Hawking Sees 4 Threats that have Moved Doomsday Closer

[danshawen]

http://www.businessinsider.com/step...he-end-of-the-world-2016-1/#nuclear-warfare-1

Basically, the most imminent threats Hawking sees are:

1. Waging Nuclear Warfare
2. Continued Global Warming Trend
3. Weaponized or Unintentional Human Engineered Viruses
4. Artificial Intelligence, autonomous weapon systems in particular.

That's a pretty good roundup. Any other things we should all be worried about?

 

[danshawen]

Hawking already knows, the most important knowledge of any kind is that which is vital to the value we place on survival. Not sufficiently convinced of that? Where is your next meal coming from? Do you have enough un contaminated air / water? That could change quickly.

The questions Hawking just supplied will quickly become front and center of things you cannot safely ignore, should any one of them go bad as quickly as he is predicting. Ignorance of your contingencies will mean swift death.

A fleet of autonomous vans packed with explosives rolled into your neighborhood last night. You look out the window and one of them is parked in your driveway. Should you simply ignore it and hope it will autonomously drive away peacefully and explode somewhere else? If you try to drive away, it may actually follow you.

Hasta la vista. Welcome to the future you feared would eventually come. Hawking says this could happen before Trump's last term with Russian hacker assistance is out. Fleets of autonomous vehicles are not that far away. Could hacking them be far behind?

 

[spidergoat]

Hawking is good at physics, which doesn't mean he's good at anything else.
#4 is nonsense.

 

[billvon]

#4 is nonsense.

I disagree. We are already barely able to understand and manage the Internet. Something as simple as an AI DoS attack could cause mass turmoil and shut down commerce.

 

[spidergoat]

That means a complex system is likely to break down, not that AI is the threat.

 

[billvon]

That means a complex system is likely to break down, not that AI is the threat.

AI becomes a threat when simple actions taken with simple goals in mind can bring down a system we rely on.

 

[spidergoat]

Than the fragility of the complex system we have come to rely on is the true threat. Not that a malevolent intelligent will emerge from the internet to kill us.

 

[danshawen]

That means a complex system is likely to break down, not that AI is the threat.

AI enables both more complex systems, and also complex systems that are able to do things that were not possible before.

If a fleet of AI enabled cars exist and can autonomously drive people with disabilities where they wish to go, it's not such a big step to load them with explosives and set them off when they arrive at a target.

Failsafes to prevent that scenario need to be designed into the system before autonomous taxi services are deployed, or it will happen. Just like 9/11 happened because security evidently wasn't tight enough to prevent it. Disabling or otherwise jamming the GPS would be a good first step. Making sure control could not be restored by a passenger would be another.

 

[spidergoat]

That hardly seems like an existential threat.

 

[cluelusshusbund]

The bazaar part is Hawking thankin that ther will still be a "human" race in a thousand years... sinse long before that... humans will have fought tooth an nail for the opportunity to aquire AI which will lead to the extinction of biological humans.!!!

 

[spidergoat]

The bazaar part is Hawking thankin that ther will still be a "human" race in a thousand years... sinse long before that... humans will have fought tooth an nail for the opportunity to aquire AI which will lead to the extinction of biological humans.!!!

If anything, AI will be incorporated into the human experience and become a new avenue for human evolution. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

[billvon]

Than the fragility of the complex system we have come to rely on is the true threat. Not that a malevolent intelligent will emerge from the internet to kill us.

You're anthropomorphizing too much. Nothing about a "malevolent intelligence" trying to "kill us." Much simpler AI's with much simpler goals can cause huge problems. DoS attacks are one example; botnets can (and have) gotten out of control and attacked the wrong targets, or attacked the right target much later than their creators intended. Military systems designed to destroy foreign assets can malfunction and attack the wrong systems. And since these have enough intelligence to replicate, hide their tracks and disguise their attacks, they can be very hard to remove. The Stuxnet worm, for example, infected thousands of controllers and physically destroyed the machinery they were controlling. Picture that happening to a few nuclear power plants or the power grid in the Southwest on a hot August day.

 

[spidergoat]

That's not intelligence.

 

[billvon]

That's not intelligence.

OK. Then for you we will edit threat #4 to "Artificial intelligence-like behavior."

 

[spidergoat]

I could be wrong, perhaps it is a form of intelligence, but not unlike any computer program.

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

I am not very concerned about nuclear warfare between any 2 of the major powers. There is no telling what North Korea will do tho. Which is the fault of the USA & the Soviet Union dividing what had long been 1 nation.

A significant factor in the threat of global warming is we are doing nothing about it.

I would not be the least bit surprised if the basic premise of The Stand comes about.

The AI Hawking is talking about does not yet exist & seems a very long way off.

We do not know how imminent a threat asteroids are. It is reasonable to think a big 1 is coming someday & I suspect we are overdue. Many have passed within a million miles of us in the last 30 years. Some have come closer than Luna.

<>

 

[Write4U]

Hawking is good at physics, which doesn't mean he's good at anything else.

He understands the exponential function.

 

[Write4U]

Than the fragility of the complex system we have come to rely on is the true threat. Not that a malevolent intelligent will emerge from the internet to kill us.

But a malevolent intelligent individual could merge into the internet to kill us.

 

[Write4U]

I could be wrong, perhaps it is a form of intelligence, but not unlike any computer program.

Aren't we also? We just have a more sophisticated processor. But it also has its limitations, just like any other computing system. Our advantage is the ability for abstract thought.

For instance, there is already an information sharing system that is much superior in memory capacity and access to information than the human brain, the Internet. If phrased properly it will respond to any request to perform an action.

Add an intentional program by a malevolent programmer and you have a powerful weapon, with a reach that extends world wide.
.

 

[river]

Aren't we also? We just have a more sophisticated processor. But it also has its limitations, just like any other computing system. Our advantage is the ability for abstract thought.

For instance, there is already an information sharing system that is much superior in memory capacity and access to information than the human brain, the Internet. If phrased properly it will respond to any request to perform an action.

Add an intentional program by a malevolent programmer and you have a powerful weapon, with a reach that extends world wide.
.

Humans have become suduced by speed of information .