Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant thinkers in science today, and it doesn’t sound like he’s too optimistic about the future of the human race.
Hawking, who has spoken previously about the potential threat of artificial intelligence, is again talking about the threat of technology wiping out mankind — only this time we would do it to ourselves with warfare.
“Since civilization began, aggression has been useful inasmuch as it has definite survival advantages,” the scientist told the The Times. “Now, however, technology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war.”
This, of course, is not a new concept, but Hawking believes he has a solution — and it’s going to be a tough pill for people to swallow.
“We need to be quicker to identify such threats and act before they get out of control,” he went on to say. “This might mean some form of world government. But that might become a tyranny. All this may sound a bit doom-laden but I am an optimist. I think the human race will rise to meet these challenges.”
A world government to protect humans from wiping each other out? Given that basically every dystopian sci-fi story involves an evil and oppressive world government, that’s probably going to be a tough sell, but Hawking says he’s optimistic that humans will come through in the end.
I vote we just put Hawking himself in charge of the world. That’d probably work out OK, right?
