Unknown: For 1000s of
John Greenewald: years, humanity has looked to the stars and
wondered, are we alone? One of the earliest recorded examples
and written literature exploring alien life was penned way back
in 200 ad. Lucian of Sam Osada, a writer of satire and eastern
Turkey, wrote a fictionalized story about a journey to the
moon, and the Discovery of Life flourishing on the lunar body.
My guest today, walks this earth more than 1800 years after that
story was written, aims to make what we call science fiction,
and turn it into science back.
Avi Loeb: But there are more planets like this in the visible
universe than there are grains of sand. In all the beaches on
earth
John Greenewald: Professor Avi Loeb, who serves as the Frank B
Baird, Junior professor of science at Harvard University,
has authored nearly 700 research articles and five books. he
explores some of life's most amazing questions that many
scientists fear to touch, and he is here to speak about his new
endeavor called the GALILEO project. According to the press
release sent out just today, the goal of the GALILEO project is
to bring the search for extraterrestrial technological
signatures from accidental or anecdotal observation and
legends, to the mainstream of transparent validated and
systematic scientific research. From bio signatures to techno
signatures, and everything in between, stay tuned, you're
about to journey inside the black vault.
That's right, everybody. As always, thank you so much for
tuning in and making this your podcast or your live stream of
choice. I'm your host, john Greenwald, Jr, founder and
creator of the black vault calm and I don't want to waste any
time. My special guest today is someone who's not only busy in
general, but definitely today. So Professor Avi Loeb, I am
honored to have you on the show, and especially on a day like
today carving out some time for me and my audience. So thank you
for that. My great pleasure. And and I want to get into the
GALILEO project in just a few moments, but since it's the this
is your first time on my show, I always like to give guests an
opportunity. Just to give me a little bit of background about
what your role is at Harvard University, your background in
science, and what is your niche?
Avi Loeb: Right. So fundamentally, I'm a farm boy, I
was born on a farm collected eggs every afternoon and haven't
changed much I should say, I'm very much connected to nature. I
was interested in philosophy early on, and I'm currently an
astrophysicist. But curious about the most fundamental
questions we have. And one of them is, are we the smartest kid
on the block? And, as we will discuss, the GALILEO project
aims to answer this question, not philosophically, but
actually based on evidence because science is guided by
evidence. Over the past nine years have been the longest
serving Chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard
University. three terms each was three years, also the founding
director of the black hole initiative at Harvard that a
center that brings together philosophers and the scientists
to study black holes. And I'm currently still the director of
the Institute for theory and computation at Harvard, at the
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, so, and I've been
the chair of a number of boards, but we will not get into that.
John Greenewald: I know that and you have an extensive resume,
none of which would even fit in an hour. So I appreciate the
overview though. I know that many scientists have a certain
angle is yours, more astronomy, more astrobiology or kind of all
of the above?
Avi Loeb: No, my my angle is that of a scientist. And
fundamentally, science is about evidence run prejudice. And
that's the main point of argument that I have with the
mainstream of the scientific community because I think we
should be guided by evidence and when there is something unusual.
For example, in object that entered the solar system from
outside and doesn't look like any of the rocks that we have
seen before in the solar system doesn't look like a comet or an
asteroid, we should consider the possibilities. But it is a
plastic bottle among all these rocks like we find on the beach
when we walk across the beach. And so my point is we should
allow ourselves to learn something new, rather than
always assuming that what we see in the sky is something we have
expected from before. And that's the way science is done, we
learn new things by paying attention to evidence. And, you
know, fundamentally, it's a lesson that I've learned from
practicing astronomy over decades that we should be
modest, that sometimes nature is more imaginative than we are.
And if you ask me about this particular question, whether we
are alone, or whether there is a smarter kid on the block, we
know now that then roughly half plus or minus A quarter of all
the sun like stars have a planet the size of the Earth, roughly
the same separation. And if you repeat the same circumstances,
you might as well get similar outcomes. That to me sounds like
common sense. I don't think it's a speculation to say, things
like us may have already existed out there. And in fact, most
stars formed billions of years before the sun. So if there was
a technological civilization, that predated us, let's say, by
a billion years, it could have sent AI systems that they
replicate themselves through 3d printers, and fill up the entire
Milky Way galaxy by now, because it takes much less than a
billion years to traverse the distances across the galaxy. And
then my point is, let's be more this, let's be humble, let's,
let's not assume that we know the answer in advance, and
simply check the sky and figure out what is around us. And, you
know, that's just like, opening the curtains on our windows and
checking whether we have neighbors, if you are, you know,
we don't have neighbors, and we are the smartest in the
universe, it doesn't get rid of the neighbors, you know, they
might still be out there.
