Could a single alien message destroy us?

Listening to alien messages poses an extinction risk if grabby civilizations are sending them. This means that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, particularly passive SETI, needs to be approached with caution.

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Animation team:
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Writers:
- Matthew Barnett
- :3

Producer:
- :3

Narrator: Robert Miles
VO Editor: Tony Dipiazza

Sound design and music: Epic Mountain

[AA-qiez]

I imagine the "publish instantly" protocol is an attempt to prevent a monopoly on alien tech, which is a different kettle of fish.

[nooneofinterest]

This reminds me of an article in the Orion's Arm universe.

For those who don't know there's a science fiction Universe called Orion's Arm set 10k years in the future, on this setting the future civilizations that arose from our current one detected a transmission from a remote place of the universe that once decoded and translated contained instructions to build a powerful AI and a claim that once built it would give extensive help and guidance to whomever made it.
In order to test this machine out one of our own AI set up a planet to test the device, filled it with robots designed to look and mimic how a baseline human civilization (like our own) would behave and then proceeded to build the device. Once finished the machine proceeded to spit out nanobots to kill all macroscopic life on the planet then cover almost all of the surface of the world with Fusion Plants and Solar panels and then proceeded to build a massive Radio broadcasting facility that sent the same message that lead to it's creation.
The AI overseeing this experiment destroyed the machine and everything it built. After this incident it was later detected that this message is being broadcasted across multiple points in the universe all far away from each other.

Essentially this message is intergalactic malware.

[KenH]

I just love how much this channel has grown. It’s like a philosophical Kurzgesagt.

[DragonKingZero]

Honestly, I could see extraterrestrials doing something like this _by mistake_, via gifting us with something that they genuinely believe would be greatly beneficial to us without considering the possibility of us _horribly_ misusing that gift.

[PanzerschrekCN]

Building AI or something like that using instructions, provided by untrusted source is like downloading an executable file without any signature and running it with administrative privileges.

[aname]

If aliens send us a message, we should respond in kind and send them a rickroll


It either turns into a laugh for everyone or full scale space war, which seems like a win-win situation

[Kuratius]

There might be a way to combine household materials to make a bioweapon, for a certain definition of household.

[killgriffinnow]

4:35 This is exactly what Sauron did in the LOTR books, but instead of AI he granted them the Great Rings…

[lucassdd]

The idea that it'll be easier to keep the messages under wraps after we announce that WE HEARD ALIENS feels at best foolish. The best hope in my view that prevents evil message risk is to sabotage listening, which has a 0% chance of success but its a bigger 0% 😂

[MehnixIsThatGuy]

The best evil message to send would be a polite hello, an actual technological gift that would be beneficial, and a location that a return message can be sent to begin full contact.
Then, if a return hello message arrives, deliver another present at the speed of light directly into the planet that sent it.

[PRODIGY]

I have been fascinated by the 'grabby alien' hypothesis since I learned of it through this channel.
I really appreciate this expansion on the initial theory. Clearly it's early days and great thinker's are only beginning to scratch the surface, in a very limited way.
I hope a great excitement builds around the main theory. I can't explain why but I think it's a genuinely important topic. If not for the defence of humanity and Earth but for our own future.
There is definitely a lot to learn here.
Thank you as always, the narration is perfect and I absolutely love your artists and graphics people. Huge pat on the back to them. ❤️

[theidioticbgilson]

i'd like to imagine that once the aliens have gotten all the important maths/biology/physics communications over and done with, they just transmit to us a bunch of alien movies and tv shows

[KitzenVonCatzen]

the fact that we've thought about this means other civilizations are almost guaranteed to

[Mrosen]

I read a book called The Killing Star where aliens launched a barrage of relativistic missiles and and wiped out humanity. They also sent a signal that just melted anything that listened to it by turning it into strange matter globs.

[davidhoracek]

I have written a story in which a civilization sends out interstellar signals with instructions, and following those instructions creates all kinds of useful tech, which receives and decodes further instructions to basically print instances of the senders (actually, just their robots, at first). You see, they are a grabby but slow civilization: their sphere of domination is expanding only at 10% of the speed of light. But hey, messages are cheaper and faster! It's basically colonizing by signal, and it's efficient when it works out.

[killgriffinnow]

Or they send us the alien equivalent of a Rick Roll…

[OriginalApexTwin]

The content and production of this channel is incredible. Thank you!

[felixleong]

Humanity becomes a grabby civilization in the future.
Everyone who played Stellaris : *Laughs in galactic war crimes*

[genzu]

It seems to me that watching these videos makes people relax a little, knowing that none of this would happen in our lifetimes. But the truth is that this could happen at ANY time. Probably long after our lives, but could happen any second. We have no way of knowing.

[CerisuHakka]

These videos keep getting better and better; hopefully this becomes a 'grabby' channel.