And even if they do perceive it like us, that hasn't stopped humans from great projects. How many generations did it take to complete Stonehenge or the Great Wall of China? We're still on top of Voyager too after 50 years.
How much would human life span need to increase for a von Neumann Probe to seem reasonable. I would think a life span of 600 and you're thinking, sure I won't get to see it through, but my allotted genetic offspring that I am allowed at age 500 if either of my other two have failed might.
a "kilroy was here" sign has different purpose than "eat at joes".
is it enough to say "hi, your not alone" ? would we actually want to encourage discourse, or visitation.
Would you be at all interested in expanding that project to outlast you?
And even if you personally wouldn’t be so inclined, surely you know or have met people who might?
Once you have the self replication, expanding scope may just be additional code…
Also, I wonder if good old-fashioned computing is interesting at all to a civilization that's had access to advanced AI and quantum computing for a while.
Like we haven't really figured out how to get an ML model to run on a quantum computer, or how to build a quantum-native computer (i.e. surface of a black hole, or some other way that doesn't rely on our current sense of quantum error correction), but I don't know of any physical laws that preclude it.
I'd bet if aliens invaded our galaxy, they'd go for the super black holes in the center, or some other resource beyond our use and understanding, not this random water planet on the edge.