John Greenewald: Before we drill down down on exactly what your
angle is, with the GALILEO project, you touched upon these
objects, and I believe you were referring to a mu mu, which I
also want to get into. But first, I want to tackle science
and scientists in general, is there a hesitancy to deal with
that topic when you're talking about not microbial life found
on a distant planet, but rather in intelligent life that's
traversing the cosmos in whichever way that they have
figured out to do? So? Is there a hesitant hesitancy to that, in
the broader nature of all this,
Avi Loeb: definitely, I mean, it's being regarded This is an
extraordinary claim to argue that something like us may exist
out there. And frankly, I think it reflects arrogance, because I
don't regard us as very intelligent whatsoever. If you
look at human history, you know, we wasted most of our resources
in fighting each other, trying to feel superior relative to
each other. The second world war was driven by racism, you know,
Nazi Germany, and the $4 trillion, were spent just by the
US economy on that war. And the 75 million people were killed in
that war, two thirds of the Jewish population in Europe was
killed 6 million. And so all this devastation was for nothing
just for the image, the image that some people are superior
relative to others. And that doesn't show intelligence,
because intelligence, in my mind is cooperation and sharing of
evidence based knowledge. And that's what science advocates
and to assume that we are really unique and special, I think, is
arrogance. So my point is, I don't think it is speculative at
all, to search for things like us, or maybe even more advanced
than us. Because I don't think that we are very advanced at
this point. And so what's the problem about just collecting
evidence searching for that? My my argument is extraordinary.
conservatism leads to extraordinary ignorance, as we
know, from the days of Galileo, Galileo, when the telescope when
the philosopher's refused to look through his telescope and
argue that the sun moves around the Earth.
John Greenewald: you named your project, the GALILEO project.
Give us an overview of of what it is and what is it that you're
trying to find?
Avi Loeb: Right. So the name Galileo was obviously chosen for
the reason I just mentioned that the word these philosophers that
refused to look through the telescope because they knew the
answer that only maintained their ignorance, the earth
continued to move around the sun. The fact that the law was
put in house arrest, didn't change anything. And so my, in
fact, two weeks ago, there was a paper written by a philosopher
published in Nature. anime magazine, arguing that this
strange object that we referred to before are more and more,
that didn't look like a comet or an asteroid could not have been
of artificial origin. And when I saw this paper, I thought to
myself, haven't we learned something from the days of
Galileo, that philosophy is not the way to settle such issues,
what we need is a high resolution image, because they
say a picture is worth 1000 words. In my case, a picture is
worth 66,000 words, the number of words in my book, Extra
Terrestrial that they wrote about the subject, I will need
to write the book if we had a high resolution photograph, it's
not a philosophical question. And so that is the rationale
behind the GALILEO project. What we want is to get more evidence
on objects near Earth that look weird. And that we do not know
the nature of so are more and more the subject that was that
came from outside the solar system, the first one that we
discovered, that came from interstellar space near Earth,
that didn't look like a comet or an asteroid, is an example. And
if we find more of the same, we might want to send a spacecraft
equipped with a camera that will take a close up photo of it. But
in much the same way, there were these unidentified aerial
phenomena in the Pentagon report to Congress exactly a month ago,
whose nature is unknown, and the government admitted that, but
the government collected data from jittery cameras in fighter
jet, you know, and relying on eyewitness testimonies and so
forth. This is a kind of data set that is not suitable for
scientific inquiry. And what we want to do is construct
telescopes where we have full control over the way they are
operating and collecting data from our sky in a scientific way
and analyzing it, it will be open data, and we our analysis
will be completely transparent. Since we're not taking the data
from government owned sensors. There are no restrictions on
using it's just like doing astronomy. In astronomy, you
look at distant objects here, one would look at nearby
objects, but again, using telescopes. So the you know,
every time we look at the sky in a different way, we discover new
things. And so my point is we will learn something new even if
you AP these unidentified aerial phenomena are a result of some
rare atmospheric phenomena like lightning or something that was
not expected because the government doesn't know what
they are, we will figure it out a team of scientists and resolve
this issue and learn something new. If we learn that or more or
more this object from 2017 ends up being a chunk of frozen
hydrogen, the size of a football field, you know, something that
was suggested, we will learn something new, it's not
something that we've seen before it was not produced in the solar
system. And then therefore, we learn something new no matter
what it's a win win proposition, the worst thing we can do is say
business as usual. and ignore those anomalies that are in the
Pentagon report to Congress. And in the discovery of for more and
more,
John Greenewald: what really caught my attention with your
your press release and the press conference that you guys put out
today. Which by the way, well done for those who want to see
the full press conference. The link is down below. I definitely
recommend to watch it because it goes into great detail about
what Professor Loeb and his entire team are doing with the
GALILEO project. But what I want to ask you is earlier I asked
about the hesitancy about scientists talking about alien
life traversing the cosmos and, and and the apprehension to go
there. But with unidentified aerial phenomena as part of the
scope of what you're doing, can you can you helped me understand
the the difference with your project, how you're going to
approach something that is in our atmosphere? I mean, are you
looking at uaps that literally are very close to Earth? Or are
you using the term to reference something that may be in or
around our solar system?
