Sadly, although life is likely to exist on exoplanets throughout our Milky Way galaxy, intelligent life is another thing altogether. Humans have lived at most a few hundred thousand years out of the Earth's 4.6 billion year history -- or less than 0.006% of the available time. In contrast, simple single-celled organisms probably formed several billion years ago, and thus have populated the Earth for more than three-quarters of its existence. This means it is overwhelmingly likely that the life we find elsewhere will be extremely primitive.I will say I hope we send messages toward any planet found in the "Goldilocks Zone" in other solar systems! Just because the odds aren't high doesn't mean they can't happen! Look at us!
Look at me falling to what I will call the "experience fallacy". I know there is a name for this type of thought, so I apologize to the psychologist I am forgetting.
It may be interesting to note that if the universe is truly infinite/growing constantly, given enough time, the odds are with us that there is intelligent life out there somewhere. The problem being that there is virtually no chance we would ever be able to reach said life or be aware of that presence. And, as human history has so well illustrated, we would probably find some reason to fight with them.
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