And having a general purpose system capable not only adapting to all the various situations and challenges likely to be faced, that also would have the reserves to deal with them usefully AND reproduce is something we can only hope for in our dreams right now.
And until such a thing exists, it’s only speculation it wouldn’t have similar types of problems, eh?
Humans are the most adaptable and intelligent anything we have yet run across, and we still regularly struggle to solve the problems we run across even in our comfy and well known existing biosphere which is right here, and that we’re quite well adapted to.
And that is assuming a one way trip. Energetically, what could it hope to return to us that would be worth the cost we’d sink into it to try?
Panspermia/species wide genetic reproductive drive, maybe - but then sending a robot doesn’t scratch that itch does it?
2) opportunity cost of time is a thing. Some would argue even that time itself is the most valuable thing we have. Pausing yourself for a million years while your competitors don’t, could be a real problem. Also, think of all the new TV shows you’d miss!
Agree on the von neumann probe problem. The lack of them doesn’t lend credence to it actually being straightforward or even possible solution for sure.
But hey, maybe all the UFO folks are onto something, warp drives/wormholes exist and are cheap, etc.
In which case, disclose it already assholes so we can start doing cool stuff with it!
Do I suspect we'll see life commuting between galaxies, seems unlikely life as is fragile compared to how damned harsh space is.
But intelligence is a completely different story. We send rudimentary intelligences to space and have racked up billions of miles on them. It seems far more likely that any space faring civilization would look like the following.
1. They would ship the instruction to build life when the reach the destination they are heading too. Machines with error correction seem much more resilient would be much more likely to reach a destination if they had enough energy for the trip so they could refurbish themselves over time.
2. Getting rid of the bodies/life part in the first place. Who cares if it's a million years if you can just pause yourself?
Of course the fact the entire universe isn't filled with Von Neumann probes (at least that we see) points out that this hasn't happened yet.