[ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

Mon Jul 27 02:09:04 UTC 2026

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 

… AI virtually opined:

>…The answer lies in a concept called thermodynamic cascading, …

>…This exchange caused me to realize there is an interesting experiment most here can do.  

>…Consider an experiment with AI to determine if we are breathing our own fumes.  … spike

Me:  Hey AI, Is it possible to predict when the next record largest prime number will be found?

Search Assist

>…The next record largest prime is unpredictable; volunteers continue searching via the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), and the timing depends on computational resources and algorithmic advances rather than a set schedule.  Search Assistant

DuckAI given the same question:

>…You can’t reliably predict when the next largest prime will be found in the sense of giving a dependable date. But you can make plausible forecasts of timing based on how new record primes are actually discovered.  DuckAI

Old timers might remember my being on Robin Hanson’s Ideas Futures and winning “money” for thrice correctly predicting an interval in which the next record prime would be found.  I recognize where the AI got that answer however.  It clearly found the Mersenne Prime forum, in which I argued you can find a likely time interval using statistical methods.  A guy several orders of magnitude smarter than I am argued that no, this cannot be right, prime numbers are inherently unpredictable, etc.  It found his answer.  I won “money” in Robin’s game, but my math friend Ernst Mayer was right, from a mathematical perspective but engineers are not mathematicians.  We only use math, as sailors use harlots.  We don’t really love math.  Some of us do, but for most, math is just their harlot.

spike

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