'Artificial Intelligence Could Spell the End of the Human Race': Stephen Hawking Warns a Robotic Uprising will Spiral Out of Our Control
- Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment
- At a London event, physicist said: 'AI may spell the end of the human race'
- Professor Hawking was at an event to unveil a communication platform
- The platform has doubled Professor Hawking's typing speed and improved his productivity ten-fold
Daily Mail UK, 2 December 2014
Our desire to create helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles could bring about our demise.
Professor Stephen Hawking has again warned that humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment.
Speaking at event in London, the physicist told the BBC that:
'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.'
Professor Stephen Hawking (pictured) has again warned that humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment.Speaking at event in London, the physicist told the BBC that: 'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race'
This echoes claims he made earlier in the year when he said success in creating AI 'would be the biggest event in human history, [but] unfortunately, it might also be the last.'
He argues that developments in digital personal assistants Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of an IT arms race which 'pale against what the coming decades will bring.'
But Professor Hawking noted that other potential benefits of this technology could also be significant, with the potential to eradicate, war, disease and poverty.
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STEPHEN HAWKING'S NEW COMMUNICATION PLATFORM
Professor Stephen Hawking made today's claims at an event in London, during which he unveiled a new communications platform, designed by Intel.
The platform, called Assistive Context Aware Toolkit (ACAT) uses Professor Hawking's existing cheek sensor, which is detected by an infrared switch mounted onto his glasses.
This helps him select a character on a computer.
Software is then used to learn from Professor Hawking and predict his next words.
As a result, he types less than 20 per cent of the characters he would previously have had to type, making communication faster.
This information is sent to his existing speech synthesizer so he can communicate to others.
For example, to conduct a web search, Professor Hawking previously would have had to exit from his communication window, navigate a mouse to run the browser, navigate the mouse again to the search bar, and finally type the search text.
This new system automates these steps.
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'Looking further ahead, there are no fundamental limits to what can be achieved,' continued Professor Hawking.
'There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains.'
Professor Hawking made today's claims at an event, during which he unveiled a new communications platform, designed by Intel, that will replace his current system.
The platform called Assistive Context Aware Toolkit (ACAT) uses Professor Hawking's existing cheek sensor, which is detected by an infrared switch mounted onto his glasses.
This helps him select a character on a computer. Software from language technology experts SwiftKey is then used to learn from Professor Hawking and predict his next characters and words.
This means he can type 20 per cent fewer characters he would previously have had to type, making communication faster.
This information is sent to his existing speech synthesizer so he can communicate to others through his laptop.
For example, to conduct a web search, Professor Hawking previously had to exit from his communication window, navigate a mouse to run the browser, navigate the mouse again to the search bar and finally type the search text.
This new system automates all of these steps.
According to Intel, Professor Hawking's typing speed is twice as fast and his improvement in common tasks, such as easier, more accurate and faster browsing, editing, managing and navigating the web, emails and documents has increased ten-fold.
This echoes claims he made earlier in the year when he said AI 'would be the biggest event in human history, [but] unfortunately, it might also be the last.' He argues developments in personal assistants Siri (pictured) and Cortana are symptoms of an IT arms race that 'pale against what the coming decades will bring'
Professor Hawking made today's claims at an event in London, during which he unveiled a new communications platform (pictured) that replaces his current system. The platform called Assistive Context Aware Toolkit (ACAT) uses Professor Hawking's existing cheek sensor to help double his typing speed
Professor Hawking has a Motor Neurone Disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - a condition that has progressed over the years. This leaves him almost entirely paralysed.
'Medicine has not been able to cure me, so I rely on technology to help me communicate and live,' said Professor Hawking.
'The development of this system has the potential to improve the lives of disabled people around the world and is leading the way in terms of human interaction and the ability to overcome communication boundaries that once stood in the way.'
The platform has been three years in the making.
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ELON MUSK COMPARES AI TO 'SUMMONING THE DEMON'
Earlier this year, Elon Musk (pictured) similarly likened artificial intelligence to 'summoning the demon'.The Tesla and Space X founder previously warned that the technology could someday be more harmful than nuclear weapons
Earlier this year, Elon Musk likened artificial intelligence to 'summoning the demon'.
The Tesla and Space X founder previously warned that the technology could someday be more harmful than nuclear weapons.
And speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) AeroAstro Centennial Symposium in October, Musk described artificial intelligence as our 'biggest existential threat'.
He said: 'I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence.
'I'm increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish.
'With artificial intelligence we're summoning the demon. You know those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and … he's sure he can control the demon? Doesn't work out.'
In August, he warned that AI could to do more harm than nuclear weapons.
Tweeting a recommendation for a book by Nick Bostrom called Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies that looks at a robot uprising, he wrote:
'We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.'
In a later tweet, Musk wrote: 'Hope we're not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable.'
Mr Musk has previously claimed that a horrific 'Terminator-like' scenario could be created from research into artificial intelligence.
The 42-year-old is so worried, he is investing in AI companies, not to make money, but to keep an eye on the technology in case it gets out of hand.
In March, Mr Musk made an investment San Francisco-based AI group Vicarious, along with Mark Zuckerberg and actor Ashton Kutcher.
In October 2013, the company announced it had developed an algorithm that 'reliably' solves modern Captchas - the world's most widely used test of a machine's ability to act human.
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