The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, known as the SETI Institute, is one of the world's main references in the search for life beyond Earth. The trajectory of scientist Jill Tarter is directly linked to the institution, of which she was the founder and first employee, in 1984.
AI will be an ally in the search for extraterrestrial life, says scientist Jill Tarter
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, known as the SETI Institute, is one of the world's main references in the search for life beyond Earth. The trajectory of scientist Jill Tarter is directly linked...
At 82 years old, Jill has dedicated herself to searching for signs of extraterrestrial life for more than five decades. Although her research has not yet resulted in the discovery of aliens, she believes that artificial intelligence will be an important ally in this mission.
"Our telescope array is made up of six-meter antennas, which operate 24 hours a day. We designed it with four intermediate frequency paths, which allows four scientific experiments to be carried out at the same time, as long as they are facing an approximate region of the sky", he explained this Tuesday (4), during participation in Rio Innovation Week.
According to the scientist, the structure is already being expanded with the adoption of the first agentic telescope, capable of using autonomous systems to make decisions.
“We are replacing it with the first agentic telescope, so that the targeting and data collection will be decided by a machine, with the help of the latest information and in accordance with our understanding of what science is doing,” he said.
Jill considers that Artificial General Intelligence, known by the acronym AGI, will play a fundamental role in processing the enormous amount of information collected during sky observation.
Contrary to pessimistic predictions about the advancement of technology, she does not believe that machines will make human beings irrelevant.
“I think machines will understand that it is humans who make the world interesting,” he declared.
A physical engineer, with a master's degree and doctorate in astronomy, Jill was the main inspiration for the character Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster in the film “Contact”, released in 1997. The production was based on the book by Carl Sagan, an astronomer known for his scientific dissemination work.
When talking about the difficulty of finding life outside Earth, Jill stated that the question about humanity being alone in the Universe remains current and involves scientific and philosophical questions.
According to her, researchers may have difficulty detecting extraterrestrial organisms because they don't know exactly what this form of life would look like or because they may be looking in the wrong places.
The scientist compared the challenge to trying to understand the language of other species on Earth, such as dolphins, primates and birds.
Another obstacle is technological limitations. The available equipment is still unable to comprehensively analyze the practically countless number of stars in the Milky Way.
“If you want to investigate a larger portion of the 10 million or 100 million stars in the Milky Way, you will have to depend not only on larger receivers and telescopes, but also on the possibility that a technologically advanced civilization has created much more powerful transmitters than we have ever had on this planet,” he explained.
Jill also differentiated scientific research from reports about unidentified flying objects. For her, these occurrences need to be analyzed with skepticism and rigor, considering physical and statistical phenomena that can explain them.
Difficulties faced as a woman
During the event, Jill recalled the obstacles she faced as a woman in engineering during the 1960s. These included the loss of a scholarship after marriage and more restrictive rules applied to female students.
The scientist, however, highlighted the advances recorded in recent decades, with the increasing presence of women in university engineering courses.
"In 1965, less than 23% of students at Cornell University were women. In the engineering faculty, the rate was less than 1%, represented by me. Now, more than 50% of Cornell students are women, and this same percentage is recorded in the engineering faculty", he stated.
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Source: Noticias ao Minuto
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