Related papers: Would contact with extraterrestrials benefit or ha…
This paper develops a detailed quantitative model which uses the Drake equation and an assumption of an average maximum radio broadcasting distance by an communicative civilization to derive a minimum civilization density for contact…
Chatbots' growing popularity has brought new challenges to HCI, having changed the patterns of human interactions with computers. The increasing need to approximate conversational interaction styles raises expectations for chatbots to…
Recently, human-robot interaction (HRI) is an extensive research topic and theme which gained importance and significance. HRI aims at the complementary combination between the robot capabilities and human skills. The robots assist humans…
Relentless progress in artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly raising concerns that machines will replace humans on the job market, and perhaps altogether. Eliezer Yudkowski and others have explored the possibility that a promising…
There is substantial interest in the effect of human mobility patterns on opportunistic communications. Inspired by recent work revisiting some of the early evidence for a L\'evy flight foraging strategy in animals, we analyse datasets on…
From its inception, AI has had a rather ambivalent relationship to humans---swinging between their augmentation and replacement. Now, as AI technologies enter our everyday lives at an ever increasing pace, there is a greater need for AI…
SETI researchers believe that the basic principles of our science and the science of extraterrestrial beings should be fundamentally the same, and we should be able to communicate with them by referring to those things we share, such as the…
Making conjectures about future consequences of a technology is an exercise in trying to reduce various forms of uncertainty. Both to produce and reason about these conjectures requires understanding their potential limitations. In other…
There are several physical processes that mediate the interaction between an exoplanet and its host star, with the four main ones being due to magnetic, particle (stellar outflow), radiative and tidal interactions. These interactions can be…
There is a general concern that present developments in artificial intelligence (AI) research will lead to sentient AI systems, and these may pose an existential threat to humanity. But why cannot sentient AI systems benefit humanity…
Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to investigate how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. This article…
Astrobiology is usually defined as the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. As such it is inherently interdisciplinary and cannot help but engender a worldview infused by cosmic and evolutionary…
Ethicists, policy-makers, and the general public have questioned whether artificial entities such as robots warrant rights or other forms of moral consideration. There is little synthesis of the research on this topic so far. We identify…
Achieving homophily, or association based on similarity, between a human user and a robot holds a promise of improved perception and task performance. However, no previous studies that address homophily via ethnic similarity with robots…
Transmission of the information into the Cosmos is treated as one of the pressing needs of an advanced civilization. The inability to meet this need, the forced withdrawal into self-imposed isolation can lead to the extinction of…
This paper studies the effects of dynamical interactions among the planets in observed extrasolar planetary systems, including hypothetical additional bodies, with a focus on secular perturbations. These interactions cause the…
The most significant periodicities in the terrestrial impact crater record are due to the human-signal: the bias of assigning integer values for the crater ages. This bias seems to have eluded the proponents and opponents of real…
This paper explores how a recent European Union proposal, the so-called Chat Control, which creates regulatory incentives for providers to implement content detection and communication scanning, could transform the foundations of…
Ambiguity and noise in natural language instructions create a significant barrier towards adopting autonomous systems into safety critical workflows involving humans and machines. In this paper, we propose to build on recent advances in…
Over the past half-century, technology has evolved beyond our wildest dreams. However, while the benefits of technological growth are undeniable, the nascent Internet did not anticipate the online threats we routinely encounter and the…