The science folks over at Jet Propulsion Laboratory are working to update and improve the Arecibo Message project form the mid-70s that broadcast a message to the cosmos, inviting contact from alien races.
What a great idea! Receiving a message from a star system using radio waves to invite contact might be an exciting opportunity to an older more developed race overflowing with benevolence and eager to lift humanity out of the dark abyss of self-destruction that we are supposedly in right now.
It also might appeal to a race that has depleted the resources available in its own system and are looking outward for new resources with a handy indigenous labor force to process those resources for shipment home. Or maybe just a new home with resources, indigenous workers and vast sources of food…that may or may not include members of the labor force unable or unwilling to perform assigned work.
Maybe we should be more careful with an open invitation. Our intellectual elites see it as a testament to our advancement but to the wrong recipient, it may look more like a clearance sale flyer or a fast-food menu.