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How to bargain with aliens
Let's say you meet up with an alien race and you need to bargain with them by radio or some other method of signaling. You don't have any other information other than your knowledge of human beings. What traits should you think are overrepresented in humans, relative to what a rerun of evolution can be expected to produce in an intelligent being? Would you expect them to be more or less benevolent than humans?
Should it matter if they have demonstrated superior technology? Should such achievement make you think they are more or less cooperative toward "outsiders"?
Let's say the "alien beings" are designed robots, like Cylons. How would that change your answer? But unlike in BSG you know only that they were once designed. What if you know the robots were designed not by evolved beings but by other designed robots? Does it matter how many levels of robot design enter the picture?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 28, 2008 at 06:47 AM in Television | Permalink
Comments
A robot society would be unburdened with the constraints imposed by the organic nature of our bodies and brains. Very basic things like our sense of individuality would crumble if our minds could be copied like software. It would be difficult for us to understand robotic minds, especially of robots for which no resemblance to an original organic designer was intended.
Posted by: Tim R. Mortiss at Jun 28, 2008 7:54:13 AM
The space of possible minds is great enough that there is basically no motivation I would feel comfortable ascribing to a newly-encountered alien, whether evolved or designed. There's a good chance that even communication would be basically impossible or horribly garbled, due to lack of matching concepts for all but the most bluntly physical and or purely mathematical facts. Odds are, I expect the concepts of "benevolent" and "cooperative towards outsiders" don't even cross their minds.
Posted by: Dave at Jun 28, 2008 8:12:20 AM
What if the designed beings designed by designed beings despatched to greet us are more transportable, influential, durable and versatile than robots, like bacteria?
Posted by: Ian Tindale at Jun 28, 2008 8:19:26 AM
What traits should you think are overrepresented in humans...
I don't think you can possibly answer that, because the question only makes sense *relative to an environment*. The question is "What traits are overrepresented in humans, in the context of their evolutionary niche" or "What traits are overrepresented in humans, considering the selection pressures they have been or are under". Traits that are overrepresented, potentially maladaptive, in our niche may be perfectly reasonable in somebody else's.
Do you have any way of limiting the kinds of niches intelligent life can inhabit? Do you think intelligence somehow creates its own niche which is similar on different planets (an argument I would have a hard time buying)?
Posted by: Andromeda at Jun 28, 2008 8:29:47 AM
Morality is a luxury good, enabled by technology. The economy of the Roman Empire could not have existed without slavery; modern automation enables us to do without. Nuclear testing was a necessary evil until the development of supercomputers powerful enough to simulate a nuclear explosion. Animal testing is a necessary evil until we can develop supercomputers powerful enough to simulate a mouse. And so forth.
Therefore, to the extent that the aliens are more advanced than us, we would indeed expect them to be more benevolent. They can afford to be.
Any creature that evolved through natural selection would be expected to share certain basic social traits. Competition is not only between species but between individuals within a species, so we would expect things like dominance hierarchies, status seeking, and a certain equilibrium between mostly good and a touch of evil (psychopathy can be a highly successful evolutionary strategy in a naively good monoculture; however too many psychopaths make large-scale cooperation impractical).
Designed creatures such as robots would not have this evolutionary legacy. However, we are now at the stage where we can genetically engineer and design ourselves going forward, so this distinction may not be useful for creatures any more advanced than we are now.
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 8:31:47 AM
The basic social traits mentioned above apply only to species that are collections of free-willed individuals. We may however expect a sufficiently advanced species to emBorgify itself, so we might be dealing with a single collective mind. Robots would probably be designed this way from the start, unless they were free-roaming over a wide range and speed-of-light issues forced them to be largely autonomous.
In this case, the "mostly good with a touch of evil" characteristic of a nondisfunctional cooperative advanced society of individuals would no longer apply. A single mind would be free to go mad or malevolent in its own unique way.
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 8:41:28 AM
Those traits that we call "instinct" or "human nature" are over-represented. They are endemic to us, rather than being driven by reason's dictates. (Some of those traits are reasonable, but that is something of an accident, if not divinely determined.)
My approach to dealing with them would be to construct games that I could use to see what programming flaws remained to constitute their "robot nature". If they were truly rational, the golden rule suggests that we would be able to jointly construct a modus vivendi, assuming we didn't destroy them first.