Avi Loeb: No, no, we are using it in the same way that the
Pentagon report us used it. And the point is that we will have a
network of telescopes looking at the sky. You know, the sky is
not classified unless you're next to a military complex and
we will simply monitor the sky The way astronomers do, except
we will pay attention to things nearby rather than things far
away so they move much faster. And usually, if a bird flies
above a telescope that looks at distant forces, then people
ignore it, the astronomers just don't pay attention to it. But
for us, it will be an object of interest, then, of course, we
will need a computer system equipped with artificial
intelligence to figure out which objects we want to follow on and
monitor and, and study. And the idea is to develop many such
systems, depending on on the funding. So I should say that
foundation for this project was that two weeks ago, several
individuals came to me after reading my book and listening to
some of the 1000 interviews I had since the book was published
six months ago. It's translated into 25 languages very broadly
read, and a few wealthy individuals approached me and
said that here's some money that that no strings attached you can
use for the purpose of your research. And I was really
grateful to those people, I didn't engage in any
fundraising. So I now have $1.755 million from those people
that they didn't have a few weeks ago. And I decided to
establish this project by assembling a team of exceptional
scientists that we have, and also end a scientific advisory
board of very distinguished scholars, and that will advise
us and all together, it's the first scientific project that is
well funded, that will collect data on these objects
unidentified objects in in, in the atmosphere, as well as
Interstellar objects outside the atmosphere like Anwar, and they
will analyze it with, of course, the hope that may be one of
them. By the way, we don't need more than one to originate from
an extraterrestrial technological civilization,
because that would already have a huge impact on humanity when
we realize that there is something out there. And
unidentified objects might be a mixed bag, most of them might be
might have mundane explanations, but it's not really about most
of them. It's about the one that would appear really strange. And
that cannot be explained.
John Greenewald: I'm just curious. And I think I know the
answer. You didn't name the donors. So I assume they're
anonymous?
Avi Loeb: No, they're not anonymous, you can find the
names on the philanthropic advisory board that is listed on
our website.
John Greenewald: Oh, okay. I thought they were not named. So
I'm glad I asked. Okay.
Avi Loeb: No, we just Okay, so the press release was our
conference was not about the gift, short, more about the
project. And then we are really grateful for these generous
individuals that committed funds. And the hope is that we
will be able to raise 10 times more funding, because with the
current funding, we can perhaps put 10 to 15 telescopes in
various locations. But if we had 10 times more money, then we
could do a much more rigorous job in serving, you know, a big
chunk of earth for any unusual objects.
John Greenewald: Was there a turning point for you? And this
is kind of a personal question. But when it comes to the either
extraterrestrial objects in space, or those that are much
closer to home here on planet Earth, was there a turning point
for you? Was that a MOO MOO? Or was there something else that
made you really say, okay, we need to if money should ever
arise? And here it is, put it towards UAP research? of these
of these types of objects? Is there an event like that for
you?
