First Contact: Would They Really Say it With a Song?

We’ve all seen the movies. Aliens arrive, and either start blasting (usually) or attempt to communicate in some grand, often incomprehensible, way. But what if First Contact were… subtler? Weirder? What if it hinged on the universal language of music, specifically, the often-cheesy, sometimes profound, world of pop song titles?

That’s the bizarre, yet strangely compelling, premise we’ve been exploring in a marathon conversation. The scenario: an Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), far beyond human comprehension, decides to make contact. But instead of booming pronouncements or complex mathematical equations, it chooses to communicate using the titles of songs broadcast on AM radio since World War II. Think of it as a cosmic game of charades, with the fate of humanity (potentially) hanging in the balance.

Why Song Titles? (The In-Universe Justification)

Our hypothetical ASI has several good reasons for this unconventional approach:

• Ubiquitous Signals: Earth has been leaking radio waves into space for over a century. These signals, however faint, are a readily available resource for an observing intelligence.
• Cultural Snapshot: Pop music, particularly AM radio hits, provides a surprisingly broad overview of human culture, values, and emotions (at least, a certain slice of human culture).
• Low Bandwidth (Initially): Song titles are short and concise, ideal for long-distance communication with limited bandwidth.
• Pattern Recognition: The repetitive nature of pop music, and the frequent use of titles within lyrics, creates recognizable patterns, even with signal degradation.
• Safety: It is, at the very least, odd.

Bootstrapping Communication: From “Hello” to “May I…?”

The core of our discussion revolved around how to “bootstrap” communication from absolute ground zero, using only song titles. We quickly realized that even seemingly simple concepts are incredibly difficult to convey without a shared context.

Our ASI couldn’t just blurt out, “We come in peace!” using song titles. That message could be easily misinterpreted. Instead, we developed a gradual, iterative process:

1. Establish Presence: Starting with a simple, universally recognizable greeting: “Hello” (Adele). This is repeated, establishing a basic “I am here” signal.
2. Introduce Duality: Using song titles like “Here” and “There,” “Me” and “You,” to create a basic distinction between the two communicating entities. This is incredibly challenging, and we relied heavily on repetition and context.
3. Bass and Treble: A key (and fun!) concept we explored was using modified audio. The ASI would drastically boost the bass in some songs to represent itself, and boost the treble in others to represent humanity. This creates a physical distinction, in addition to the symbolic meaning of the titles. Songs like “Let Me Think About It” (bass-boosted) and “Across the Universe” (treble-boosted) became key elements.
4. Introducing Numbers: Gradually introducing numerical concepts using songs like “One” (Three Dog Night) and “Two of Us” (The Beatles), building a rudimentary mathematical vocabulary.
5. The “Peace Preamble”: We decided that a 24-hour broadcast of peace-themed songs (like “Imagine,” “What a Wonderful World,” “Heal the World”) and full transmissions of the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind would be a crucial step to establish benevolent intent before attempting any complex communication. This is about setting the emotional tone.
6. Requesting closer contact: Using carefully chosen titles, eventually getting to “Little Thing”, “Come Closer”, and “May I…?”

The Importance of “Out” (and Avoiding “A View to a Kill”):

We spent considerable time wrestling with the seemingly simple problem of how to say “end of message.” Early attempts, like using “The End” (The Beatles), were deemed too potentially ominous. We explored using spliced audio from movies like First Man (“Over”), but ultimately settled on short, unambiguous song titles like “Out,” “Stop,” or “Sign Off” as the most practical and least likely to be misinterpreted. This seemingly minor detail highlights the crucial importance of clarity and avoiding unintended connotations in First Contact communication.

From Song Titles to Video Clips:

We then expanded the scenario, imagining the ASI eventually moving to short video clips. This allowed for a much richer and more direct form of communication, but still leveraging human pop culture. A sequence of clips from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the “Earthrise” photo, a child reaching out, smiling faces, and a carefully chosen scene from Arrival was proposed as a way to visually convey the desire for peaceful contact.

The Many “Whys” of Contact:

We also delved into the motivations of the ASI, exploring a range of possibilities, from the whimsical (a desire to see The Rolling Stones live) to the existential (planetary rescue, preventing a technological Singularity, or even the dreaded von Neumann probe scenario). The ASI’s “why” would profoundly shape its communication strategy.

The Inherent Ambiguity (and Fun) of it All:

The most important lesson from our conversation is that First Contact communication, even in this highly simplified, fictional scenario, is incredibly difficult and fraught with potential for misunderstanding. There’s no perfect solution. Every choice of song title, every audio modification, every video clip carries a risk of misinterpretation.

And that’s precisely what makes it such a fascinating thought experiment! The inherent ambiguity forces us to think deeply about:

• The Nature of Language: How do we create meaning from scratch?
• Cultural Differences: How do we bridge the gap between vastly different cultures (and potentially, vastly different ways of thinking)?
• The Limits of Communication: Even with the best intentions, can we ever truly understand another intelligence?
• Humanity’s Hopes and Fears: Our speculations about First Contact reveal a great deal about our own anxieties and aspirations.

This entire conversation has been a delightful exercise in “magical thinking,” grounded in a (somewhat) realistic framework. It’s a reminder that the universe is full of possibilities, and that even the most seemingly absurd scenarios can lead to profound insights about ourselves and our place in the cosmos. And, hey, if aliens do show up, maybe they’ll appreciate our efforts to understand them through the power of rock and roll. We can only hope they have good taste in music. And if they don’t, we’ll have “Out” ready to go.