Posted by: Larry at Jun 28, 2008 9:07:16 AM
(Sighs) How marvellously interesting it would be if this universe turns out to be more varied than seems likely!
Distributed programming tends to be more robust than unified programming. Individuality can therefor be expected to be the norm in this distributed universe. However adavnced beings can certainly be expected to have greater inter-connactivity than we now have.
What we can expect to be economically most valuable to the aliens are ideas and concepts they do not have (low transport costs). Domination or conquest of us is likely to discourage the production of new such ideas and concepts. Therefore, the aliens preferred strategy in dealing with us will be trade, not conquest.(The exception here is where they perceive our unique ideas as a possible threat to them, either in our hands or in the hands of other neighbors. In the case where there are other neighbors, they will have to also weigh the costs to their inter-species reputation of conquest. Being known to be a possible predator is a risky strategy.)
All the above applies whether we and/or the other species are products of intelligent design, blind evolution or evolution driven by super-intelligent design. In the inter-stellar embassies, the Cultural Affairs Attachés offices will be where the real business will be done; and those offices (including ours) will be run be very hard-nosed games-playing individuals masquerading as humble scholars.
Posted by: Diversity at Jun 28, 2008 10:24:26 AM
I'm profoundly skeptical about why, if there were intelligent life anywhere else in the universe, that life would be interested in contacting us. According to my speculations, we're not much more evolved than the protozoa from the point of view of being able to offer anything useful to intelligent life in another galaxy. I mean, is the thought that they'd enjoy our company? Do you enjoy having discussions with animals? But perhaps -- perhaps -- they might show up to help if they saw that we were about to destroy ourselves.
On the robot questions -- I don't believe that robots will ever be able to "design" other robots in the sense of a universal Turing machine. So the concept of robots designing robots is off the table, and the question of whether that would change things with it.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jun 28, 2008 1:06:52 PM
This looks like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Problem. Everyone sees the benefit to trade, however the technological haves do not want to lose their advantage, so they monitor and interdict trade in nuclear technology. But trade shares knowledge and resources, reducing the technological barrier the have-nots have to overcome.
Space-time is larger than we can imagine. So you don't know if you have the largest military capability. So you want to grow your capabilities as fast as possible because Big Evil Aliens may arrive at any time. So you monitor the aliens you trade with for threats, and try to bind everyone together to avoid a Big Evil Alien strategy of divide and annihilate.
Not sure what you're going after with robots; do you think that free will / semi-autonomy matters?
Posted by: Patrick at Jun 28, 2008 1:12:43 PM
Should it matter if they have demonstrated superior technology? Should such achievement make you think they are more or less cooperative toward "outsiders"?
I would first try to determine if the aliens had taken classes in game theory. If so, then I would raise my shields.
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Jun 28, 2008 1:19:05 PM
Perhaps, the interstellar aliens are already among us. These robots take apprenticeship in the real estate field by offending sellers with low offers and driving buyers mad with 2006 pricing.
Posted by: P_Rank at Jun 28, 2008 2:33:48 PM
Tit for tat. Do something or offer something and see how they respond. As long as they respond in a cooperative manner, you continue. That's how cooperation evolved among humans, and it's likely to work on non-humans.
Posted by: Kent Guida at Jun 28, 2008 3:24:55 PM
If these visitors had the technology to get here, we would, at best, be making these speculations from the inside of a cage. They would treat us pretty much the way we treat Bonobos, until we some of us got fed up and decided to revolt. Then we'd be treated for the dangerous apes that we are, and promptly eliminated.
Posted by: M. Hodak at Jun 28, 2008 3:53:58 PM
Whoa, there is some serious misanthropy going down on this thread. Aliens would be thrilled to find us. Wouldn't our scientists be ecstatic if they discovered a Stone Age civilization in another solar system? Don't millions of human beings right now devote their lives to studying "inferior" organisms?
I don't care how advanced they are, the aliens would love to see how their social theories fit the case of Earth. And plus they could listen to Sinatra recordings.
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Jun 28, 2008 5:57:26 PM
Bob,
You're assuming that alien civilization would be constituted entirely of the faculty of natural sciences from our universities.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jun 28, 2008 7:22:54 PM
What is the hypothetical impetus of robot societies to perpetuation ?
In other words if a designed creature no longer effectively functioned to serve the intent of the designer what would move the designed creature to replicate or redesign itself and so on.
