By Irina K. Romanovskaya

Currently, more than 1 million species on our planet face extinction. In the quest to safeguard the biosphere, scientists turn to Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a hope that AI systems will improve our guardianship of biodiversity. However, as we marvel at AI’s potential to solve our ecological problems, we must not overlook AI’s insatiable energy and water consumption that stems from its need for big data, algorithmic perfection, and iterative computations. For example, GPT-3 and other similar systems require resources for their learning phase in the order of magnitude of hundreds of MWh. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Texas, Arlington estimated that data centers use about 185,000 gallons of fresh water when training GPT-3.

The main strategy to resolve this issue involves optimizations of AI’s hardware, software, and data utilization. Additional solutions may become available in the future. In vitro neural networks of biological origin working together with in silico computing could mark the birth of ‘synthetic biological intelligence’ and enable energy-efficient information processing. Synthetic gene networks could also be used in computing, offering the prospect of efficient bio-artificial intelligence.

In my research paper published by International Journal of Astrobiology, Cambridge University Press, and titled ” Planetary biotechnospheres, biotechnosignatures and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence,” I consider other ways to tackle our environmental issues that would involve the intelligence of technologies and microbial intelligence.

Although one may think of microbes as brainless single-celled life forms, scientists have discovered bacteria’s ability to collectively learn and remember, solve problems and make decisions, communicate, adapt to environmental changes and save intelligent traits in their collective genomic memory. Thanks to their bacterial intelligence, genetically engineered and synthetic bacteria could do some of the tasks that AI would otherwise have to do in order monitor and preserve the planetary environment.

These tasks could include gathering information about the environment, processing that information and selecting responses that would support preservation and restoration of Earth’s environments. The bacteria would produce signals related to the changes in their environments and intended for other members of their bacterial communities. Micro-technologies could be designed to detect those signals, decode them, and send the decoded data to AI. In turn, AI could be designed to ‘talk’ to the bacteria via technologies-interpreters and coordinate the bacteria’s response to environmental changes.

So that while many debates nowadays are devoted to the possible outcomes of AI interacting with our human intelligence, there may be far-reaching outcomes of AI interacting with the intelligence of microbes. If only we would create and use these interactions wisely, they could help to support Earth and its biosphere. Working in concert, intelligent technologies and bacteria could move us closer to the emergence of planetary intelligence representing the idea of cognitive activity operating on a planetary scale. The concept of planetary intelligence was proposed and discussed by the scientists Adam Frank, David Grinspoon and Sara Walker in their research paper titled “Intelligence as a planetary scale process.”

In my research paper about planetary biotechnospheres, I consider a nuclear plant producing radioactive waste as an example. Scientists could create genetically engineered bacteria that would ‘have a taste’ for the radioactive waste. Engineers could build technologies that would monitor and control the bacteria placed within some limited area, where the bacteria would perform bioremediation of the radioactive waste from that nuclear power plant. Together, they would form a localized biotechnosphere processing the radioactive waste.

I define biotechnospheres as systems that include life forms and technologies working and collaborating toward common goals. Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems could be part of more advanced biotechnospheres that would monitor and preserve the planetary environment and the biosphere. For example, synthetic biology could create bacteria for biotechnospheres capable of removing or degrading plastic debris, drawing down atmospheric greenhouse gases, helping to produce molecular hydrogen as a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Biotechnospheres could be used in space exploration and space colonization, medical processes, industrial processes, mining, and food production.

There is a reason why bacteria would play an important role in biotechnospheres. Our planet has experienced mass extinctions in the past due to various causes. The end-Devonian extinctions could be triggered by nearby supernovae. Some mass extinctions could be caused by volcanic activity or by volcanism combined with impacts from space. Each mass extinction event in the history of our planet ended the existence of an overwhelming proportion of species and provided opportunities for other species to rise.

And yet, mass extinctions did not destroy bacteria. Thus, if some events could badly impact Earth’s planetary environment and biosphere in the future, it would be wise to prepare in advance and incorporate bacteria in biotechnospheres, so that the biotechnospheres with the bacteria could help to restore our planet’s environment. For the same reason, hypothetical advanced alien civilizations would likely have their planetary biotechnospheres include bacteria able to survive mass extinctions.

As for the biotechnospheres that humans currently create on Earth, they can be described as immature biotechnospheres because they depend on the immature technosphere, which negatively impacts the environment and the biosphere, and because our human civilization is also immature in terms of being fragmented and often choosing to be opportunistic and aggressive.

