William Calvin's LinQ

William Calvin predicted in Atlantic Monthly in 1998 - Wherez the LinQ?? InQ foolin its readers with blue colored text instead of hyperlinks :P

I like Kurzweil...

He's a good read. And a lot of what he says is logical to me. His point on extra terrestrial intelligence seems sound. It basically states that time is the big factor. We've only been able to transmit radio signals for app. 1 century (where's my wiki?). Over the next century, our technology will/should improve exponentially, if we follow current trends. And it's likely that we will do this, barring an unforeseen global setback. It's hard to predict where we will be in 1,000 years. But it does seem likely that we will look upon our current selves less than the current 'we' look upon cavemen. 2,000 years from now, your guess is as good as mine... Now if you look at this 2,100 years of elapsed technology and plot it against the lifetime of the universe, it barely registers as the slightest blip. So not only are we having to find the 'needle in the haystack', we have to find a needle that is constantly moving randomly around a 3D space (i.e. solar systems).

You have to ask yourselves; Given a civilization has 10,000 years of technological development (still a blip on the timeline) and allow them to receive our 'basic' radio frequency signals, how likely are they to respond or even be interested in responding? Without reading the droves of responses based on Star Trek: First Contact, I will say that I agree with those odds. But not as predicted in the movie. I think that finding outer-worldly civilizations will be greatly improved, if and when we can traverse the depths of space quickly. If anything, by the fact that our travels may leave behind certain energy signatures (tire tracks, if you will), we will notice or get noticed.

As for A.I. the timeline is uncertain as are the requirements for reaching it. Ray does a good job of tackling both. And I'd recommend reading him.