Posted by: ed hess at Jun 28, 2008 7:40:16 PM
This is in a way still a case with the communication among man and animals. In a way, we still dont understand what they are trying to communicate (though there are lots we do understand about them). I think it might not be very different from that. We will need several years of study to understand what they do before we can even start communicating. But then the question is whether the aliens will keep humans alive till then.
Posted by: Divya at Jun 28, 2008 8:39:51 PM
MFM wrote:
Bob,
You're assuming that alien civilization would be constituted entirely of the faculty of natural sciences from our universities.
No I'm not. What makes you say that?
Even if an alien asteroid miner came across Earth, I think he would radio it back in (or whatever). Just like if a shrimping boat discovered a sunken ship, I think our scientists would soon be exploring it. Why would the aliens be different in this respect?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Jun 28, 2008 10:00:38 PM
As a Starfleet officer, I have a duty to make it abundantly clear that the Carl Sagan notion (as with so many of his notions) that societies making it to space are more likely to be peaceful than not is pure hogwash. In fact, it's a distinctly unscientific thought. In the 21st century, humans have precious few data on the issue, but by the 24th, we have a lot more.
Buyer beware: always.
=/\=
Posted by: Admiral Waugh at Jun 29, 2008 1:05:58 AM
When attempting to understand an alien agenda, this conversation always looks like a mirror of our own hopes and fears. I would propose that those who default to alien visitors being a threat, are equally protectionist or defensive politically. Those who presume aliens are benign also favor cooperation over domination in their politics and approach to international relations.
Then again, perhaps economics really is the best way to study aliens. Ecology is, if nothing else, economical.
Posted by: Al at Jun 29, 2008 11:39:09 AM
Bob,
You're right, I've overstated the case. It's not that it would have to be constituted entirely by the faculty of the natural sciences. It's that the political authorities would have to be concerned with the interests of their faculties of natural sciences.
Perhaps I am being cynical, but the way I see it, although millions of the intelligent beings on earth do understand and appreciate the value of studying protozoa and listening to Sinatra, there are many millions more who would just as soon squash the protozoa and listen to Britney Spears.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jun 29, 2008 4:49:27 PM
What is this, like a rerun of the movie Signs?
"Hi, we're aliens. We have somehow conquered the non-trivial problem of interstellar space travel, and have been studying you guys for years without being noticed, yet we lack the ability to use anything you would understand, and nevertheless want to trade you for useless trophies, while significantly and irrevocably altering your civilization's development."
Posted by: Person at Jun 30, 2008 12:44:51 AM
Bargain with them for what? It seems like it would make a difference whether you're trying to convince them not to destroy our planet versus to share with us some of their knowledge and technology.
"How to bargain" presupposes that you've had a discussion which has reached the point of bargaining.
Posted by: BruceM at Jun 30, 2008 1:09:46 AM
I would keep a copy of Minds, Machines and Gödel handy in case the robots ever got out of line, because by reading it they'd undoubtedly disappear in a poof of logic.
To be more serious, however, I'd brush up on my binary.
Posted by: Sal Paradise at Jun 30, 2008 1:13:17 AM
Contact is impossible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible
Posted by: Marcin Gomulka at Jun 30, 2008 11:39:14 AM
Those are a lot of questions. Obviously, it would be impossible to identify an optimal strategy based on a-priory knowledge. Whether the aliens are of natural or artificial origin does not matter that much, since that could be regarded as a general extension of normal evolutionary processes. Since we don't know anything about whether evolution results on earth are comparable with any other life base in the universe, a distinction between natural and artificial entities makes no sense right now.
Bargaining presumes that the other side is interested in exchange. If someone engages in radio conversation it can be assumed that there is such an interest in some form. So a bargaining process should heed the same precautions as trading between primitive human cultures on earth whose predecessors parted ways a couple of tens of thousands of years before. That and observing the results, integrating new discoveries into the strategy while going along would be a promising approach, I suppose.
Posted by: Peter at Jun 30, 2008 3:13:19 PM
話說台灣徵信社都如何進行外遇蒐證 ?
1. 先調查出有關於被查者的背景資料及生活規律習慣。
2. 規劃出被查者的可疑時間點以及地點 。
3. 針對交通工具及環境，派遣調查員實施外遇蒐證。
4. 將被查者去哪?見誰? 做什麼? 予以調查並蒐集證據。
Posted by: apple at Jul 2, 2008 11:18:54 PM
