I think the protagonist here should have looked at earth.
Agreed. Either there is a superintelligence on Earth that thinks there’s non-negligible probability of another intelligence existing in the solar system, in which case it would sent probes out to search for that intelligence (or blow up all the space probes like Donald suggested) so not looking at Earth would not help, or there is no such superintelligence in which case not looking at Earth also would not help.
Given the tech was available, a space-probe containing an uploaded mind is not that unlikely.
Yep, or a space-probe containing another AI that could eventually become a threat to whatever is on Earth.
Agreed. Either there is a superintelligence on Earth that thinks there’s non-negligible probability of another intelligence existing in the solar system, in which case it would sent probes out to search for that intelligence (or blow up all the space probes like Donald suggested) so not looking at Earth would not help, or there is no such superintelligence in which case not looking at Earth also would not help.
Yep, or a space-probe containing another AI that could eventually become a threat to whatever is on Earth.