Over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of human history's most transformative scientific developments. It has also progressed at an astounding pace, with scientists looking towards the development of artificial superintelligence (ASI). However, a new hypothesis is proposed that this milestone might be the "Great Filter" responsible for the scarcity of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.
What Is the Great Filter?
The Great Filter refers to the idea that a barrier to development makes detectable alien life exceedingly rare in the emergence of life from the earliest stages to the highest levels. Introduced by economist Robin Hanson in the late 1990s, it was the proposed solution to the Fermi paradox, a contradiction between the high likelihood of the emergence of extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence for its existence.
This theory questions why humans have not yet detected any signs of alien life despite the vastness of the universe with billions of potentially habitable planets. Hanson argued that from what we can see here on Earth, intelligent life actually expands to fill every niche. We should see signs of advanced civilizations beyond Earth in our Solar System or nearby star systems, but that is not the case.
Based on the Great Filter theory, scientists believe that life on Earth has already endured several filters in the form of mass extinction events. Today, humanity may face a Great Filter of our own making, one that other extraterrestrial civilizations have faced and failed to withstand.
A Formidable Bottleneck
In the paper "civilizations rare in the Universe?" Michael A. Garrett discusses that AI might be a threshold so hard to overcome that it hinders life from evolving into space-faring civilizations. This idea could also explain why the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has yet to spot evidence of advanced technical civilizations elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy.
According to the Great Filter theory, civilizations' evolutionary timelines contain overwhelming challenges that hinder their development into advanced entities. Garrett assumes that the emergence of artificial intelligence could be such a filter. The rapid progress of artificial intelligence may intersect with a critical stage in a civilization's development.
The challenge with artificial intelligence is its autonomous, self-implying nature. This technology possesses the potential to improve its capabilities at a speed that outpaces humanity's evolutionary timelines without AI. There is also an enormous potential for something to go wrong, causing the downfall of both biological and AI civilizations before they even get the opportunity to become multi-planetary.
Garrett noted that his research is not just a cautionary tale of potential doom. It also serves as a wake-up call for humans to establish regulatory frameworks to guide the progress of artificial intelligence. This is not just about avoiding the hostile use of AI on Earth. Still, it is also about ensuring that the evolution of artificial intelligence aligns with the long-term survival of the human species.
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