Why we downplay Fermi’s paradox
Here&#x27;s a strange thing:<p>Many people believe that strong AI is inevitable, or at least possible within the next few decades to centuries. Many people also believe that there&#x27;s a natural solution to the Fermi paradox (space travel is hard, signals are faint).<p>But if strong AI is possible, then the Fermi paradox suddenly becomes much more acute because it makes von Neumann probes seem way easier- once you have self-replication across interstellar distance, you will blanket the galaxy with your Cylon spawn pretty quickly. The question isn&#x27;t just why haven&#x27;t we heard signals from people like us, but why haven&#x27;t their robotic spawn already shown up and disassembled a few moons into robot factories?