The Fermi Paradox asks: the universe is vast and old, so where is everybody? The Great Filter is one answer — somewhere on the road from dead matter to galaxy-spanning civilization lies a barrier almost nothing passes.
The AI twist
If building superintelligence is a step most civilizations reach, and if unaligned superintelligence usually means extinction (The Control Problem, Conquerors), then AI itself could be the Great Filter — the reason the sky is silent.
There's a darker corollary: a successful, expansionist superintelligence should be visible (it would reshape stars). We see none. So either intelligence is rarer than we think, or the filter is ahead of us, not behind.
The silence overhead might be a warning label we haven't learned to read.
Related: The Control Problem · Conquerors · The Technological Singularity