A guess: you said you’re optimistic about alignment by default—so do you expect aligned AGI acting in accordance with the interests of a natural-selection-evolved species?
In the context of this comment, I don’t think it really matters whether the alien AGIs are aligned or not. The point is whether they will share cognitive concepts with us. I think AIs will share at least a few cognitive concepts even if they’re very misaligned with us. It’s kind of hard for me to imagine this not being true (aren’t they living in the same universe?). That said, I admit that point about evolution wasn’t very strong; I mostly meant that aliens would descend from some precursor species that evolved via natural selection. The much stronger argument is that aliens will share some cognitive concepts because there’s a natural set of concepts in the universe, such as the concept of “atoms”.
In the context of this comment, I don’t think it really matters whether the alien AGIs are aligned or not. The point is whether they will share cognitive concepts with us. I think AIs will share at least a few cognitive concepts even if they’re very misaligned with us. It’s kind of hard for me to imagine this not being true (aren’t they living in the same universe?). That said, I admit that point about evolution wasn’t very strong; I mostly meant that aliens would descend from some precursor species that evolved via natural selection. The much stronger argument is that aliens will share some cognitive concepts because there’s a natural set of concepts in the universe, such as the concept of “atoms”.