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Hawking Says Scientific Progress Is Major Source of New Threats To Humanity
HughPickens.com writes: BBC reports that according to Stephen Hawking most of the threats humans now face come from advances in science and technology, including nuclear war, global warming and genetically-engineered viruses. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," said Hawking in answer to a question during the BBC Reith Lectures. "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race. However, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period."
During his lecture Hawking also answered a question on whether his synthesized electronic voice had shaped his personality, perhaps allowing the introvert to become an extrovert. Replying that he had never been called an introvert before, Hawking added: "Just because I spend a lot of time thinking doesn't mean I don't like parties and getting into trouble."
During his lecture Hawking also answered a question on whether his synthesized electronic voice had shaped his personality, perhaps allowing the introvert to become an extrovert. Replying that he had never been called an introvert before, Hawking added: "Just because I spend a lot of time thinking doesn't mean I don't like parties and getting into trouble."
The guy is a brilliant theoretical physicist and a celebrity scientist, but this in no way makes him an authority in the social implications of scientific discovery.
the planet and in extension the universe is better off without human.
The problem is that humans compete with other life forms for food, light, warmth, moisture, etc. But computers need none of those things, and do best in a cool, dry, dark environment. So we should migrate our consciousnesses to silicon. AI is not the problem, it is the solution.
That's a HUGE assumption. Heck, picture a species virtually identical to us, except that they reproduce much more slowly. Their pharmaceutical and industrial revolutions would go VERY differently without the rapid population explosion we experienced as a result. In fact, we're seeing today that well-to-do nations tend to fall to roughly zero population growth (discounting immigration), so there's a fair chance their global population might stabilize at far below a billion, something easily sustainable without stressing the planet's carrying capacity, eliminating or at least greatly simplifying virtually all of the problems we've created for ourselves, from war, to pollution, global warming, etc.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
That's a HUGE assumption. Heck, picture a species virtually identical to us, except that they reproduce much more slowly. Their pharmaceutical and industrial revolutions would go VERY differently without the rapid population explosion we experienced as a result. In fact, we're seeing today that well-to-do nations tend to fall to roughly zero population growth (discounting immigration), so there's a fair chance their global population might stabilize at far below a billion, something easily sustainable without stressing the planet's carrying capacity, eliminating or at least greatly simplifying virtually all of the problems we've created for ourselves, from war, to pollution, global warming, etc.
The industrial revolution might play out even more differently that what you are imagining. Our rapid growth is one of the things that spurred the industrial revolution. A longer life cycle would make cultural changes much slower. Also, without a high demand on resources, it becomes unnecessary. Look at the native americans. They had plenty of resources for a small population and therefore didn't progress to the large seafaring boats necessary to get more resources from afar (among other things). We might not have arose at all as resource scarcity is responsible for the growth of intelligence. Even if we would have made it to the industrial revolution, with a small population it becomes much more difficult to fund billion dollar projects like the space program as it's harder to skim that much money off the top. Basically, although there are disadvantages of a large population, there are also certain advantages like the ability of everyone to donate $1 and have enough money to fund huge enterprises as well as other indirect advantages like forcing innovation in order to survive.
Galantai proposes an alternative to the Kardashev scale that focuses on survival of the species. The short version is that if we can survive the destruction of the planet we are at one level, survive solar system destruction at least another level up, without detailing the kinds of events that would make multiple star systems unlivable - there are levels above that. These are links to the Galantai scale stuff: http://www.centauri-dreams.org... http://mono.eik.bme.hu/~galant...