The robots might be coming for us
Hawking’s biggest warning is about the rise of artificial intelligence: It will either be the best thing that’s ever happened to us, or it will be the worst thing. If we’re not careful, it very well may be the last thing.
A lot of people think that the threat of AI centers on it becoming malevolent rather than benevolent. Hawking disabuses us of this concern, saying that the “real risk with AI isn’t malice, but competence.” Basically, AI will be very good at accomplishing its goals; if humans get in the way, we could be in trouble.
“You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green-energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants,” Hawking writes.
For those still unpersuaded, he suggests a different metaphor. “Why are we so worried about AI? Surely humans are always able to pull the plug?” a hypothetical person asks him.
The end of life on earth?
If it’s not the robots, it is “almost inevitable that either a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1,000 years,” Hawking writes.
His warning comes on the heels of last week’s alarming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warning that we only have 12 years to make changes massive enough to keep global warming to moderate levels. Without such changes, extended droughts, more frequent tropical storms, and rising sea levels will only be the beginning.
Hawking calls the people who will do this “superhumans,” and they’re likely to be the world’s wealthy elites. Regular old humans won’t be able to compete, and will probably “die out, or become unimportant.” At the same time, superhumans will likely be “colonizing other planets and stars.”
If that all sounds pretty depressing, it is. But even as Hawking serves up an apocalyptic prognosis for the planet and everyone on it, his brand of optimism comes through. He has faith that “our ingenious race will have found a way to slip the surly bonds of Earth and will therefore survive the disaster.”
He even believes that, instead of being terrifying, these possibilities are thrilling and that it “greatly increases the chances of inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.”
Figuring out a way off of planet Earth, and maybe even the solar system, is an opportunity to do what the moon landings did: “elevate humanity, bring people and nations together, usher in new discoveries and new technologies.”
There you go :)
