论文标题
Lotka-Volterra模型用于外星自我复制探针
Lotka-Volterra Models for Extraterrestrial Self-Replicating Probes
论文作者
论文摘要
足够先进的外星文明可以发出一群自我复制的探针进行太空探索。鉴于这种探针数量快，即使只有一个外星文明以银河系的方式发送了此类探针，我们仍然应该期望看到它们。我们不包括费米悖论的事实。关于自我复制探针最终将突变以消耗其祖细胞的建议，因此已经大大减少了在文献中研究和驳回总探针的数量。在这项工作中，我们使用更现实的Lotka-Volterra模型重新访问了这个问题，并表明突变的探针会将祖细胞探针驱动到“灭绝”中，从而取代它们以在整个银河系中扩散。因此，突变探针在减少自复制探针总数中的效率甚至比以前想象的要小。作为分析的一部分，我们还建议，在设计自复制探针时，人们不应对其进行编程以停止复制时，当足够的突变导致探针无法识别祖细胞探针为“自我”时。
A sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial civilization can send out a swarm of self-replicating probes for space exploration. Given the fast-growing number of such a probe, even if there is only one extraterrestrial civilization sending out such probes in the Milky Way galaxy, we should still expect to see them. The fact that we do not consists part of the Fermi paradox. The suggestion that self-replicating probes will eventually mutate to consume their progenitors and therefore significantly reduce the number of total probes has been investigated and dismissed in the literature. In this work, we re-visit this question with a more realistic Lotka-Volterra model, and show that mutated probes would drive the progenitor probes into "extinction", thereby replacing them to spread throughout the galaxy. Thus, the efficiency of mutated probes in reducing the total number of self-replicating probes is even less than previously thought. As part of the analysis, we also suggest that, somewhat counter-intuitively, in designing self-replicating probes, one should not program them to stop replicating when sufficient mutation causes the probes to fail to recognize the progenitor probes as "self".
