I think it is fair to speculate that any alien race that has sufficiently advanced technology to cross the vast distances involved in interstellar travel, has technology massively more advanced then we mere earthlings possess.
I believe that it is also fair to speculate that any such aliens have passed successfully through the filter of internecine combat in order to develop such advanced technology whereas on our planet, such conflicts are, and seemingly always have been, commonplace and extremely destructive (see WWI, WWII and Ukraine for further details).
I suppose mankind should draw some comfort from the fact that some weapons of mass destruction; for example nerve gas and biological weapons, have been banned by international treaty even if some have been used fairly recently for example by Saddam Hussein and chemical Ali, in Iraq. I suppose it is also of some comfort that nuclear weapons have only been used in anger twice (Hiroshima and Nagasaki); their appalling destructive power having once been demonstrated, thankfully no country has found it acceptable to use them again; here I hope vehemently that I don't have to eat my words in the context of Ukraine.
In the light of the foregoing, I believe it is reasonable to speculate that an alien civilization that has developed the ability to travel interstellar distances, it is far more likely to be nurturing than extremely belligerent as the latter would most likely have destroyed their civilization before they reached the stage of developing interstellar travel.
https://www.cseinsider.com/2023/02/physicist-warns-that-contacting-aliens_20.html
Indeed, I have seldom seen the prophets of doom advance such an idea, which is why I did!
However, I would also speculate that any alien civilization that is sufficiently technologically advanced to be able to actually travel from the star system where it originated to distant planet earth, is also likely to have the technology to have already detected the existence slightly intelligent life on this planet.
@Paulos_the_fog Yes. Once Upon A Time the theory was that civilisations would be difficult to spot remotely, because they would only radiate radio wastefully into space for a very short time before developing more sophisticated communication systems.
But now it appears to be "easy" to detect exoplanets and determine enough of their characteristics to come up with a good guess as to whether they might support life. It seems reasonable that in another not-very-many decades it'll be routine to be able to detect life.
Absolutely!
There is also a question to be answered before we decide where life may or may not exist - that question is "what is life".
Most scientists seem to confine themselves to defining that as "something a lot like life on earth"; I find that short sighted, unnecessarily restrictive and terribly unimaginative!
Can life evolve beyond the physical stage that we find ourselves at, currently?
Does life have, obligatorily, to be biological in nature or, at the very least, does it have to evolve from biological life forms?
Could there be life forms that have adapted to environments that would be instantly fatal for us - for example, could gas giants support any, extremely weird, form of life?
Will we be able, someday, to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of inhabiting a body made of vulnerable flesh and blood.
By thinking the way we do about the possibilities of life, it seems to me that we as a species are wearing the largest, most opaque blinkers it's possible to image.
Sample size of one, surely - us!
A 'sample' that seems unlikely to pass through the filter of internecine combat or other self-destructive behaviour and reach the technologically advanced stage needed to facilitate interstellar travel before they render their planet uninhabitable.
@Paulos_the_fog Sample size of zero of species that have achieved interstellar travel is what I was counting.
@Paulos_the_fog That's one theory, but there are others, and extrapolating from a sample size of zero isn't guaranteed to produce the right answers.