The emergence of eukaryotes as an evolutionary algorithmic phase transition

As I understand it this paper basically says that the emergence of eukaryotes is inevitable given evolution and time. This has interesting implications for astrobiology, implying that eukaryotes are not a "hard step" [1] in the emergence of life.

I'm willing to speculate that the emergence of intelligence is also not a hard step, although it does take time and maybe the right geoplanetary conditions as [1] argues. So I suspect the fraction of such planets with life that go on to develop intelligent life is close to 1 in the Drake equation.

[1] A reassessment of the "hard-steps" model for the evolution of intelligent life:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10293