First Radio Signal from an Exoplanet Has Nothing to Do with Aliens

Radio detections of the exoplanet β Pictoris b in four observing sessions and at two frequency bands. The different panels display the total intensity (Stokes I, top) and circularly polarized (Stokes V, bottom) images centered on the position of β Pictoris b. The contours indicate signal-to-noise ratios ranging from 3 to 21, in steps of 3 (dashed contours are negative flux), while red and blue colors indicate positive and negative flux densities, respectively. Negative flux densities in Stokes V indicate left-handed circular polarization; in the first observation, the handedness of polarization is not constrained. (Image credit: K.N. Ortiz Ceballos, E. Berger, & Y. Cendes 2026)The traditional approach in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is to seek a radio signal from an exoplanet in the habitable zone of a distant star. We have not detected any such signal over the past 66 years since Frank Drake pioneered this search in 1960.In light of the null detection result, one might wonder whether the search strategy represents a wishful thinking akin to looking at the mirror and imaging dating partners that look the same. After all, radio communication was developed at the infancy of our technological advances and within a century is now being replaced by fiber-optics and laser communication. It might also be naïve to imagine that intelligent Galactic counterparts have biological brains like ours, evolving through natural selection and eager to communicate with like-minded beings. Our own civilization is currently entering a new technological phase in which artificial intelligence (AI) made of silicon chips, will likely supersede the cognitive abilities of biological brains on Earth. Our future might be shaped by self-replicating AI robots. If most technological civilizations go through the AI transformation within a century after developing radio communication, then we are more likely to encounter their long-lived products in the form of self-replicating