Since beginning of 2023 Chat GPT was launched as a human language model and start a new era of technological development.
This is not a technology from yesterday as many years were needed to develop and train such AI. It is not the only one but the first to be so widely announced.
It will replace a lot of people, but will also enhance our capabilities and productivity in learning, analysing and exploring. This is just the next level of our intelligent civilization
heritage that we consume.

Here is an interesting mind storming aided with GPT:
How many intelligent civilizations could be into the observed universe?

It did not give you a definitive answer but with some human help and imagination we can agree on a rough number.
I will spare the prompts and go directly to the summary but they are actually quite important.

There are around 1 billion rocky planets into our galaxy (probably much more). The galaxy itself has around 400 billion stars. We conclude this statistically based on the current observation data.
Most of them are close to their stars by nature, so we can assume that 1/3 are into the habitable zone.

So we have 300 million planets that may host life.

We should get a few assumption when deciding on what chance they have to be suitable for life:
- Milky way is an old galaxy around 13 billion years. Close to the age of the universe itself.
- Life is formed on a later stage of the universe as we need to have at least second generation of stars in order to have the needed heavy components
- It took at least 4 billion years for us to reach at our current point.
- Life is more likely to be formed away from the galaxy core as the processes there are more violent.
- Life is more likely to be in a star systems of smaller and cooler stars that have longer life then 5 billion years.

So now we have to decide what could be the possibility to have appropriate environment and have that small chance to form life on those planets?

Let's pick 1:1000000 as a number (It is still greater then winning the lottery). Try to imagine that number by yourself.

"Me:
What do you think, how rare is life occurrence in a planet suitable for that? Could it be something like 1:1000000?

GPT:
The question of how rare life is in the universe is one of the most profound and challenging questions in science. While we have not yet discovered definitive evidence of life beyond Earth, the growing body of data from exoplanet observations and other astronomical research suggests that the conditions for life may be common in the universe.
There are many factors that could influence the likelihood of life emerging on a planet, such as the planet's size, composition, and distance from its host star, as well as the presence of water, organic molecules, and other essential ingredients. While we have only a limited sample of planets to study, our current understanding suggests that these factors may be relatively common in the universe.
Given the uncertainties and complexities involved in estimating the probability of life, it is difficult to provide a precise estimate of how rare or common it is. However, some scientists have proposed statistical models and hypotheses that suggest that the probability of life emerging on a suitable planet could be on the order of 1 in 100,000 or even higher"

Therefore we would have 300 planets in our galaxy with possibility for life.
We have a few assumption when we speak about contacting intelligent civilization:
- They are more likely less intelligent then us. A small number could evolve earlier or develop fastly.
- It is hard to catch techno signal from them as they need to be strong enough (should be transmitted to our direction) and it will take hundred and thousand of years to reach us for the closes possible civilizations.
- We transmit signs for the last 100 years, so only the closes stars would now that we exist.

"Me:
Can you give me the number of stars closer then 100 light years?
GPT:
According to the Hipparcos Catalogue, which is a catalog of over 100,000 stars in the vicinity of our solar system, there are approximately 4,000 stars located within 100 light-years of the Sun. However, this number is an estimate and subject to revision as new data and observations become available."

There could be at least 100 billion galaxies out there. Our is medium size one, so this roughly means that we can have 30 trillion planets with life into the observable universe.
Most of it could reach or had already reached intelligent forms of life.

Going further, the observable universe is not the whole as light speed is limited and it expands, so we do not see all of it. It is likely also to have other universes as well as other big bangs may had happened elsewhere into the "nothing".

So what do you think?

On the cover "Webb Delivers Deepest Image of Universe"