{"id":387898,"date":"2026-04-19T23:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T23:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/387898\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T23:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T23:16:10","slug":"drake-equation-dashboard-ai-the-big-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/387898\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Equation Dashboard (AI) &#8211; The Big Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.perplexity.ai\/computer\/a\/drake-equation-calculator-EeJPS7vRRNix0FeP63tkKA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy lazy-hidden alignnone wp-image-355907\" data-lazy-type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Drake-.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"721\" height=\"454\"  \/><\/a><br \/>click for full interactive Drake Dashboard<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On a road trip with a buddy who is also a Deep-Sky automated Photography hobbyist (check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seestar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Seestar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dwarflab.com\/us\/products\/dwarf-3-smart-telescope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">DwarfLab<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.unistellar.com\/products\/odyssey-pro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Odyssey Pro<\/a>), we discussed the Drake Equation (him) and the Rare Earth Hypothesis (me).<\/p>\n<p>We went deep.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Drake said he created his eponymous equation as a \u201cconversation starter.\u201d It has served that purpose very well, but as a legitimate thesis and\/or honest exploration of whether we are alone or not, it comes up short. 1 <\/p>\n<p>I wanted to noodle with the ideas behind his thesis, so I asked Perplexity to create an interactive dashboard of all 7 variables.<\/p>\n<p>The results were really impressive.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s exactly the sort of project AI is perfect for: a well-understood formula, a simple way to display it, and a set of code that would be time-consuming and annoying to hack together on your own.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.perplexity.ai\/computer\/a\/drake-equation-calculator-EeJPS7vRRNix0FeP63tkKA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Click through<\/a> and play around with the sliders. Depending on your assumptions, we either live in a galaxy filled with millions of other advanced civilizations or are all alone.<\/p>\n<p>Fun stuff!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>______<\/p>\n<p>1. I like the Rare Earth hypothesis, but its just so negative. \u201cRare\u201d \u2014 a handful of civilizations reach advanced technological state \u2014 is quite different than \u201cPractically Never\u201d \u2014 human civilization is an aberration and most galaxies have no intelligent or technologically advanced systems.\u00a0I guess I am a touch more optimistic than a \u201cPost-Kepler Moderate,\u201d which implies that one intelligent technologically advanced civilization per 50-100 galaxies.<\/p>\n<p>I have been thinking about doing a deep dive as to why the Drake Equation is so deeply flawed, but that will have to wait for another day\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                    <a href=\"#\" rel=\"nofollow\" onclick=\"window.print(); return false;\" title=\"Printer Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\"><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy lazy-hidden pf-button-img\" data-lazy-type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/printfriendly-button.png\" alt=\"Print Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\" style=\"width: 112px;height: 24px;\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"click for full interactive Drake Dashboard \u00a0 \u00a0 On a road trip with a buddy who is also&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-387898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}