Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain’s pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.
He told the BBC:”The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI.
But others are less gloomy about AI’s prospects.
The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel to speak.
Machine learning experts from the British company Swiftkey were also involved in its creation. Their technology, already employed as a smartphone keyboard app, learns how the professor thinks and suggests the words he might want to use next.
Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans.
“It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate,” he said.
“Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”
But others are less pessimistic.
“I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realised,” said Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot.
Cleverbot’s software learns from its past conversations, and has gained high scores in the Turing test, fooling a high proportion of people into believing they are talking to a human.
Rise of the robots
Mr Carpenter says we are a long way from having the computing power or developing the algorithms needed to achieve full artificial intelligence, but believes it will come in the next few decades.
“We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can’t know if we’ll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it,” he says.
But he is betting that AI is going to be a positive force.
Prof Hawking is not alone in fearing for the future.
In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs.
In the longer term, the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned that AI is “our biggest existential threat”.
Robotic voice
In his BBC interview, Prof Hawking also talks of the benefits and dangers of the internet.
He quotes the director of GCHQ’s warning about the net becoming the command centre for terrorists: “More must be done by the internet companies to counter the threat, but the difficulty is to do this without sacrificing freedom and privacy.”
He has, however, been an enthusiastic early adopter of all kinds of communication technologies and is looking forward to being able to write much faster with his new system.
But one aspect of his own tech – his computer generated voice – has not changed in the latest update.
Prof Hawking concedes that it’s slightly robotic, but insists he didn’t want a more natural voice.
“It has become my trademark, and I wouldn’t change it for a more natural voice with a British accent,” he said.
“I’m told that children who need a computer voice, want one like mine.”
Dutch’s short list of the bull shitters that the MSM worships: Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos,Larry Page and Sergey Brin (google), Zuckerberg.
All as full of shit as a Christmas goose.
Feel free to add to the list.
Well I’m sure gonna lay awake nights worrying about that one.
Besides that, Hawking looks like someone put him together in their basement. A conceited prick.
Prick,a term you must here a lot Dutchman. The loss of jobs to robots and computers is alarming.
YA! Stephen was obvious talking about our Congressional representatives.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos,Larry Page and Sergey Brin (google), Zuckerberg.
All as full of shit as a Christmas goose.
Agreed Dutchman, Zukerberg the fullest of the lot.
Not so with Professor Hawking and Elon Musk. Placing them in that group is a real insult to these two gents imho.
Ignoring two geniuses of that caliber when they are both warning us of the same situation is sheer folly.
Talk about black swans, a killer robot militia appearing, ignore these two brilliant men at your peril.
I’m in agreement with G.O. in at least as far as Musk goes (tho I tend to feel the same towards Hawking).
Space X is groundbreaking stuff. I check in on them every 4-6 months to see how their reusable dev program is coming along. Thought I would throw some *facts* (if you can call what you read on the internet accurate) at you guys with a few financial numbers, and I think you’ll be amazed too.
Delta 4
Payload to LEO – 20,750-63,450 lb (I presume the high end here is the Heavy varient, we’ll get back to that)
Falcon 9 v1.1
Payload to LEO – 28,990 lb
Those are quoted straight from wiki.
Delta 4 Launch Cost
To quote a forum post quoting CBO: (From nasaspaceflight.com–edited a bit to get to the jist)
Falcon 9 v1.1 Launch Cost
To quote wiki:
Cost per launch (2014) v1.1: $61.2M
Now those v1.1 numbers are still treating all of the rocket stack as expendable. Once they start deploying their reusable tech, those F9 costs can come down quite a bit. Musk is on record as saying that he can drop that to about 10% of current costs, but I’ll be liberal and call it 20%. Getting that kind of launch price down to around $12mil vs $381mil for the Boeing product…. In other words, Elon wants to do what Boeing does for about 3% of the price. I’d call that genius.
Oh and BTW, Space X has recieved roughly about $500mil from NASA to help get them started to launch cargo to the ISS. That’s not even 2 Delta 4 rockets. From what I have read on space nut forums IIRC, ATM Space X is charging NASA about $110mil per launch due to the increased insurance on flights that the US.gov requires. NASA has already recieved 5(6?) launches, so they are already saving money vs the “other options” they otherwise have at their disposal. Space X is privately funding the F9 resuable tech. No word on what they have spent so far.
While I’m quoting things from memory and before I link video, I should add that I have read on a few occasions that the cost of fueling the rocket is only about 10% of the launch price. Elon intends on getting multiple launches out of just about everything he is building (bottom to top of the stack) *without any maintenence*. Re-stack, re-fuel, and go again. There will be a few bits that go bye bye, such as covers that make satellites aerodynamic, but any cargo/crew/1st stage/2nd stage modules will be eventually resuable.
Ok, now for some video/photos so you’ll believe me that this is possible:
This is a vid from back in June of the F9R dev rocket using its brand new fins in Texas (a tad over 5min):
This is a link to the NASA website talking about the new barge Space X is going to test landing the F9 on (twice) before the US.gov will allow them to land back at Kennedy SFC (plenty of pics):
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/11/spacex-autonomous-spaceport-drone-ship/
Hmm… I was actually going to post more links, but I don’t feel it necessary, you all can dig a bit on your own if you want to see more. In addition to a pad at Kennedy SFC for launching cargo/sats, a second one there that they will eventually launch people, they have a pad at Vandenberg AFB for doing polar orbit sat launches, building a private sat launch pad damn near on the Mexican border in deep south Texas, and add the barge? They could launch from the equator and achieve the maximum possible throw weight out of the F9 for putting commercial/gov sats into geostationary orbit.
Scheduled for Dec 16th (less then 2 weeks from now), there is a test scheduled to fly a F9 v1.1 with the fins shown in the youtube video above. They plan to land the 1st stage on that barge pictured in the NASA article above. Tesla Motors is a side show, Space X is opening new frontiers.
Did Zuckerberg do that? No. He just took (I assume anyway) CIA/NSA money to build a product to tell the US.gov everything they ever thought they might want to know about you.
Actually a bit more I wanted to add….
Demonstration animation of what they want to eventually do with the F9 (I know its on Youtube, but couldn’t find it there):
http://www.space.com/13140-spacex-private-reusable-rocket-elon-musk.html
The unveil of the crewed Dragon was a pretty impressive video too:
Now tell me again how efficient NASA is, and why we can’t get spaceflight done a whole lot cheaper?
Oh yeah, and for those who haven’t visited Wiki to check on this…. They fully plan on strapping 3 1st stages together for a “Heavy” variant. Take 2 “boosters” equipped to be re-used, an expendable core and upper, and you probably have 20% more throw weight then the Delta 4H listed for $1.1bill above (depending on destination orbit and launch location)–for probably about 1% of that price. Again perhaps back to that 3% if you want to insure to the levels the US.gov requires.
If you guys don’t find that Dragon v2 unveil impressive (granted, about 15min, and this is close too), check out how we are currently getting to the ISS:
Between the 2 vids, I’d say that Dragon v2 is a lot closer to Shuttle level comfort compared to 40 year old (granted upgraded) Russian gear.
Dutch, add this self-righteous affirmative action dullard to the lengthy list of pompous bullshitters.
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Flash: you worked around millenials lately? I have a feeling your average milk cow is more capable of “deep thought” then they are.
Only about 10% are worth what they eat on a daily basis.
Nevermind Flash, that tweet was a POS. I misread what was you, and what was him.