There's a long time of probably anything happening in the universe, but the vast, vast majority of it is really unconducive to the sort of rich, stuff-happeningness necessary for a complex structure like an interstellar AI to emerge. At a certain point you have to wonder whether by the time a suitable "seed" and the conditions for our monster to really get under way exist, there will even be sufficient available energy anywhere at every stage of its development and ability to acquire more for it to cross interstellar gaps with the information necessary to get going there too, or to influence in some other fashion across those gaps, other stars or systems to its ends?
So I wouldn't call it inevitable. I think there's a pretty small window where any of this is even remotely possible. It's kind of a bummer, but the universe is largely just getting further and further apart. We don't even really know how much is already lost from ever being detectable from here.
deleted by creator
There's a long time of probably anything happening in the universe, but the vast, vast majority of it is really unconducive to the sort of rich, stuff-happeningness necessary for a complex structure like an interstellar AI to emerge. At a certain point you have to wonder whether by the time a suitable "seed" and the conditions for our monster to really get under way exist, there will even be sufficient available energy anywhere at every stage of its development and ability to acquire more for it to cross interstellar gaps with the information necessary to get going there too, or to influence in some other fashion across those gaps, other stars or systems to its ends?
So I wouldn't call it inevitable. I think there's a pretty small window where any of this is even remotely possible. It's kind of a bummer, but the universe is largely just getting further and further apart. We don't even really know how much is already lost from ever being detectable from here.