Avi Loeb: Yeah, definitely the discovery of for more and more
before that, I was working on cosmology, the study of the
universe, the first stars, the form the universe, the
scientific version of the story of Genesis, and I pretty much
pioneered this, this frontier and have two books on it. When
very, I started working on it, when very few people were
interested, I also worked on black holes, and I worked on the
dark matter in the universe, gravitational waves, topics that
are part of the mainstream now, that the early on, were not
necessarily part of the mainstream. And that taught me
an important lesson not not to pay attention to how many likes
I get on Twitter, that's not really relevant. I need to keep
my eyes on the ball, not on the audience. But then when Omar
showed up, I actually was interested because a decade
earlier, we wrote the first paper with two collaborators Ed
Turner and Maya Moore, marking the first paper that forecasted
how many rocks do we expect to find coming from other stars
based on what we know on the solar system, and we predicted
that the telescope in Hawaii panstarrs will not find any by a
factor of 100 to 100 million. So it was really off the scale of
it, finding it. And then it found more and more. And that
was surprising to me. And then I monitored the data on it at
first astronomers assumed it must be a comet. But then it
didn't show any cometary tail, there was no gas or dust around
it. And then as it was tumbling the amount of light that it
reflected change by a factor of 10, implying a very extreme
shape, most likely flat pancake like and then, and then it
showed an excess push away from the sun, most likely by
reflecting sunlight, because the the push declined inversely with
distance squared, like you expect from reflecting sunlight.
But that required a very thin object, which I argued, nature
doesn't produce. And in fact, in September 2020, there was
another object found, given the name 2020 s, oh, and it ended up
being a rocket booster that we launched in 1966. And it had
thin walls, and it also exhibited an excess push away
from the sunburn reflecting sunlight, no cometary tail. So
here you have it, an artificial object that we produced,
behaving just like a Momo was not necessarily designed to be a
light sale. So for that reason, I now think maybe more more was
not designed to be a sale pushed by light, perhaps it serves
another purpose. One possibility, maybe it was a
receiver, trying to collect data from probes that were
distributed in the solar system a long time ago. But we don't
know we don't have enough data. And of course, it's the possible
maybe it's a very unusual rock that we've never seen before,
like some of my colleagues argue, my point is, we should
collect more data on future objects, get a photograph, and
that will set the issue
John Greenewald: is that with the money that you have feasible
to put cameras, I don't know the cost. So that's why I'm asking
like, is there at this point, a absolute goal of what you can do
with the current funding, and then obviously, what you could
do with expansion?
Avi Loeb: Yeah, so with the current funding, we can get 10
to 15 telescopes, roughly the size of 10 inches, you can buy
these telescopes, off the shelf, just the other day I was looking
online, if if you wanted to get a megapixel image of an object,
the size of a person at a distance of a mile, you can do
that with a one meter telescope that has a diameter of one
meter. And I found it online, and you can click add to the
bag, and it costs half a million dollars. So apparently, there
are people that are adding such a telescope to their bag, for
half a million dollars, I you know, I don't have such a bank
account. But then otherwise, it wouldn't be offered to add it to
your bag. And but at first we will. So what I'm saying is with
such a telescope, you could resolve this, the size of the
head of a pin on an object, the size of a person, you know, it's
a megapixel image. And you could read off the label that whether
it says made in country X on Earth, or made on planet y, far
away from Earth, you can tell the difference. And that's all
you need. Now, we will start with a network of somewhere
between 10 and 50 telescopes that are smaller than that maybe
10 inches in size and and each of them will be equipped with a
camera that gets the data and then transfers it to a computer
system that will filter out the data because there would be a
huge flood of data with continuous video that you take
off the sky with a high a large number of pixels and and we will
have to filter out the objects of interest using artificial
intelligence. So the idea is to deploy a lot of these systems
telescope plus camera plus computer system in different
locations and monitor this guy. So with the $1.755 million, we
have, we can definitely have at least 10 of them. But if we got
10 times more funding, we can put at least 100 times of them,
you know the number of telescopes that we use is just
proportionate to the amount of funding we have because each
system is independent. And of course with 100 of them, we can
do much better, we can cover many more regions, how do you
choose the spots? Excellent question, this is to be
discussed. And then of course there is there is a claim that
perhaps the UAP are clustered around the military constraint
maybe nuclear reactors, some special areas, it's not clear
whether that's just a selection effect whether we are patrolling
these areas much more than others. And of course, that will
be part of the study, too, because the best places to put
these telescopes are actually mountaintops, where you find
astronomical observatories, they have very good seeing, there is
not much blurring by the turbulence in the atmosphere.
