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Prof Stephen Hawking: AI could end human race


Still Waters

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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.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-30290540

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Good for him ... an AI robotic nurse just won't be the same ~

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Well, perhaps the new intelligent machines will need pets. Better learn to sit up and roll over.

Good boy!

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Humans are a threat to humanity. Machines would act like the tools.

There is a difference between machines and AI. AI is self thinking, self aware. Where as machines as you said are used as tools. Although humanity is one of the major things that is a threat to humanity.
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Don't worry though, we will blindly follow this path to armaggedon for the sake of progress.

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Don't worry though, we will blindly follow this path to armaggedon for the sake of progress.

This. It's what we do, (un)fortunately. It has been said that as we were preparing to detonate the first atom bomb, many scientists were afraid that it would consume the planet. In short, they didn't really know what to expect but we went ahead and tested one anyways. I think that says it all right there.

Our curious nature is what pushes man to constantly innovate, to constantly push the known limits and never stop creating. AI is such a wild-card, though. We've never made a sentient fully synthetic life form before.

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His science is wonderful, but his science fiction is terribly dated. That is one of the most overworked themes in speculative fiction.

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I'm pretty sure my old ZX Spectrum was smarter than most found lurking on the internet. I think the revolution has already begun... :o

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It already destroyed us, we just dont know yet.

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he's been a gloomy old soul lately hasn't he. "Extraterrestrials almost certainly don't exist", "Artificial intelligence could kill us all"; :(

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His science is wonderful, but his science fiction is terribly dated. That is one of the most overworked themes in speculative fiction.

Even I wrote a story about the war between the AI's and the Biological's. The AI's were winning until the Bio forces were fragmented and began attacking randomly without an overall plan. The logical AI's were then defeated, not being able to respond efficiently to illogical, random attacks. The AI Leader was found to be insane, as well.

I think there could be a threat from AI, and knowing lazy humans as I do, we may recognize the threat too late.

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And I just saw a video about a robot that was to be used to save people. It was supposed to grab 'people' before they fell into a hole, but when more than one of these 'people' were there on the edge at once, it hesitated and both fell. I don't think the AI's could really get that smart if they can't handle such a simple task.

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Well, Hawking might well be onto something. Science fiction is replete with stories and novels of AI computers and machines taking over the world. First movie I ever saw was back in 1970. It was called "Colossus, The Forbin Project". pretty scary really two supercomputers one in the old USSR and one in the US were connected and they took over the world because we'd given them control of our nuclear arsenal.

After seeing so much in the realm of Sci-fi, I can only conclude that there is a huge potential for danger, if not managed properly.

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I can't see how a machine can ever become self aware. Even AI types that can compute every outcome to a situation in a matter of a second, still isn't self conscious or ALIVE. Call it a soul, or whatever, but it's not alive and never will be. It's a machine. Although it could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

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Aware enough to pull off artificially constructed consciousness to fool even the most aware human for a specific duration of time ?

~

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Hawking seems a bit out there sometimes.

i think that people value his opinion(s) higher than others because, well, he's our generations Einstein.

Be that as it may, just because Hawking say's stuff, doesn't mean it will actually happen.

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I can't see how a machine can ever become self aware. Even AI types that can compute every outcome to a situation in a matter of a second, still isn't self conscious or ALIVE. Call it a soul, or whatever, but it's not alive and never will be. It's a machine. Although it could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

Self awareness is being able to think for itself, looking at the situation around it and making a decision that would be most logical and most effective. So I can see machines going from making decisions based on programmed variables to AI making decisions based on what is most logical. Which could lead to our demise
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I think that lack of intelligence, and the dogmatic obedience to bombastic belief systems, pose a far greater threat to our survival as a species, than any form of intelligence does.

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I think that lack of intelligence, and the dogmatic obedience to bombastic belief systems, pose a far greater threat to our survival as a species, than any form of intelligence does.

It's the other side of the sword - with growing technological abilities we need greater self control - and that has always been lacking in human nature. But hey, no worries, I hear things are better than they've ever been on planet earth. Erryting be ayree mon. :w00t:
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I can't see how a machine can ever become self aware. Even AI types that can compute every outcome to a situation in a matter of a second, still isn't self conscious or ALIVE. Call it a soul, or whatever, but it's not alive and never will be. It's a machine. Although it could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

Not by today's standards, however computers are becoming faster and more complex by the day. I have no idea when they will reach a point that they can begin to form their own purpose and with that comes consciousness. When that happens then all the other stuff comes in, self aware.......survival........procreation, and self determination. When you have all those in place then the computer is no longer a tool, it's a being that can say the most powerful word in the universe, "No".

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I think Hawking is right. I was writing a story about how all the manufacturing machines in the world were self-regulating by their own AI, supplying all the needs of humans automatically as needed. Of course, they were all communicating with each other for efficiency.

However, one AI controlled machine, who's purpose was to make paper clips, had a mental burp, and began surrepticiously to convince all the other AI machines in the world of the importance of paper clips. The result was, as all the other machines were self-adapting to manifacture any product, they all began making paper clips.

As humans, in their lazyness, had forgotton how to re-program the machines, well, in short, this was the end of the human race, as all the resorces of the planet were converted to the manufacture of this ubiquitous product.

The last human alive, desperately fighting to keep his head above the ocean of paper clips continuously rising around him, spoke the last words of humanity, which of course no one ever heard, so whatever they were could not be reported in the story.

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I respect Hawking, however I am not so sure of his "state-of-mind" as of late.

Sure, we all know that super-advanced AI could cause a problem for humans. This is not a new theoretical thought at all.

Again, I respect Hawking, but I feel that he is regressing to commonality thought.

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To succeed is to perpetuate; a life form needs to remain alive long enough to procreate. We, as humans, may cloak procreation as romance and survival as bravado, but the essence of our evolutionary success lies in a fundamental drive to survive and procreate. When the programming spawning AI effectively embraces this basic premise, we will not see the birth of a new life form?

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Perhaps this is the inevitability of evolution... from carbon-based to silicon-based. IDK.

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