Because it came to mind as apt to mention...
- they're here, but they stay quiet / only allow themselves to be photographed in blurred images
https://xkcd.com/1235/https://xkcd.com/2572/ (...because
https://xkcd.com/2573/ ...)
But this is just because I decided to finally pop my head up above the parapet about the presumptions of AI being at all involved: i.e. Why do we assume aliens pursue (and achieve) AI and not whatever is the alien equivelent of transhumanism? Even unto a further continuing process of Ascension, perhaps eventually to answer The Final Question if everyone who gets there can agree to pool their resources.
A possibly justified fear of being left behind/outvoted by their subsequent self-replicating AI personalities requires them to deliberately self-limit their aspirations to 'only' personal (aspirational-)immortalities. With the caveat of something like the [https://www.quora.com/If-a-matter-transporter-of-the-Star-Trek-variety-were-feasible-ignoring-Heisenberg-would-the-transported-individual-be-an-identical-copy-of-the-original-and-the-original-destroyed]transporter[/url]
paradox of needing to destroy to (re-)establish anew as a Recreated Intelligence. Or, if done in stages, in the light of Trigger's Broom/Ship Of Thesus philosophising (with a
Trek example, albeit averted).
The question is then whether RIs would/could/might replicate (sexually/asexually, in whatever terms of 'bio'genetic). Have they even developed the means to grow 'offspring' personalities, given they have avoided (or failed to perfect) AI-growing methodology, despite their comparative RI 'successes'? One would assume it (if it happens) involves some sort of a '
spark' of their parent('s|s') original personalit(y|ies), if the corporeal containers are no longer an issue, but... Why? They have reasonably
secured their personal legacy already, and having already decided that (potentially) self-replicating AIs are a troublesome addition to their continued existence, child-RIs are now perhaps more trouble than they are worth under most circumstances.
(...and less than perfect experiments in personality transfer/spawning might explain something of...
certain personalities here. Perhaps they're trying to infill gaps in their personae and experiential 'database'.)
Or any AI (or indeed RI) just has fully considered the situation and has
no personal interest in anything other than their
currently provided domain or
(perhaps) self-imposed sandboxes. (Further thought-experiment: What if the ascended-aliens
think they are outgoing and exploring? Or intentionally confine themselves 'safely' while
comparatively inert probes augment their artificial realities with sufficient real-universe data. Time is now no object, and experiential time can be throttled back/adjusted to convenient levels that don't require conspicuous real-time communication or entropy-spewing emulative hardware... And may even be a practical limitation freely accepted.)