And you can look at great distance towards the horizon in
search for such unusual objects. So it would be very beneficial
in terms of visibility to place such telescopes in astronomical
observatories. But the question is, will the UAP be there? Or
maybe they prefer to be somewhere else?
John Greenewald: We you mentioned the military and
around military installations. And obviously, we do see an
influx of that by the admission of the US government. Is there
is there any? or will there be any coordination with the
military or the US government, since you are putting in an
effort to investigate what the government has said that they
are investigating any connection?
Avi Loeb: Well, the point is, the government is using
classified sensors that are used for national security purposes.
And obviously, most of the data is classified for that reason, I
would much rather not look at that data, because then there
would be restrictions on what I can do. Because even
subconsciously, if I had them a peek at their data that is
classified, you know, that they would be concerned that I that
will guide my assembly of data, and I would much rather be
completely independent doing it in the scientific way, you know,
just like astronomers, look at that, exploding stars or distant
galaxies. Nobody forbids them from doing that. And, you know,
so what's the difference of an object very far away, you know,
billions of light years away, versus an object that is just
next to us. You can use telescopes, in astronomical
observatories, and nobody prevents you from looking at the
sky. And the idea would be to do it in a scientific way. So
measuring quantitatively what we find, and rather than relying on
eyewitness testimonies, you know, you can't use that in
scientific papers. So my my goal, if you ask me, globally,
is to bring this subject to the mainstream of science, because
the public is very curious about this question. And if we do
that, then we will get more funding to science. Because the
public fund science in the proof to that is that I got, you know,
nearly $2 million in two weeks, I didn't do any fundraising. And
we can attract a lot a lot of young people to science. And the
proof to that is that that in my inbox is full now, just a few
hours after the press conference with young people asking to join
the project and volunteering to contribute from their time to
the study. And, you know, that's remarkable. People are excited
about this question. They want to help the project succeed. And
what I'm saying is, it's a lost opportunity, if scientists would
continue to shy away from this subject as they did in the past,
because you can tap the enthusiasm and promote our
knowledge of the universe. And my point is, it's a win win
proposition. Even if we learn that there is some rare
atmospheric phenomena, or the the hydrogen icebergs being
produced in some nurseries in spaces, we've never imagined
putting on something new. So there, we cannot lose by getting
more data, we can only benefit because we get a better
understanding of reality.
John Greenewald: Do you ever think about why the government
doesn't share the majority of the data? You mentioned the
classified systems? I'm 100%, on board with you there. And I get
that. But do you feel that there's another wall that is
shielding that data and being shared with the general public
with scientists such as yourself? Because there's a lot
that they could share that would help you implement the GALILEO
project and placement of instrumentation and so on, if
you had more data that wouldn't be tapping into classified
systems. Do you ever wonder what they're hiding?
Avi Loeb: No, I think it's mostly for that reason that you
mentioned that then the data is classified because it was taken
by classified censors. And then there is a lot of bureaucracy
along the way that that prevents the release of this data. And I
can give you an example. And the reason there was a major Meteor.
That's an object that collided with earth that burned through
the atmosphere of earth that that was found in 2000. I'm 15.
And with my student, we analyze the data that was released. And
it was detected by government owned sensors. And they just
published some data about about the subject without giving error
bars without stating how uncertain they are about the
trajectory. But we use the data to say, wait a minute, it moved
too fast, this object must have come from outside the solar
system. And it was 2015. So we said, this is the first
detection before more and more of an interstellar object. And
it was an interstellar Meteor. And we submitted the paper for
publication. And then the referees, their reviewers of the
paper argued, well, we want to see the error budget. We don't
trust the government. So I had some colleagues that have
connections across the fence. And they said that could we get,
even if not the error budget, just an upper limit on how
uncertain the government is, in terms of their parameters of
this particular object. And it took months and months, and
eventually, I got an upper limit. So I submitted the paper
with my student, Amir Suraj, to the journal and said, We just
got this information that this is the upper limit. And then the
reviewer said, I don't believe the government. So then the
editor of the journal said, Okay, we'll find a reviewer that
has access to the classified information, and we'd be able to
report back and say, yes, this paper deals with data that is
reliable. He couldn't find such a person. So then the paper was
never published. And I did my best. And this just illustrates
to you the gap that there is between Open Data Science and
government data, what I mean, all we needed in this case is to
say, okay, the, the speed of the subject was some number, plus or
minus some other number, and we were missing the plus or minus.
