| Concerned with the dangers of AI? Consider, for a moment, the risks of another form of exotic intelligence. What would happen, say, if an alien spaceship appeared in the skies over Nebraska? Politicians would probably panic. The military may send up fighter jets. And someone might just start shooting. Anticipating these reactions isn't a hobby for Andreas Anton. A sociologist who teaches at the University of Freiburg in Germany, he is part of a growing group of scientists engaged in exosociology, a field that looks beyond the earthly realm to consider — and prepare for — first contact with aliens. And Anton's concern isn't so much their intentions but rather our response. "If we make one dumb mistake, it could be our last," Anton warns. He has been mulling these matters since his grandparents regaled him with talk of aliens in his childhood. He still goes out on clear evenings in southern Germany and gazes up at the stars, wondering what could be out there. No one knows if aliens really exist, but recent scientific breakthroughs — from discovering that microbes can thrive in near-boiling environments to the fact that billions of other Earth-like planets may exist — suggest they might. And we're increasingly well-positioned to capture the evidence thanks to technology like high-powered telescopes and remote-controlled rovers. Even the US Congress recently held hearings on "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," objects once known as UFOs. To Anton, that makes it high time for society to engage in a wider conversation about how a first encounter might play out. How might that impact our politics, societies, economies and more? Do we have any responsibilities toward alien life? Anton and like-minded scientists are building a body of literature to address these questions in journals, conferences and with networks like the SETI Post-Detection Hub at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The hub, an outgrowth of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, describes aims to coordinate experts like Anton and also consider humanity's social response to a possible alien encounter. The researchers envision a variety of potential trigger events, like a radio signal from a far-off civilization. Our collective response might depend on several variables: Are we able to decode the message? If so, is it friendly or threatening? What distance is it coming from? The most extreme scenario involves aliens showing up in our skies. Lacking a precedent for how to react, many risk falling back on lessons from science fiction — say, the Hollywood movie Independence Day — in which aliens are portrayed as looking to destroy or enslave humans. To prevent a disastrously aggressive response, Anton and his colleagues aim to consider what could happen, "so that someone could say, 'Mr. President, here's a published protocol and we should perhaps pay attention to the following.'" —Tim Loh | 
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