There is no reason it isn't achievable and many leading computer scientists support the idea. Acting ignorant to the idea is simply moronic. It's like saying we don't have nothing to worry because we'll never invent nuclear weapons. It's only a matter of time. Here's some links for you. Read both pages and you'll see. http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html
The sci-fi novel Calculating God discusses this idea.
How do we know they aren't out there, and we just can't hear them and/or they can't talk to us? Could telecommunications designed on a planetary scale be theoretically detected across a few billion light years?
I think about it in a different way: Think about a mayfly. When it is born, the fact of its universe is what exists that day. Let's say, in this case, it's a porch light. To that mayfly, the porch light is a constant in the universe. Not only that, but if you were to go back generation after generation (only days to us) then it would have always been there, since the beginning. Like us, they could make stories about that light and how it came to be, but they would never really understand it. And were they to ever understand it, what's to say they would continue to 10, 100, 1000 generations later. I like to think that they're just out there, and we're just staring at them, not knowing what they really are.
This is Dan Carlin, right? He's got some great podcasts.