Just how far away do you think we're looking? The time difference is negligible when looking at exoplanets and there's zero reason to assume something even a million light years away wouldn't exhibit life in any stage of devolpment.

Sounds clever of you, and I'm happy to see you have an understanding of basic concepts, but you're demonstrating massive human bias in thinking life a mere thousands of lights years away is either dead or insanely advanced. That amount of time is the blink of an eye.