That Alien Message

Help Doggo become a real plushie!

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀PATREON, MEMBERSHIP, KO-FI▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀SOCIAL & DISCORD▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀PATRONS & MEMBERS▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Autochthon
Tristan
Matthew Shinkle
Alex Amadori
SQRT42Pi
David Piepgrass
Tomas Campos
Jana
Ingvi Gautsson
BlueNotesBlues
Michael Andregg
Riley Matthews
Vladimir Silyaev
Nathanael Moody
Alcher Black
RMR
Kristin Lindquist
Nathan Metzger
Glenn Tarigan
NMS
James Babcock
Colin Ricardo
Long Hoang
Tor Barstad
Eric S
Apuis Retsam
Stuart Alldritt
Chris Painter
Juan Benet
Christian Loomis
Tomarty
Edward Yu
Chad M Jones
Emmanuel Fredenrich
Honyopenyoko
Neal Strobl
bparro
Danealor
Craig Falls
Vincent Weisser
Alex Hall
Ivan Bachcin
joe39504589
Klemen Slavic
blasted0glass
Scott Alexander
noggieB
Dawson
John Slape
Gabriel Ledung
Jeroen De Dauw
Superslowmojoe
Nathan Fish
Bleys Goodson
Ducky
Matt Parlmer
rictic
marverati
Rinthean
Thomas Grip
Boris Bend
J H
Richard Stambaugh
Jonathan Plasse
Teo Val
Ken Mc
leonid andrushchenko
Alcher Black
ronvil
AWyattLife
Lazy Scholar
Torstein Haldorsen
Michał Zieliński
Luke Freeman

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀CREDITS▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

Directed by:
Hannah Levingstone | @hannah_luloo

Art Direction:
Hané Harnett | @peonyvibes (insta) @peony_vibes (twitter)

Written by:
Eliezer Yudkowsky

Adapted by:
Arthur Frost

Producer:
:3

Line Producer & Production Manager:

Quality Assurance Lead:
Lara Robinowitz | @CelestialShibe

Storyboard Artists
Ira Klages | @dux
Keith Kavanagh | @johnnycigarettex

Animation:
Colors Giraldo | @colorsofdoom
Damon Edgson
Ira Klages | @dux
Keith Kavanagh| @johnnycigarettex
Michela Biancini
Neda Lay | @Nezhahah
Owen Peurois | @owenpeurois
Patrick O'Callaghan | @patrick.h264

Background Art:
Hané Harnett | @peonyvibes
Zoe Martin-Parkinson | @zoemar_son
Olivia Wang | @whalesharkollie

Compositing:
Renan Kogut | @kogut_r
Patrick O' Callaghan | @patrick.h264

Narrator:

VO Editor:
Tony Dipiazza

Original Soundtrack & Sound Effects :

[RationalAnimations]

Soon, there will be millions of AIs running on humanity’s largest GPU clusters. They will be smarter than us, and they will think faster.

[zotegaming]

The sudden realization i had halfway through the video "Wait... This is an allegory for AI" was priceless.

[GC]

I love the classy understatement. "We were worried they would shut down the simulation, then we synthesized some proteins in their world, and then they couldn't shut us down anymore."

[mqbgofjzkkonzx]

When your AI safety strategy is "raise the computer program like a child."

[forgedabauditt]

Woah, this is some Love, Death and Robots material

[johnvillanueva]

9:19 "Our own universe is being simulated on such a computer"

My PC Freezes because it had to buffer and I freaked the F out. Bruh.

[Traf]

Okay it took me a minute to see that humanity in this story is a metaphor for hypothetical human-level AI in real world, but now I'm properly sinking in existential dread. Thanks, @RationalAnimations

EDIT: I still can't quite grasp on what part cryonic suspension plays in the story? It's mentioned a couple of times, but why are people doing that?

[wtch]

*SPOILER* For those wondering: This is an allegory of AGI escaping our control and becoming ASI in a very short amount of time called the singularity

[ixian_technocrat]

12:08 In the upper left corner you can see a diagram of a 5 dimensional being with open eyes, then a symbol for a protein or nanomachine, then the separated pieces and crossed eyes of the being. Seems like they gray goo'ed their creators. Them being all smarter as Einstein doesn't stop them from also being genoicdal psychos.

[JohnDoe-rtum]

One-day a super intelligence will watch this and find it deeply ironic

[maxwyght]

I remember reading a r/HFY story with a similar premise, where humans are in a simulation, but instead of being contacted by the sim runners, humans accidentally open up the admin console inside the simulation, and then after years of research design a printer to print out warrior humans to invade meatspace.

[alphaamoeba]

Love the storytelling in this, you start out relating and rooting for the humans and at the very you get a terrifying perspective switch, Love how it recontextualizes the “THEY WEREN’T READY” in the thumbnail too.

[celestialtimesquid]

Damn, bro, the poor aliens just wanted to run a simulation and then we crushed them. A bittersweet story with themes of artificial intelligence taking over, well done, Rational Animations!

[orthoplex]

I like how this illustrates that the mere (sub-)goal of self-preservation alone is enough to end us.

[imstupid]

*tap tap*
"Rock. Say Rock."
...
+In geology, rock is any naturally occurring solid mass or-+
"Hey, do you smell something funny?"

[wing]

Beginning of video: Ah what a nice fantasy. Will this video be an allegory about how aliens could lead to the unity of humanity?
9:45 onwards: Ah, no. This is a dire warning wrapped in a cutesy, positive-feeling video.

[jasoncampbell]

Beautiful allegory about AI. It wasn’t an alien message. The civilization wasn't communicating with another, it had built an AI (the entire universe) and tried to communicate with said AI, not realising that the mechanics of their own computational system was vastly more capable and had figured out every facet of their physics by the time they started recording a video to teach it how to say "Rock".

It's not really about aliens, but on another note, if a hyperadvanced civilization wanted to communicate and do it effectively, they will. You might not even know that you're already receiving and understanding a message. They could have everything that can trigger a conscious thought at their disposal, at a scale and of complexity you can't imagine. Maybe even unconscious influence.

[aluisious]

"...and they never quite realized what that meant" sounds like the next "oops, genocide!"

[WDWM_choose_a_shorter_handle]

This video felt like watching a two hour movie and i need roughly that much time to process all of it

[jraff]

God that was a roller coaster, I don't know how you guys could even top this