Why contacting aliens is a terrible idea

Messaging Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (METI):

The evolutionary psychology of why broadcasting to aliens is a terrible idea

Join us as Associate Professor Geoffrey Miller, University of New Mexico, explains the danger of contacting extra-terrestrials based on evolutionary psychology.

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The Effective Altruism (EA) movement has been analysing global existential risks that could drive humanity extinct, including artificial general intelligence, nuclear war, bio-weapons, and geoengineering failures. However, a few radio astronomers have already started something even more dangerous, called Messaging Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (METI). Whereas the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) quietly scans for messages broadcast by aliens, METI uses powerful radio telescopes such as Arecibo and Evpatoria to transmit megawatt-level messages detectable dozens of light-years away. By ‘shouting into the dark jungle’ of interstellar space, METI messages typically reveal the precise location of our home-world, our (low) level of technology, and our (high) level of naivete. Evolutionary psychology offers several reasons why this is a terrible idea. For example, sexual selection for verbal courtship and virtue-signaling can illuminate the misguided human motives behind METI, while formidability-signaling, optimal foraging, behavioral immune system theory, and exaptation theory can illuminate reasons why advanced aliens might consider human-level METI efforts pathetic, exploitable, disgusting, and/or exasperating.

Should we be doing this and how long should humans wait to make contact? Geoffrey will argue it should be centuries and until then, we should impose a global moratorium on any active signaling to aliens. Otherwise, we risk the kind of catastrophic scenarios depicted in The War of the Worlds, Childhood’s End, Ender’s Game, or The Three-Body Problem.

About Associate Professor Miller

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Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist best known for his books The Mating Mind (2001), Mating Intelligence (2008), Spent (2009), and What Women Want (2016). He has a B.A. in Biology and Psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Stanford University, and is a tenured associate professor at University of New Mexico. He has over 110 academic publications (cited over 10,000 times) addressing sexual selection, mate choice, signaling theory, fitness indicators, consumer behavior, marketing, intelligence, creativity, language, art, music, humor, emotions, personality, psychopathology, and behavior genetics. He has also given 180 talks in 15 countries, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and also worked at NYU Stern Business School, UCLA, and the London School of Economics. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Scientist, and The Economist, on NPR and BBC radio, and in documentaries on CNN, PBS, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and BBC. He is visiting Australia to guest-curate the exhibition ‘On the Origin of Art’ at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania.