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TheRoadsMustRoll t1_j9v0mui wrote

Reply to comment by geniusgrunt in Alien hunters get a boost as AI helps identify promising signals from space by UniOfManchester

>...kinks in the AI algorithm...

would there be a part of that algorithm that touches on any known aspect of actual alien life? because, without having experienced or interacted with an actual alien; it won't ever know what it's looking for. right?

its like asking AI which dress i'll wear when i've never once worn a dress: the return is going to be a random guess or null.

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kerfitten1234 t1_j9vhtv4 wrote

Disclaimer: I am too lazy to read the article. This is all just prior knowledge.

The only assumption SETI makes is that aliens wouldn't disguise their radio emissions as natural sources. You don't need to understand the signal to realize that it wasn't produced by any known natural phenomenon, and wasn't random.

An ai could quickly filter through the signals, eliminating any that have an obvious natural cause, passing the potentially interesting ones on to people.

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TheRoadsMustRoll t1_j9vkint wrote

>The only assumption SETI makes is that aliens wouldn't disguise their radio emissions as natural sources.

there's a secondary hidden assumption there: that aliens wouldn't use encryption when transmitting (which would make their transmissions sound like random background noise.)

but we use encryption and its considered commonplace.

i'm all for searching for signs of life but without some grown-up logic employed i'm dubious that anything will come of these activities.

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HildemarTendler t1_j9wm0uw wrote

Encryption isn't all that interesting. Any alien signal won't be built on our protocols or use our language. We are unable to understand an alien signal whether encrypted or not. The signal will look artificial either way.

The real assumption is that aliens capable of transmitting signals over galactic distances are still using RF to communicate.

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Euphoric_Koala t1_j9wh0ch wrote

Encryption doesn’t mean you can’t detect a signal only that the contents appear random. For example most wifi traffic is encrypted but if you examine the frequency spectrum near a device you can clearly see peaks around 2.4GHz where the signal is.

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kerfitten1234 t1_j9vn38x wrote

Your comment made me realize that there's a deeper assumption at the core: that any aliens emitting radio messages want to be heard.

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bradklyn t1_j9y57mo wrote

This. If there are advanced species out there, the window between when they start emitting signals and THEY discover other species exist and decide to hide signals is likely very narrow.

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Bensemus t1_j9zykea wrote

That’s not an assumption. SETI isn’t assuming aliens are broadcasting for our benefit. They are hoping to either detect messages intended for something else or signals that are naturally generated by technology.

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giantgreeneel t1_j9wd6hl wrote

It's a reasonable assumption. What would we be able to do with transmissions that look like random background noise anyway?

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JohnMayerismydad t1_j9yc87f wrote

Pretty sure any signal reaching us that can be received would have to be directed into space for the purpose of some other world hearing it.

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HildemarTendler t1_j9wl704 wrote

Yes, using AI is ludicrous. It brings nothing to the table that wasn't already being done. This is just part of the AI craze to get people excited about aliens.

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Disastrous_Elk_6375 t1_j9yzjmx wrote

No. There are definitely areas where ML can help. We have models that are known to be good at classification and that also generalise reasonably well. These models can and should be used to speed up the "anomaly detection" in a large amount of data. These models are also better at the task than manually defined "traditional" algorithms.

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