So if they said, like, I don't know, 20 kilometres per second,
plus or minus five kilometres, then that would be it. That's
all we needed. But they were not. I mean, there was a, it
took months, at best, we got an upper limit, but that was not
satisfactory, the paper never got published. So it shows you
the difference in the systems of science, open science, and
government own data. And as a result, you know, I think the
best approach forward in terms of identifying the unidentified
is to collect new data, let's forget, let's not obsess with
all data, let's just collect new data, you know, I'm practically
behaving like a kid, you know, when, when an adult tells the
kid, the truth is like that the kid just ignores the adult very
often, and says, I want to figure it out myself. That's how
kids get bruised, how they get into trouble, because they don't
listen. So I basically prefer to get the data myself. And that's
the way science operates. You know, science is based on, you
know, it's maintaining the childhood curiosity in a way
that you need to reproduce your evidence, it's not enough to
rely on a one time miracle, or a one time event that someone told
you about what you want us to be able to reproduce the claimant.
And that's what we can do with the GALILEO project by finding
new objects, using telescopes in an open data framework without
me knowing anything about the past. And that's that's the
approach we think,
John Greenewald: it seems like transparency is a goal of the
project, which you've been talking about. But how is that
data going to be shared? If you don't mind me asking?
Avi Loeb: Oh, very simple way, we can just put it on the on the
web.
John Greenewald: And it just for for? Is it like the raw science
data for other scientists around the world to take part? Is it
Yeah, just sharing.
Avi Loeb: So this is very common in Well, it's not always the
case. In science. Sometimes groups, teams that collect data
prefer to keep it to themselves so that they can harvest the
fruits out of that data before anyone else has access to it,
because they invested a lot of the time in constructing the
instruments that will be that were used to collect the data
and so forth. So that exists. And there are some projects
where the data is not available to everyone else for a few
years, and then it's available. But the approach we will take is
that the data will be available as soon as as soon as we have
it. And as soon as it can be used by others. And I don't see
I think that's the best approach because other people may look at
the same data and infer something different from it. And
we want to allow that rather than filter the data that other
people Can See,
John Greenewald: in the last six, seven minutes or so I
wanted to ask you, I'm just I'm hoping I could ask you about a
little bit of speculation on when the GALILEO project, let's
say you implement everything and you make that discovery. And
there's something really is out there that confirms you. What
has been your aim now for many years. Have you speculated of
what that would be? I mean, what is it? Do you feel that we would
run into first?
Avi Loeb: Well, you know, as a physicist, the scientists or
they would, I'm actually a theorist, someone that tries to
interpret data, rather than someone that collects the data.
These are called observers in astronomy. And for me, if I get
a data set, I immediately start to think how to explain it. You
know, there are lots of anomalies in astronomy, for
example, we don't know what most of the matter in universities,
it's called dark matter. And that's, that's an anomaly
because we haven't seen it. There are other anomalies. So
whenever you see something unusual, immediately, I start to
have ideas in my mind that, you know, in directions that could
explain it. And that's what I will do. In this case, I will
try to use what I know about physics to provide an
interpretation and explanation for the data. And, of course,
other people might use other ideas, but then it's just like,
it's often done in science. So if there is a good
interpretation, or several competing interpretations, then
you try to collect more data and rule out and those that do not
fit the new data. And it's just like a detective work. And in my
book, extraterrestrial, I refer to the work of Sherlock Holmes
that they basically said, we need to put all possibilities on
the table and roll them out there one by one, and whatever
remains must be the truth.
John Greenewald: So when it comes to that alien life,
though, and this is that speculation that has fascinated
me, I was I work as a television producer, and did quite a few
shows on this very topic. And the thing that blew me away, was
the idea that mainstream science and scientists were really
playing with the machine intelligence, the artificial
intelligence that when we do find out, we are not alone. It
would essentially be with a non biological entity, rather a
mechanical one. And when I first heard that, I'm fully admit, I
laughed. Dr. Seth shostack. It said he was the first one years
and years and years ago, who had brought that up when I was
producing the show. Long story short, I was blown away, because
after actually researching it, and doing numerous shows for
history and discovery on it, I mean, I, I'm convinced, Can I
throw that idea to you? Is that what you lean towards? Do you do
you think about that aspect of what type of intelligence you
might find?
