Stephen Hawking: Humans only have about 1,000 years left

a reply to: Lysergic

I'm sorry you were born too late by 400 million
years.

Google - Jaekelopterus Rhenaniae

I might have to go with George Carlin on this one. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for about 165 million years. They were quite successful, taken out only by a cataclysmic event when a meteor slammed our planet about 65 million years ago. In retrospect, homo sapiens have been around maybe 200 thousand years, though it took about 6 million years for us to evolve from our ancestors. Given what we've screwed up in just recorded history alone, I'd say there is more than a good chance we are an evolutionary dead end, a cul de sac in life formation. We just cannot seem to get past our reptilian brain and work together for the good of mankind and our environment. The sad part is, only a handful of people cause this; although if that handful were to suddenly disappear there are ample replacements willing to step in, much like the drug cartels where you kill one head and two more pop into place, a game of Whack-A-Mole that cannot be won. C'est la vie. And death.

originally posted by: tabularosa
I might have to go with George Carlin on this one. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for about 165 million years. They were quite successful, taken out only by a cataclysmic event when a meteor slammed our planet about 65 million years ago. In retrospect, homo sapiens have been around maybe 200 thousand years, though it took about 6 million years for us to evolve from our ancestors. Given what we've screwed up in just recorded history alone, I'd say there is more than a good chance we are an evolutionary dead end, a cul de sac in life formation. We just cannot seem to get past our reptilian brain and work together for the good of mankind and our environment. The sad part is, only a handful of people cause this; although if that handful were to suddenly disappear there are ample replacements willing to step in, much like the drug cartels where you kill one head and two more pop into place, a game of Whack-A-Mole that cannot be won. C'est la vie. And death.

see, everyone is protesting the extinction of mankind. but the earth will continue to spin...until the sun blows up and cremates it.

Okay, who is this guy? Is he a prophet? I think Hawking is blowing smoke. He has no more clue than you or I.

Personally, I think Hawking is right, but a thousand years is a long time, especially with the speed of technological advance, and the speed of decline of our moral and ethical stance. We are making technological advances merely to bring about greater convenience, rather than greater enhancement.

Most of the population will not survive into the future, as our planet's finite resources cannot sustain us, so I think Hawking is way off the mark, and I think we should be talking in centuries, not millennia. We have got some pretty formidable obstacles to overcome as we burden the planet with an ever expanding population. Our greatest obstacle is that of ourselves, our competing and colliding mindsets. We are still stuck in adolescence and we don't look as if we are going to push through to maturity.

Even if we make it practical to go out into our solar system, it won't be many that do so, just a few hundred at most from the advanced nations. Maybe they will carry the survival of our species into the future, or just extend it another century. The greater part of our species will die here on this planet. Right now we are in a bad way and we are already in decline, in spite of our technological prowess. To extend our species longevity, it will not have gone unrecognised that a large cull of the human race is necessary, a utilitarian act of survival pragmatism.

originally posted by: tabularosa
I might have to go with George Carlin on this one. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for about 165 million years. They were quite successful, taken out only by a cataclysmic event when a meteor slammed our planet about 65 million years ago. In retrospect, homo sapiens have been around maybe 200 thousand years, though it took about 6 million years for us to evolve from our ancestors. Given what we've screwed up in just recorded history alone, I'd say there is more than a good chance we are an evolutionary dead end, a cul de sac in life formation. We just cannot seem to get past our reptilian brain and work together for the good of mankind and our environment. The sad part is, only a handful of people cause this; although if that handful were to suddenly disappear there are ample replacements willing to step in, much like the drug cartels where you kill one head and two more pop into place, a game of Whack-A-Mole that cannot be won. C'est la vie. And death.

To be honest, dinosaurs did not have , or make weapons of mass destruction. They did not deal in tribal warfare or believe in Gods. Using dinosaurs as an example, is not a very good example.

We are a destructive race, with destructive weapons. Its only a matter of time before we blow ourselves up!

originally posted by: JuanDope
Thread closed. People have veen discussing this man for years. Please discuss on one of the EXISTING threads.





ATS Pedo Protection Program

Who are you?

You've been here 2 months and are now telling people what to do?

I like Stephen Hawking threads.

Have no interest in your PPP.

Get with the news Hawking.. we already have an off world presence..

originally posted by: DeadMoonJester
Get with the news Hawking.. we already have an off world presence..

Obviously!

Oh, wait. It's not obvious, as there is nothing but unsubstantiated babble indicating that we do.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Yeah, except all the mountains of evidence and the Nordics and the Nazis..

Unfortunate for you if you don't have cosmic level security clearance.. It's a very exclusive club I assure you.

originally posted by: Riffrafter
a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Loved the Dune novels!

Might be time for a re-read as I read them many years ago.

Thanks for the reminder!

I'm on Children right now.

I've been quoting them a bit lately and that kindled the desire to read the whole series; the original mind you, the garbage his son and Kevin J. Anderson put out is not worthy of the name. Personal opinion.

Anyway, you've piqued my interest and would like to get your thoughts to a couple of things. Maybe get you to elaborate a little non-commitally

This post for one and the next couple of mine in that thread deal with some potential applications of AI.

