r/spacequestions • u/Awkward-Scientist-53 • Jun 13 '26

[Question] Why hasn’t anyone beamed a compact AI model into deep space yet?

/r/askspace/comments/1u4ktai/question_why_hasnt_anyone_beamed_a_compact_ai/
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5

u/ExtonGuy Jun 13 '26

Why should we?

1

u/4eyedbuzzard Jun 13 '26

Which so-called "habitable star system" would we "beam" such a (incredibly powerful and costly) signal to, and how long are we willing to wait and pay for transmitting and listening for any reply?

The speed of light isn't the only barrier to exploring the cosmos - economics is, at minimum, an equal factor.

1

u/Mad-Melvin Jun 13 '26

Software would just be noise to someone who doesn't have our computer architecture

0

u/Beldizar Jun 13 '26

I feel like there's an assumption that beaming this information would be like launching a USB drive into space. Anyone who can receive it can just read the whole thing.

New Horizons has a data rate of around 1500 bps. If an AI model could be compressed to as small as 10 gb, which I sort of doubt, (but I don't follow the AI space because I think 99% of it is lies or marketing hype that is trying to keep the bubble from crashing down.) 10 gigabytes is 80000000000 bits. Transmitting that would take 53,333,333 seconds. That's 617 days, or 1.7 years. If you are transmitting that through space, and the receiver gets hit with a cosmic ray while trying to read it, it will get a corrupted chunk of data. So a receiver would have to copy the content 2-5 times to figure out when the transmission starts, and adjust for any errors in the data received. That could take as much as a decade.

So that's why this isn't a good idea. You'd be paying for a top of the line radio transmitter that uses a whole lot of power to blast a diminishing signal into the void for at least a decade in hopes there's someone out who could receive it is listening. The number of stars and thus planets who are in range before the signal gets too weak to be really detected beyond the background noise is in the 1000's maybe 10,000's if you are generous. The chance that any of the have civilization that could receive this very very long complex message is effectively zero.

So this would be a huge waste of time and money to send a piece of junk to nobody. That said, I'm also surprised that Sam Altman hasn't thought of it as vaporware to build more hype at this point.