{"id":76452,"date":"2018-03-02T10:23:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T18:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/can-earth-be-hacked-by-aliens-scientists-say-messages-from-space-could-destroy-life-as-we-know-it"},"modified":"2018-03-06T15:07:17","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T23:07:17","slug":"can-earth-be-hacked-by-aliens-scientists-say-messages-from-space-could-destroy-life-as-we-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/can-earth-be-hacked-by-aliens-scientists-say-messages-from-space-could-destroy-life-as-we-know-it","title":{"rendered":"Can Earth be hacked by aliens? Scientists say messages from space could destroy life as we know it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/can-earth-be-hacked-by-aliens-scientists-say-messages-from-space-could-destroy-life-as-we-know-it2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The researchers also suggested<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/hunt-alien-life-scientists-have-new-plan-find-extraterrestrials-distant-worlds-1656770\" target=\"_blank\"> that aliens could<\/a> \u201cgift\u201d us with an artificial intelligence (AI) system that may trick humans into developing self-replicating nanobots and eventually deploy them to wreak havoc on our planet. The researchers argue that it would be cheaper for aliens to \u201csend a malicious message to eradicate humans compared to sending battleships\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In one scenario, the researchers argued that a message from aliens could be a panic-inducing statement like \u201cWe will make your sun go supernova tomorrow\u201d. According to the researchers, if such a threatening message is received in just one location, it may be possible to contain and even destroy it. \u201cIf it is received repeatedly, perhaps even by amateurs, containment is impossible,\u201d the researchers wrote in a <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/1802.02180.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">paper available online on arXiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In another scenario, the scientists argue that humans could be tricked into begetting their own demise by aliens offering the \u201cgift\u201d of knowledge. For instance, aliens could transmit a message that reads: \u201cWe are friends. The galactic library is attached. It is in the form of an artificial intelligence (AI) which quickly learns your language and will answer your questions. You may execute the code following these instructions\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/can-earth-hacked-by-aliens-scientists-say-messages-space-could-destroy-life-we-know-it-1664362\">http:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/can-earth-hacked-by-aliens-scientis...it-1664362<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The researchers also suggested that aliens could \u201cgift\u201d us with an artificial intelligence (AI) system that may trick humans into developing self-replicating nanobots and eventually deploy them to wreak havoc on our planet. The researchers argue that it would be cheaper for aliens to \u201csend a malicious message to eradicate humans compared to sending battleships\u201d. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":440,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1527,9,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alien-life","category-military","category-nanotechnology","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/440"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76633,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76452\/revisions\/76633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}