human capacity to meaningfully extrapolate regarding
its specific characteristics. If we therefore have no fixed
idea what to look for, it makes sense to search all
available and emerging databases for ‘‘artificiality,’’
whether deliberate (as in a message) or inadvertent (as
in environmental impact). We argue that the criteria for
searching a database should be primarily tied to cost
rather than plausibility. If it costs little to scan data for
signs of intelligent manipulation [3], little is lost in doing
so, even though the probability of detecting alien technology
at work may be exceedingly low. A good example,
already discussed in the literature [4,5], is genomic
SETI—the ‘‘message-in-a-bottle’’ scenario in which an
extraterrestrial civilization long ago uploaded a message
into the DNA of some terrestrial organisms, either robotically
or using viral vectors. Genome sequencing is taking
place on a grand scale anyway, the results freely available on the internet, and it would cost almost nothing to
search the genomic database using a simple algorithm
to seek out signs of intelligent manipulation.