The universe is a massive, perhaps infinite, expanse and our entire galaxy is but a speck in a void sprinkled with thousands of galaxies. Even if you only consider our own galaxy, the Milky Way, our solar system is just one in an estimated 100,000,000,000 other solar systems in the galaxy. There are probably over a billion trillion (yes, you read that right… a billion trillion) planets in our universe. That means even if there is only a one in a trillion chance of a planet being like Earth and having intelligent life, there would be over a billion of them out there. Needless to say, the chances are high that we are not alone in the universe. The chances are also high that at least a few of these intelligent lifeforms are trying to contact us using technology that we can understand.
People have been scanning the skies for extraterrestrial radio waves since the advent of radio about a hundred years ago. But as you can imagine, pointing your listening device at random stars hoping to hear signs of intelligent life is futile, especially if your chances of detecting anything unusual is one in a trillion or worse. So in 1999, the Berkeley SETI Research Center released SETI@home software so that anyone can use their spare computing power to help scan the skies for intelligent life.
But what if we can harness idle computing power from any computer in the country to work on big computationally-intensive problems? What if every Windows, Chrome, and Apple operating system used idle time to crunch numbers? Every computer could come equipped to mine cryptocurrencies during idle times. Or each computer might be entrusted with redundant data serving an expansive peer-to-peer file network. Or every computer can be part of a grid computing network to share workloads.
Now let’s take a step back and look at the even bigger picture. What if every household in America is responsible for certain data, just as they are responsible for the upkeep of their home? Each new family could be assigned a data set to analyze and maintain. Perhaps they are assigned to keep a telescope and radio equipment trained on a particular star for a year, and report back any anomalies. Or they could be assigned the upkeep of a certain public surveillance camera. Or they might receive satellite information on a particular section of Brazilian rain forest to monitor and report any suspicious changes.
These ideas might seem a bit far-fetched, but it’s possible. If the sponsoring entity is big or powerful enough, such as Google or the country of China, they could simply mandate it. Or, in a capitalist society like the United States, most people would willingly donate idle computing power or keep watch on a dataset if they were paid to do it. Heck, about one in ten corporate workers are willing to divulge their work passwords for under $1,000. If you pay someone enough money, they’d be willing to do anything.
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