For as long as humankind continues to be divided, aggressive and opportunistic, our technologies may contribute to the early demise of our civilization. For example, because the culture of opportunism in business favors lack of enforced safety features needed to control intelligent technologies, the intelligent technologies (including Artificial Intelligence) could at some point pursue goals different from the goals chosen for them by humans. This could change the balance of power between human intelligence and the intelligence of machines on Earth and in space. Or else, our civilization could become extinct thanks to bioterrorism or accidental misuse of the products of biotechnology and synthetic biology, as it was discussed by the scientist Joshua Cooper in his research article titled “Bioterrorism and the Fermi Paradox.”

A transition from our immature technosphere and immature biotechnosphere to their mature state could be a test that humankind would have to take. A failing grade for this test could mean a destruction of human civilization as we know it.

However, scientists remain optimistic and look for solutions to humankind’s problems. For example, Frank, Grinspoon and Walker considered in their article titled “Intelligence as a planetary scale process” that a civilization and its technosphere could reach the state of collective intelligence at a planetary scale if they would learn how to thoughtfully and peacefully integrate with the planetary environment and the biospheres.

But how would one peacefully integrate biotechnospheres incorporating technologies and microbes with a planet? In my research paper, I propose that a peaceful integration could be possible if, for example, bacteria working for biotechnospheres would be engineered with certain properties and abilities that would include  the ability to perform specific tasks under specific conditions, to evade an exchange of genetic information with ‘natural’ bacteria of the planet in order to preserve the composition of the biosphere and the biotechnospheres, to avoid bacterial wars and the ‘bad’ influence of viruses, to switch between dormant and active states and execute other actions in response to artificial external stimuli, to demonstrate collective properties indicating that their ancestral ancient bacteria were engineered as part of a bigger system performing complex tasks, and to quickly self-repair undesirable mutations.

Image. Biotechnospheres and Cosmic Ecosystems

I also propose in my research paper that if another non-human civilization existed on Earth in the distant past, perhaps millions of years ago as it is discussed in the Silurian hypothesis, and the civilization was advanced enough to create biotechnospheres, then the descendants of the bacteria, which were part of the ancient biotechnospheres, could survive until the present time and serve as evidence of the ancient non-human civilization. The hypothetical ancient non-human civilization could also create spacefaring intelligent machines, just as human civilization advances space exploration using spacecraft and space probes.

Accordingly in my research paper, I propose the Cosmic Descendants hypothesis, which posits that if an advanced non-human civilization existed on Earth, Mars, or Venus in the distant past and the civilization created intelligent machines and bacteria engineered or synthesized  to work in concert with technologies, then the descendants of the spacefaring intelligent machines and the engineered (or synthetic) bacteria could outlast the ancient civilization and exist in our Solar System at the present time. The spacefaring intelligent machines could travel away from the inner Solar System and settle mostly beyond the orbits of Saturn to distance themselves from the negative effects of powerful solar storms and bad space weather. The machines could make themselves busy with many tasks, including mining moons and asteroids and using engineered or synthetic bacteria in various applications. They could also place space probes in the inner Solar System to observe the Sun, Earth and humankind.

In the distant past, the hypothetical ancient non-human civilization and its intelligent machines could also use biotechnospheres with engineered bacteria in space exploration, biomining of asteroids, terraformation of planets and moons. The biotechnospheres could produce observables and artefacts. I call them ‘biotechnosignatures.’ For example, the descendants of the engineered bacteria  that the hypothetical ancient non-human civilization would use in its biotechnospheres, would be a biotechnosignature of the ancient civilization.

In my research paper, I do not discuss any possible links between the hypothetical intelligent machines of the hypothetical ancient non-human civilization and the claims about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), which have gained the attention of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. media. However, UFO buffs could probably wonder if the hypothetical spacefaring intelligent machines described in the Cosmic Descendants hypothesis could be related to what people sometimes report as UFOs or UAPs. That is, the ancient origin of such machines could explain why strange flying objects have been allegedly observed in the sky throughout the history of humankind, and the preferred locations of the intelligent machines in the Solar System, far away from Earth, could be one of the reasons they would not be interested in interactions with humans. People with different opinions on extraterrestrial explanations of UAPs could agree or disagree with these assumptions. However, many people could probably agree that if the intelligent machines created by another civilization would exist in the Solar System, then we, humans, could get their attention and make them concerned by creating weapons of mass destruction on Earth and in space.

In my research paper, I also discuss how alien biotechnospheres acting on planetary scales in other planetary systems could produce biotechnosignatures that Earth-based astronomers could detect.

This means several new ways to search for extraterrestrial civilizations among the stars.

Image. Biotechnosignatures

Reference

Romanovskaya, I. (2023). Planetary biotechnospheres, biotechnosignatures and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. International Journal of Astrobiology, 1-33. doi:10.1017/S1473550423000204

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/planetary-biotechnospheres-biotechnosignatures-and-the-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence/089931BD61982779CCA1EDF6861E7472

Copyright © Irina K. Romanovskaya.