Tangential to your tangential:
The era of AI makes me realize that if we ever get visited by aliens: it will probably not be actual aliens -- just an AI probe. And the idea of it really intrigues me.
Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing. And it would likely be better at figuring out how to communicate with us (than the human-equivalent might).
We need some new sci fi movies like that!
> Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing.
Why? Why would you expect it to be any more benevolent or any less murderous than the actual aliens visiting? Presumably it would be trained on their values, not ours.
Our values are murderous, I wouldn't want to be visited by aliens that shared out values. A galactic version of human society would quite reasonably identify that earth couldn't fight back then special interests would have our planet liquidated for its natural resources without making headlines in space-news. Possibly colonise us, kill all the humans then offer an apology a few generations later and maybe a small local holiday to commemorate the process.
Regardless, there aren't that many possible values aliens could have. It is hard to come up with something outside basic game theory - you can see how most religions tend to converge on the same practical principles over time, like basic property rights and not causing trouble pointlessly.
I wouldn't expect it to be less murderous than the aliens themselves. That wasn't my point at all. I'd expect it to contain all their knowledge and be able to live "forever".
But I generally wouldn't expect aliens to be "murderous" at all. Why send a group or probe lightyears away just to kill or enslave a primitive species? If they have the ability to do that, we wouldn't really have anything of interest for them.
At most points in time resources are scarce and not all life can be supported. At those times beings with a tendency to say “them” will give way to beings who most strongly assert “us”.
The scarcity view of life is so deeply ingrained in some of us that its become an entire world view. Some folks cant even imagine a post scarcity society.
Try though. Space is mind blowingly large and anything with the ability to traverse interstellar space alteady has access to unlimited resources and energy, likely closer than us. We live in a tiny backwater of the galaxy.
We literally have nothing of value to such a civilization. Gold and diamonds a just more rocks to any serious space faring civilizations. Energy is also unlimited and free.
Unless they find us delicious our only value would likely be an exchange of knowledge.
You might like Blindsight by Peter Watts
There's a fan-made short film/trailer for Blindsight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkR2hnXR0SM
Also, "just an AI probe" and "It would be amazing" in the context of Blindsight... <insert mad laughter>.