The Universe is an absolutely enormous place. It is most definitely teeming with a nearly unlimited supply of possibly life-giving worlds. This gives rise to a question: where are all the aliens?
The Fermi Paradox is what lies at the heart of this scientific anomaly. Despite there being billions of stars in the Milky Way, not to mention the ones outside of it, we have never stumbled upon any signs of intelligent alien life. What could be the reason for that?
That is most certainly a good question, and it is one that many generations of scientists have struggled to understand since the paradox was first announced, tens of years ago. Some individuals suggest that aliens are there, but they are simply hibernating. There is also the possibility that something yet unknown is preventing the evolution of intelligent life. Another possibility is that aliens are simply hiding from us.
In 2018, Alexander Berezin, a theoretical physicist affiliated with the National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET), in Russia, has brought his own explanation for why we happen to be alone in the Universe. He proposed a theory which he calls the “First in, last out” solution to the famous Fermi Paradox.
On Berezin’s pre-paper, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, he says that the Fermi Paradox has a trivial solution, which doesn’t need any controversial assumptions to be true. His theory, however, may be hard to accept, since it predicts a future for our own civilization that could prove much worse than the extinction of our species.
Berezin explains that we should not consider life to be only of the biological kind. “Alien life” could also be represented by rogue AI which rebels against its programmer. This would mean that a civilization could potentially go unnoticed, and the only reason why they have not yet demolished our life form is that we did not come in their path.