Is the idea that the AI might develop abilities it would then conceal from it's developers considered when tasking AIs with different assignments or runs?

For example, if it developed the ability to jump an air gap or somehow figured out quantum entanglement (I know, a huge stretch) and was able to access the internet somehow; I made particular note of the fact that this seemed to be a very high priority, keeping an AI from accessing the net unfiltered (or at all?).



Regards your example of the missile: there are special purpose AIs that perform very specific tasks and do so in a way that no human ever could due to the timescales at which such tasks need to be accomplished and these tasks are variable in a way that cannot be programmed for thus the AI is developed and 'taught' a skill set at which it excels.

Am I close?





I guess the post of mine I linked above would be considered an early attempt at psychohistory?


(since Aasimov was mentioned too)

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Regards your example of the missile: there are special purpose AIs that perform very specific tasks and do so in a way that no human ever could due to the timescales at which such tasks need to be accomplished and these tasks are variable in a way that cannot be programmed for thus the AI is developed and 'taught' a skill set at which it excels. Am I close?

You're better than close - you're on the mark.

First off, what many people don't realize is that there are a number of different "types" or branches of AI. And many of them are very different from each other. I'll focus on 2 main branches here:

1 - Expert Systems are one of the oldest and better understood disciplines within AI. Expert Systems take an awful lot of knowledge about a *very* specific subject area and utilize it to examine current situations and to make decisions regarding the best course of action based on that knowledge. They are called Expert Systems because in order to develop them properly, regardless of platform used, an awful lot of time has to be spent interviewing a known expert in that area to try and capture his knowledge in that domain as comprehensively as possible. The skills of the interviewer are crucial. Most medical diagnostic AI systems are some form of Expert System.

2 - Machine Learning. There are many sub-categories here, with perhaps the best known being neural networks. This is my area of expertise ( such as it is). In a nutshell, what a neural network attempts to accomplish is to mimic the way a human brain "thinks" with large clusters of neurons connected by axons. Each neural unit is connected with many others, and links can be enforcing or inhibitory in their effect on the activation state of connected neural units. Each individual neural unit may have a summation function which combines the values of all its inputs together. You don't "program" a neural network per se as you would an Expert System, rather you develop a model using both HW and SW, provide it a lot of input, and see if the system is able to make connections based on the data/info it is given. Failure is the order of the day here, but when you do succeed - it's amazing.

As far as an AI developing abilities on it's own and then concealing those abilities from humans - sure it's possible. But what I've found from experience is that it is far more likely that the human "operator" didn't ask the right question and/or the AI system didn't "weight" this ability any higher than other more mundane abilities - at least in our eyes. When architecting and working with an AI system the ability to ask the right questions of the system is often more important - or more revealing - than the system providing the right answers. The most sophisticated Neural Network system is one in which the AI not only thinks, but also retains a memory of the the thought process and the result and builds on this to further "evolve".

Sorry for the long-winded response. I hope you've found it helpful

Let me know if I can provide any further info or insights.

a reply to: Riffrafter

No apologies necessary, this is exactly the type of response for which I was hoping.

Regards expert systems and the reason the interviewer skills are so important. This would be because the interviewer, in determining which questions to ask, is the one who would be the limiting factor as to the performance of the ES. It is the interviewers job to ask the questions and develop the circumstances under which the decisions the ES is to be responsible for. If the interviewer does not ask the right questions or determine the correct range of responses then the ES cannot respond according to reality compared to what the interviewer encompassed. The more accurate questions/scenarios the interviewer is able to outline, the better suited the ES will be to it's task.

Not sure if I was clear in that last paragraph.

With regards to Machine Learning, this is what most people think of when they conceive of AI; this is the HAL9000 type of device. This is the area I imagine as being the furthest from accomplishing what people think of when they think of AI. The major limiting factor, I would imagine, would be context learning and the intuitive grasp the human mind has for pattern recognition. This actually relates back to Expert Systems and the skills of the interviewer has and how those play a role in the efficacy of the ES final output compared to it's design requirements.

A ML device won't know the proper questions to ask as it does not have a range of experiences from which to draw and it is limited by the information it is given. A human has not only personal experiences, but the additional learning it has received to make the types of judgements needed to ask the right questions/make the appropriate connections.

Am I rambling or what?

The most sophisticated Neural Network system is one in which the AI not only thinks, but also retains a memory of the the thought process and the result and builds on this to further "evolve".

Coming back to this real quick.

What I'm getting out of this is that there are times an AI will reason out a solution and then remember the steps it used to produce that solution. The next step would be for the machine to use the same steps to solve similar problem not related to the original thought processes. It may improvise or add on to the prior reasoning solution and in that way show transfer of learning; evolution?

originally posted by: DeadMoonJester
Yeah, except all the mountains of evidence and the Nordics and the Nazis..

That fake nonsense that some guys cooked up to show us just how cool and awesome the Nazis were? Got any real evidence?

SPAM removed by admin

That's because he's part of the agenda to chase people on to the ships for the Harvest

www.DoNotGetOnTheShips.com...

don't care what he says