Artificial Intelligence , Now Aiding In the Search for , Extraterrestrial Intelligence.br According to a new paper published in the journal br 'Nature Astronomy,' scientists are hoping to apply br machine learning to the search for extraterrestrial life.br SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, was br established in 1984 and has been scanning space for radio br signals comprised of non-Earth based "technosignatures.".br VICE reports that a machine-learning br algorithm was applied to telescope br data collected in 2016. .br After analyzing over 480 hours of data from br 820 stars, the algorithm identified eight signals br of interest that had previously gone undetected.br Peter Ma, the paper's first author, said that while br artificial intelligence has been applied to SETI's data br in the past, his team's approach is something new.br Previously people have br inserted ML [machine learning] br components into various pipelines br to help with the search. , Peter Ma, Undergraduate student at br the University of Toronto, via VICE .br This work relies entirely on just the neural br network without any traditional algorithms br supporting it and produced results that br traditional algorithms did not pick up, Peter Ma, Undergraduate student at br the University of Toronto, via VICE .br According to Ma, his team's work is twice as fast as br traditional algorithms and allows for an out-of-the-box br approach to the search for alien intelligence.br Traditional algorithms operate on br a given set of instructions designed br by us… thus the algorithm will only br ever discover what we tell it to find, Peter Ma, Undergraduate student at br the University of Toronto, via VICE .