An astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in California has denied what humans have long been thought to be correct. Movies and television shows usually portray aliens as species with round heads and wide eyes, but Seth Shostak said they are likely machines.
"Any society that invents radio so we can hear them, within a few centuries they've invented their successors," he told a space conference in San Francisco. "I think that's important, because the successors are machines."
Susan Schneider, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, who has worked with Shostak, wrote a paper titled "Alien Minds." The paper describes how the aliens would appear as intelligent machines and described how they would think.
Schneider shared the same views. Speaking to Mother Board, she said, "Most people have an iconic idea of aliens as these biological creatures, but that doesn't make any sense from a timescale argument," Shostak told me. "I've bet dozens of astronomers coffee that if we pick up an alien signal, it'll be artificial life."
The Sun reported that the aliens are so intelligent that they became capable of shedding their biological body to transform into formidable machines. They do not only to show their superiority but to adapt and survive the treacherous conditions of the outer space. By transforming as metals, they are able to overcome disease and hunger for journeys across space.
Because of such, instead of looking at habitable zones in search for alien life, we must look for digital signals.
According to Daily Mail, the idea of the singularity, or when humans will merge with technology, was projected by futurist Ray Kurzweil to occur in our population in 2045.
Reporting about the phenomenon, Space.com quoted Shostak who said that artificial intelligence will merge with the biological body for a while, but eventually humans completely shed off their bodies and go fully digital.