This article considers the Voyager records as a means to raise some implications related to the covert biases present in the content included. I argue that messages like the Golden Records have the potential to be understood as misleading and could pose an existential threat to humanity, depending on how they are interpreted by whomever might encounter them. The argument I develop here is based on a key problem in a fair number of attempts to message extraterrestrial intelligence (METI): The construction and transmission of such messages are all-too-often led by astronomers and engineers rather than diplomats or social scientists, who have expertise in inter-cultural communication. As a result, messages like the Voyager records can be naïve, biased, and misleading. And this puts humanity at risk, even if it is only a slight risk, because of the potential of such messages being interpreted incorrectly or as being intentionally deceptive. I conclude by arguing that space agencies need to develop review boards similar to the institutional review boards found at universities and hospitals as a means of controlling content including in any government-sponsored METI activity.

本文将航海者记录视为提出与所包含内容中存在的隐蔽偏见相关的一些含义的一种手段。我认为，像黄金唱片这样的信息有可能被理解为具有误导性，并可能对人类构成生存威胁，这取决于遇到它们的人如何解释它们。我在这里提出的论点是基于大量尝试向外星智能 (METI) 发送信息中的一个关键问题：此类信息的构建和传输通常由天文学家和工程师而不是外交官或社会科学家领导，谁有跨文化交流的专业知识。因此，像航海者记录这样的消息可能是幼稚的、有偏见的和误导性的。这将人类置于危险之中，即使只是轻微的风险，因为此类消息有可能被错误解释或故意欺骗。最后，我认为航天机构需要建立类似于大学和医院的机构审查委员会的审查委员会，作为控制内容的手段，包括任何政府资助的经济产业省活动。