Avi Loeb: Definitely, I mean, that was featured in some of my
recent commentaries in Scientific American. You see,
humans, or any biological creature on earth, was not
selected by Darwinian evolution to travel between stars, you
know, in fact, we wouldn't survive for more than one year
in space without proper protection because of cosmic
rays that's often missed by people like Elon Musk, that
advocate going to Mars and settling there. First, you need
perhaps to dig caves for people to settle into because there is
no protection. And if you put people on Mars, for a year, the
substantial fraction of the their brain cells will get
damaged by cosmic rays. Because Mars doesn't have an atmosphere
doesn't have magnetic field to protect those humans first
travels. So you're sending them to their death, if you're not
protecting. And then, as a result, you know, it makes much
more sense to send instruments, because you can imagine creating
instruments that were survive even for billions of years
through space. And now we are at the point where we develop
artificial intelligence systems that could potentially outsmart
us, you know, self driving cars, and in the future, much better
systems. And I can imagine sending one of those systems to
space such that, you know, we train it, we educated just like
we train our kids. We provide them with a blueprint for how
they should behave in life. And then we send our kids into
reality into into the world, and they operate autonomously. And
the same should be true for those AI systems that might have
been sent by other civilizations. And of course,
there is not enough time for them to get guidance once
they're on their way because the distance between stars are so
you huge You know, the nearest star to us, is four light years
away. And so it takes like, eight years for a round trip.
And that's the nearest star. So if you go, if you are sent from
a star across the galaxy takes 10s of 1000s of years, there is
no way that the system would wait for guidance in order to
decide what to do. And so if you have artificial intelligence,
the system is sufficiently smart to make its own decisions based
on its experience, and based on the blueprint that it was
prepared with. And the question is, of course, what guides it, I
mean, what kind of information is seeking? What is its
objective. And to figure this out, if we ever encounter such a
system, we need our own AI system. So it's sort of
resembles the situation where you find new content on the
internet, but you cannot fully understand it. And then you ask
your kids to interpret it for you, because they're much more
computer savvy. And we might need our own AI systems to
interpret their AI systems. And if they outsmart our AI systems,
you know, they might win this Darwinian contest, and it's not
clear that we would survive after contact.
John Greenewald: What's interesting is you have AI
working with you on the GALILEO project to help and assist you
on the way and and that in itself would lead into a
fascinating second hour, which I would love to have you for. But
hopefully, Professor, you'll come back, it was a pleasure.
Let me ask you one last thing here in the last 60 seconds,
take as long as or as little as you want. I know you have a
tight schedule today. Is humanity ready for such a
discovery?
Avi Loeb: No. I think most people prefer to stay in their
comfort zone. And basically believe that we are unique and
special, because that flatters our ego. And it reminds me of my
daughters when they were young, and they were at home, they tend
to think that they're the smartest in the world. And when
we took them to the kindergarten on the first day at school, they
had a psychological shock, because they met kids that might
be smarter than they are. And of course, if I were to ask them,
they would say that they prefer to stay at home to maintain
their illusion. So for that reason alone, I think that most
people prefer to believe that we are unique and special. But you
know, it makes no sense to ignore reality, because then
you're not accommodating properly. And guess what? One
day, a smart neighbor will knock on your door, and it will be too
late.
John Greenewald: absolutely fascinating conversation. I know
you have a packed day today. Thank you so incredibly much for
taking the time. Obviously, I wish you the absolute best of
luck with the GALILEO projects. But I do hope that you come back
and share your updates whenever time permits, because I know my
audience absolutely loves this. I absolutely love it. And I'd
love to dig in to more of that AI slash machine intelligence
because I just love that. So thank you so much.
Avi Loeb: And thank you, john. And if people are interested,
they can follow my commentaries in Scientific American every
week. And it's also on my web page at Harvard University.
John Greenewald: Perfect and a full breakdown of all the links
and everything for Professor Avi Loeb is below in the show notes.
So make sure you check that out, including the press conference.
Thank you again, professor. Really, really enjoyed it. And
thank you all for listening and watching. This is John
Greenewald, Jr signing off, and we'll see you next time.