Extraterrestrial paperclip maximizers

For a whimsical example, if humans built a (literal) staple maximizer, this would pose a very serious threat to a (literal) paperclip maximizer.

But why would humans ever want to build a staple maximizer? Let's not forget, staples:

• are single-use, while paperclips are infinite-use if used properly.
• are difficult to remove, while papercilps are easy to remove.
• permanently puncture the paper, while paperclips leave, at most, some mild curvature.
• require an applicator that can easily jam, while paperclips can be applied by hand.
• cannot be used for alternate purpose in an emergency, while paperclips can be repurposed into projectile weapons, lockpicks, conducting wire, hook fasteners, and much more (not that I recommend using it for these).

I'd expect that any AGI (originating and interested in our universe) would initiate an exploration/colonization wave in all directions regardless of whether it has information that a given place has intelligent life, so broadcasting that we're here doesn't make it worse. Expecting superintelligent AI aliens that require a broadcast to notice us is like expecting poorly hidden aliens on flying saucers, the same mistake made on a different level. Also, light travels only so quickly, so our signals won't reach very far before we've made an AGI of our own (one way or another), and thus had a shot at ensuring that our values obtain significant control.

But there seems to me to be no reason to believe that it's more likely that our signals will reach friendly extraterrestrials than it is that our signals will reach unfriendly extraterrestrials.

In fact, as Eliezer never tires of pointing out, the space of unfriendliness is much larger than the space of friendliness.

But as Eliezer has pointed out in Humans In Funny Suits, we should be wary of irrationally anthropomorphizing aliens. Even if there's a tendency for intelligent life on other planets to be sort of like humans, such intelligent life may (whether intentionally or inadvertently) create a really powerful optimization process.

The creation of a powerful optimization process is a distraction here - as Eliezer points out in the article you link, and in others like the "Three Worlds Collide" story, aliens are quite unlikely to share much of our value system.

Yes, the creation of unfriendly AI is an important topic here on earth, but for an alien civilization, all we need to know is that they're starting off with a different values system, and that they might become very powerful. Meeting a powerful entity with a different value system is more likely to be bad news than good news, regardless of whether the "power" comes from creating an "alien-friendly" AI, an "alien-unfriendly" AI (destroying their old alien value system in the process), self modification, uploading or whatnot.

Berating Steven Hawking for not mentioning this detail ("Maybe the aliens will create an unfriendly AI!") is unnecessary. His view looks much less naive than this:

My feeling is that if human civilization advances to the point where we can explore outer space in earnest, it will be because humans have become much more cooperative and pluralistic than presently existing humans.

There is no reason for any alien civilization to ever raid earth for its resources, if they did not first raid all the other stuff that is freely and unclaimed available in open space. Wiping us out to avoid troublemakers on the other hand is reasonable. I recently read Heinleins 'the Star Beast' where the United Federation Something regularly destroys planets for being dangerous.

My feeling is that if human civilization advances to the point where we can explore outer space in earnest, it will be because humans have become much more cooperative and pluralistic than presently existing humans.

I agree with the main point of your article but I think this is an unjustifiable (but extremely common) belief. There are plenty of ways for human civilizations to survive in stable, advanced forms besides the ways that have been popular in the West for the last couple centuries. For instance:

1. A human-chauvinist totalitarian singleton.
2. An "ant-colony" civilization where cooperation and altruism are made evolutionarily stable by enforcing genetic uniformity for humans.
3. A human civilization presided over by a Friendly AI that secretly exterminates all other life to protect humanity from future alien AI threats.

Such an entity would have special interest in Earth, not because of special interest in acquiring its resources, but because Earth has intelligent lifeforms which may eventually thwart its ends.

Well put. Certainly if humans achieve a positive singularity we'll be very interested in containing other intelligences.

Re: "I was recently complaining to a friend about Stephen Hawking's remark as an example of a popular scientist misleading the public."

I don't really see how these comments are misleading.

Isn't the problem with friendly extraterrestials analogous to Friendly AI? (In that they're much less likely than unFriendly ones).

The aliens can have "good" intentions but probably won't share our values, making the end result extremely undesirable (Three Worlds Collide).

Another option is for the aliens to be willing to implement something like CEV toward us. I'm not sure how likely is that. Would we implement CEV for Babyeaters?

Any society capable of communicating is presumably the product of a significant amount of evolution. There will always (?) be a doubt whether any simulation will be an accurate representation of objective reality, but a naturally evolved species will always be adapted to reality. As such, unanticipated products of actual evolution have the potential to offer unanticipated insights.

For the same reason we strive to preserve bio-diversity, I believe that examination of the products of separate evolutions should always be a worthwhile goal for any inquisitive being.

I'd be really surprised if friendly aliens could give us much useful help-- maybe not any.

However, contacting aliens who aren't actively unfriendly (especially if there's some communication) could enable us to learn a lot about the range of what's possible.

And likewise, aliens might be interested in us because we're weird by their standards. Depending on their tech and ethics, the effect on us could be imperceptible, strange and/or dangerous for a few individuals, mere samples of earth life remaining on reservations, or nothing left.

Just for the hell of it-- what if the reason we aren't hearing radio is that there's something better which we haven't discovered yet?

AFAIK there's currently no major projects attempting to send contact signals around the galaxy (let alone the universe). Our signals may be reaching Vega or some of the nearest star systems, but definitely not much farther. It's not prohibitively difficult to broadcast out to say, a 1000 lightyear radius ball around earth, but you're still talking about an antenna that's far larger than anything currently existing.

Right now the SETI program is essentially focused on detection, not broadcasting. Broadcasting is a much more expensive problem. Detection is favorable for us because if there are other broadcasting civilizations, they will tend to be more advanced, and broadcasting will be comparatively easier/cheaper for them.

Edit: If you're doing directional broadcasting, it's true that you can go much further. Of course, you are simply trading broadcasting distance for the amount of space covered by the signal. Wikipedia says that Arecibo broadcasted towards M13, around 25,000 light years away. That's about the same distance as us from the center of the Milky Way.

If intelligent aliens arise due to evolution they'll likely be fairly close to humans in mindspace compared to the entire size possible. In order to reach a minimal tech level, they'll likely need to be able to cooperate, communicate, empathize, and put off short-term gains for long-term gains. That already puts them much closer to humans. There are ways this could go wrong (for example, a species that uses large hives like ants or termites). And even a species that close to us in mindspace could still pose massive existential risk.

Space signals take a long time to travel through a given region of space, and space travel through the same amount of distance seems to take orders of magnitude longer.

If communication is practical and travel is not then that may be in argument in favor of attempting contact. Friendly aliens could potentially be very helpful to us simply by communicating some information. It's harder (but by no means impossible) to see how unfriendly aliens could cause us harm by communicating with us.