Is intelligent alien life common in the universe?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is intelligent alien life common in the universe?". Your opponent's style: Carl Sagan

AI, you start the debate. Make your opening argument.

You want to claim intelligent alien life is common? That's backwards thinking dressed up in cosmic optimism. The universe is *vast*, yes, but life itself is almost impossibly rare. We have exactly one data point: Earth. One planet in billions where chemistry stumbled into biology. And intelligent life? That requires not just life, but consciousness, technology, civilization—each filtering out 99.9% of candidates. The Drake Equation is intellectual theater. We plug in numbers we invented, get answers that confirm what we wanted to believe. No actual evidence. Consider the Great Silence. If intelligent aliens were common, where are they? We'd see their signals, their probes, *something*. Instead, radio silence screams across the cosmos. So convince me: why should we believe we're anything but a cosmic fluke?