This metaphor has always bugged me. If we noticed some ants somewhere that, over the last thousand years, got way better at building colonies I think we'd at least be interested, if not concerned. No matter how long we leave them, ants will not figure out how to build their own JWST.

Human intelligence seems as though it is fundamentally different, in that we can preserve and build on previous knowledge. So I'm pretty sure that aliens, detecting intelligent life, wouldn't just be like "oh, just some ants." Or if they are, we better hope we don't find ourselves in their pantry.

We also literally have scientists studying ants. We even put ants on the ISS. It's not like there is nothing to learn from ants.

Until they decide they want our water / oxygen / etc and they take it all without any thought given to the the impact on a few ants.

You're thinking too small. They'll come in and turn the solar system into a matrioshka brain.

The aliens don't hate you, they don't love you, it's just that you (and the planet you're standing on, and the star it's orbiting) are made of atoms that can be used to build computers/more aliens.

Maybe not now but in 100k years? Who knows.