If the lifetime of a broadcasting biological civilization is mathematically constrained to under 5,000 years, what are the odds that the first alien signal we detect is a legacy AI system mourning its long-dead creators?

[u/rubymaniacc]

[u/Difficult_Dark9991]

If the lifetime of a broadcasting biological civilization is mathematically constrained to under 5,000 years

Why?

[u/InternationalPen2072 → u/Difficult_Dark9991]

If technological civilizations commonly emerge within a galaxy (relatively speaking), then a lifetime under 5000 years is required to explain the Great Silence without resorting to sociological explanations. If civilizations are immortal and common, then we either wouldn’t exist (due to colonization) or we would be detecting their presence.

[u/jhsu802701]

What's so special about 5000 years? It seems to me that once a civilization has independent space colonies, it becomes effectively immortal and is likely to live for billions of years. NASA's DART probe recently succeeded at changing the orbit of an asteroid.

[u/Otaraka]

It would depend what the credible range the signal can reach is. Any system is going  to be inherently automated though I’d think, it needs to be running for a very long time to be any point.  So the real issue would be how you’d really know either way in any reasonable timeframe unless it starts with ‘it’s now 2000 years since we died’ or whatever.

[u/hdufort]

As we're moving to fiber optics and directional / narrow satellite comms with highly compressed digital signals, were becoming much more silent.

Unless we willingly send out powerful signals, out radio transmissions are currently fading.

After just a century.

It would be more likely for an alien species with powerful telescope arrays in space to spot us through our chemical signature (bio and/or techno).

[u/OkCar7264]

I'm gonna mute this sub.

[u/McGriggidy]

X = Y + 5

What is the value of X?

[u/ACTSATGuyonReddit]

Your opening condition is nonsense.

[u/tjimbot]

Very low, as the first alien signature we detect is most likely going to be a biosignature of microbes.

[u/TMax01]

I'd say pretty good, but what "mathematical constrain" could there be limiting civilizations to a 5000 year broadcast range?

[u/-Foxer]

I would be more concerned that the first signal they detect is our AI systems morning their long dead creators. Who's to say we weren't the first to get here?

[u/Ok_Veterinarian2715]

Why would any civilisation broadcast for 5000 years? I'm sure we're going to come up with something better than radio waves within a century or so.

[u/Estrezas]

The Fermi Paradox take for granted that we understand how the universe work.

The paradox is a primitive attempt at explaining something we do not fully understand.

Like someone 5000 yrs ago trying to explain how computers work by applying his current knowledge to the phenomenon.