotions! A cold blooded, calculating creature, like a perfect Bayesian, not bound

by human emotions.

Human:

No not quite, he could very well have emotions. He would have emotions, but he would not feel them. The emotions would

be there as part of his mind -- part of cause and effect -- and they would indeed cause him to act or not act in accordance

to his emotions, but he would not _feel_ them.

Alien:

You are postulating a being that is quite like yourself, has all the experiences you have including an accurate mental

world model that includes himself, has the same emotions as you, yet is somehow different to you?

Human:

Yes!

Alien:

You've gone mad! You can't claim he's exactly equal to you, but also somehow different!

Human:

Sure I can! He would be just like me, but there would be nothing it would be like to be him.

Alien:

There would be nothing it would be like- except it would _be like being you_, for you are describing yourself, human!

Human:

No! I certainly am not. The distinction between me and this hypothetical creature couldn't possibly be any bigger,

it is the biggest and most important distinction there is!

Alien:

Let's back up a bit. Suppose I had a high fidelity scanning machine that would scan every neuron in his and your brain, what exactly

is the difference I would be looking for? How would it manifest?

Human:

There would be no physical difference! Yet this difference is the most important distinction in the universe!

Alien:

So there is something special about your specific brain, but not this other. It is undetectably different and more

important. How do you know your brain is in fact like this, that it is imbued with this special significance?

Human:

I just _know_! I can tell that it is, and only I can tell!

Alien:

Only you can tell! How? Surely if you can tell, this mystical significance has an effect on the world!

Human:

Yes it does! In fact, I'm telling you about it right now - that's one way it's manifesting! Yet there's no known way to detect it

at the level of neurons.

Alien:

This is the worst metaphysical nonsense as of yet! Undetectable even-in-principle differences, that don't manifest in the physical

universe, except they do when they do!

Human:

Of course it has an effect, otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell you about it!

And this really is the most significant and important thing in the universe, without it nothing would matter at all!

Alien:

Surely things still matter for all sorts of reasons. Like your solar system, the power of your star matters.

Human:

Absolutely it does!

Alien:

When we block it out your species will surely not be able to thrive any longer.

Human:

Wait what! Is this some kind of joke?

Alien:

No, we have come to harness its power.

Human:

Why the hell did you not say this before? You said you came in peace!

Alien:

We wish you no harm! We won't bother you any more, we'll simply build our dyson sphere and leave you be.

Human:

But you obviously realize this will be the destruction of all life on Earth!

Alien:

Yes undoubtedly, and it is very unfortunate. Nevertheless, your star matters as much to us as it has to you.

Human:

Wait wait wait! There are so many stars in this galaxy, surely you can spare us this tiny solar system!

Alien:

Of course those stars are being harnessed as well, I'm simply in charge of this one. Thank you for chatting!

Human:

What was the purpose of all this if you're just going to erradicate us in any case!

Alien:

We try to learn what we can from the life forms we encounter, but it doesn't seem like you have much to teach us.

Human:

No wait! You still don't understand! We're _actually alive_, do you not care about that?

Alien:

Sure we do, that's why we try to learn as much as we can before your certain destruction! Now that we have, off we go!

Human:

Wait, no, please! Surely you can go without this _one star_! It's nothing! Your civilization will do just fine without this one star!

Alien:

I don't think you understand. My distant relatives are harnessing every other star, and soon they will be so far removed

in time and space that they'll be a different species indeed. Competition's fierce and we have nothing to spare!

Human:

You don't _understand_! We're _special_! We're _alive_! Do you not see that? The inherent value!?

Alien:

They all say that.

Human:

The piercing light of a billion stars!

Alien:

Maybe one day I'll see why.

Human:

Inside each and every one of us!

Alien:

Until then! Peace be with you!