I think this question can be approached with theory of probability, and I don't have the time to do it thoroughly, but I'm going to guess that it's likely life exists elsewhere in the universe mostly because we're here and there is no direct evidence of a magical origin story for us and no reason to believe our corner of the universe is more hospitable to life than anywhere else. The question then becomes what form do they take and how advanced along their evolutionary path? That is only considering terrestrial aliens in our space-time continuum.