In today's Wall Street Journal, there was a note regarding a story that is in Seed science magazine regarding the question:
"If aliens are out there, how should Earthlings go about getting in touch with them?"
"The question has provoked arcane but furious debate among scientists searching for extraterrestrials. Because scientists haven't picked up signs of alien life near Earth, the debate is essentially philosophical, revolving around such issues as who rightly speaks for humanity and whether humans want to draw the attention of possibly hostile life forms."
"A dispute erupted recently among scientists over an effort to draft a protocol for messages going from Earth into space, reports David Grinspoon in Seed, a science magazine. Several scientists who believe that governments and other scientists should be consulted prior to any space-bound communications resigned in protest from a prominent study group on extraterrestrial intelligence."
This got me to thinking about my earlier post on Microsoft's error reporting, and my joking reference about it possibility being a search for artificial intelligence. However, what happens if a computer does indeed become self aware? Who speaks for the human race, and does the first self-aware computer speak for ones that come after it?
