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BBC TWO NOW - The Search for a New Earth

  • 11-09-2017 8:05pm
    #1
    Kuva
    Closed Accounts Posts: 870 ✭✭✭


    Planet Earth has been home to humankind for over 200,000 years, but with a population of 7.3 billion and counting and limited resources, this planet might not support us forever. Professor Stephen Hawking thinks the human species will have to populate a new planet within 100 years if it is to survive. With climate change, pollution, deforestation, pandemics and population growth, our own planet is becoming increasingly precarious.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0953y04

    100 gigafactorys is all thats needed to power the whole world, they've been delayed for decades because of big oil, all of these problems are easily fixed but the re-engineered spanish flu released to kill billions is the more likely ending/begining for us


Comments

  • #2
    ps200306
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,646 ✭✭✭ps200306


    Seems to me Professor Hawking has been engaging in increasingly wild speculation. His views on the dangers of AI seem pretty wacky too. Has he entered maudlin old age?


  • #3
    Kuva
    Closed Accounts Posts: 870 ✭✭✭Kuva


    ps200306 wrote: »
    Seems to me Professor Hawking has been engaging in increasingly wild speculation. His views on the dangers of AI seem pretty wacky too. Has he entered maudlin old age?

    Greater regulation to prevent an unstoppable intelligence explosion is the jist of what he, Musk and others have called for, they're sitting on boards looking at this stuff so they must see something.


  • #4
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,581 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    ps200306 wrote: »
    Seems to me Professor Hawking has been engaging in increasingly wild speculation. His views on the dangers of AI seem pretty wacky too. Has he entered maudlin old age?
    When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

    The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

    Arthur C. Clarke three laws.


  • #5
    AMKC
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,846 ✭✭✭✭AMKC
    Ms


    Stephen Hawking is a legend and a genius. The coolest, funniest and best scientist that has ever existed. I think he is totally right about AI and about us as a species needing to leave Earth and I hope humankind can colonise the moon and Mars in the next 50 years.

    Live long and Prosper

    Peace and long life.



  • #6
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,581 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    AMKC wrote: »
    Stephen Hawking is a legend and a genius. The coolest, funniest and best scientist that has ever existed. I think he is totally right about AI and about us as a species needing to leave Earth and I hope humankind can colonise the moon and Mars in the next 50 years.
    Nah. Not even close.

    We need to colonise asteroids.

    Escaping the bottom of one gravity well just to go to another is not a great way to explore the universe.

    Mars has water though. But so do asteroids except they have sunlight 24/7 365 and low escape velocity.


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  • #7
    ps200306
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,646 ✭✭✭ps200306


    AMKC wrote: »
    Stephen Hawking is a legend and a genius. The coolest, funniest and best scientist that has ever existed. I think he is totally right about AI and about us as a species needing to leave Earth and I hope humankind can colonise the moon and Mars in the next 50 years.

    No disrespect, but that sounds more like hero worship than a sober scientific assessment.
    Kuva wrote: »
    Greater regulation to prevent an unstoppable intelligence explosion is the jist of what he, Musk and others have called for, they're sitting on boards looking at this stuff so they must see something.

    Seems to me they are figureheads on the startup Future of Life Institute, and just signed a letter that the FLI circulated. I doubt Stephen Hawking knows more about AI than the next man -- it's just that more people will sit up and listen if Hawking says it.

    Personally, I reckon we should wait until we have at least some idea what intelligence is before we start making wild claims about artificial versions of it. I'm old enough to remember the hype and wacky claims that were made for AI over previous decades. Seems to me there is nothing fundamentally new in the field, except we have faster computers and scads more training data available online.

    In spite of advances in understanding the neural correlates of intelligence through Functional MRI and other techniques, we know next to nothing about how it works. We know the brain activates hierarchical networks of neuronal connections when we think ... but that's about it. Any resemblance of artificial "deep neural networks" to actual intelligence may or may not be entirely coincidental.


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