I think intelligent tool making life is rare but there is plenty of room for those far, far in advance of us. Robert Bradbury, who thought up M-Brains, said he did not think truly hyper advanced entities would bother communicating with us. Being able to process the entire history of human thought in a few millionths of a second puts them further away from us than we are from nematodes. But then that might not be giving them credit for their intelligence and resources, as they might wish to see how well their simulations have done compared to reality.
Foresight Intelligent Cooperation Group.
2021 program & apply to join: https://foresight.org/intelligent-cooperation/
Anders Sandberg, Oxford University.
Game Theory of Cooperating with Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Future Civilizations.