This clip (Lex Fridman interviewing Michio Kaku) focuses on what extraterrestrial life might look like. Kaku argues intelligence arises from three traits: (1) some form of stereo eyesight (predatory vision), (2) an opposable thumb or analogous manipulative appendage (claw/tentacle) for hand–eye coordination, and (3) language to transmit knowledge across generations. He notes very few animals possess all three (essentially humans), so aliens we recognize are likely to be descended from predators with manipulators and generational communication.
When you think about entities that's out there, extraterrestrial, do you think they would naturally look something that even is recognizable to us as an as life, or can would they be radically different?
Well, how did we become intelligent? Basically, three things made us intelligent. One is our eyesight. Stereo eyesight. We have the eyes of a hunter, stereo vision. So we lock in on targets and who is smarter, predator or prey? Predators are smarter than prey. They have their eyes to the front of their face, like lions, tigers. While rabbits have eyes to the side of their face. Why is that? Hunters have to zero in on the target. They have to know how to ambush, they have to know how to hide. Camouflage, sacrifice, sneak up, stealth, deceit. That takes a lot of intelligence. Rabbits, all they have to do is run. So that's the first criterion, stereo eyesight of some sort. Second is the thumb, the opposable thumb of some sort could be a claw or tentacle. So hand eye coordination. Hand eye coordination is the way we manipulate the environment. And then three language, because, you know, mama bear never tells baby bear to avoid the human hunter. Bears just learn by themselves. They never hand out information from one generation to the next. So these are the three basic ingredients of intelligence. Eyesight of some sort, an opposable thumb or tentacle or claw of some sort, and language. Now, ask yourself a simple question. How many animals have all three?
Just us.
It's just us. I mean, the primates, they have a language, yeah, they may get up to maybe 20 words, but a baby learns a word a day, several words a day, a baby learns. And a typical adult knows about almost 5,000 words, while the maximum number of words that you can teach a gorilla in any language, including their own language, is about 20 or so. And so we see the difference in intelligence. So when we meet aliens from outer space, chances are they will have been descended from predators of some sort. They'll have some way to manipulate the environment and communicate their knowledge to the next generation. That's it, folks.
So functionally that would be similar. We would be able to recognize them.
Well, not necessarily, because I think even with Homo sapiens, we are eventually going to perhaps become part cybernetic and genetically enhanced. Already robots are getting smarter and smarter. Right now, robots have the intelligence of a cockroach. But in the coming years, our robots will be as smart as a mouse, then maybe as smart as a rabbit, if we're lucky, maybe as smart as a cat or a dog. And by the end of the century, who knows for sure, our robots will be probably as smart as a monkey. Now at that point of course they could be dangerous. You see, monkeys are self aware. They know they are monkeys. They may have a different agenda than us. While dogs, dogs are confused. You see, dogs think that we are a dog, that we're the top dog. They're the underdog. That's why they whimper and follow us and lick us all the time. We're the top dog. Monkeys have no illusion at all. They know we are not monkeys. And so I think that in the future we'll have to put a chip in their brain to shut them off once our robots have murderous thoughts. But that's in 100 years. In 200 years the robots will be smart enough to remove that fail safe chip in their brain and then watch out. At that point I think rather than compete with our robots, we should merge with them. We should become part cybernetic. So I think when we meet alien life from outer space, they may be genetically and cybernetically enhanced.
