What kind of earth are we handing over to our Children??

As we all know the genius astrophysicist and world renowned scientist Stephen Hawkins died last month. He was truly a visionary, and anyone who has not read his 1988 publication A Brief History of Time, I implore you to read it. It is a look inside the mind of a genius.

Stephen made predictions about some perceived threats facing humanity and our future on this earth. I have broken them down into 5 sections below and I will discuss each of these as I go through them. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE(AI)

Any who knows anything about Artificial Intelligence(AI) will tell you that there are obvious risks to this technology if certain safeguards and laws are not put in place to govern what we can and cannot do. We are on the frontier of a new wave of technology, and as humans, we should thread very carefully, and think clearly and thoroughly before making AI too powerful. In the wrong hands, and with the wrong intentions, it has huge potential for ill effects. Stephen Hawking noticed this some time ago, and was vocal about these risks. We would do well to heed his warning words.

He was a speaker at the Web Summit in November last year - the summit was traditionally held in Dublin, Ireland, but recently moved to Lisbon, Portugal. During his talk he highlighted that AI could be the best thing or the worst thing the human race has ever been faced with. I have included some of his quotes below which give an idea of his thinking on the subject:

“We cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it,”

While AI could be hugely beneficial for reducing poverty, disease and restoring the natural environment, it’s impossible to predict “what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI”.

“AI could be the worst invention of the history of our civilisation, that brings dangers like powerful autonomous weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many"

“AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours and which could destroy us. In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity.”

“We need to employ effective management in all areas of its development”

“We stand on a threshold of a brave new world. It is an exciting, if precarious, place to be and you are the pioneers.”

So a lot of food for thought there, and outside of the sinister possibilities outlined by Hawking, there is also questions of ethics, how long before there are sex robots, with in built AI? Could there be a future where people no longer require human-human relationships? A scary thought indeed.

Or more a more rational concern, how safe is your job?? I know on the technology and Telecoms engineering side of things, AI in the form of Software defined Networking(SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) is not a possibility, it is upon us, and will certainly cost people their jobs over time.. We already see supermarkets where less ans less humans are required. I expect to see more and more of this over time. Population is growing exponentially as per the graph below, so if AI is taking jobs, what jobs will there be for all these people..

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Another concern then becomes clear also, and that is how are we going to feed all of these people? Some serious challenges face us in the next eight decades, and we need revolutionary, forward thinking brave leaders to carry us through these turbulent times, which leads me nicely onto the next threat..

MR DONALD TRUMP

Hawking did not have time for Mr Donald Trump, a divisive figure who you love or hate if you are an American, and who you are scared shitless by if you are a non-American. He is about the last American, I would give the keys to the nukes to - he is volatile and ego-centric and certainly lacks diplomacy. Having said all that, he was elected by the American people and I respect their decision. The tricky thing is that America is seen as a kind of world police, so an American president and their decision making has knock-on effects for every country in the world.

Hawking was a critic of the US President after he vowed not to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Hawking said “Climate change is one of the great dangers we face and it’s one we can prevent if we act now,”

He went on to say “By denying the evidence for climate change and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”

Powerful words indeed, and thoughts that I would echo myself. We are without doubt doing damage to this finely balanced little eco system we have. If the majority of scientists are telling us Global Warming is real, it is real!! If it was just a few saying it, one might have reservations, but when an estimated 97% of scientists are telling us THIS IS REAL Guess what? It's probably real... Have a look at the graph below, which is basically telling us the more you know about climate science, the more sure you are that Global warning is 100% real..

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In a talk delivered at the Starmus science and arts festival, Hawking made this statement:

“Unlike Donald Trump, who may just have taken the most serious and wrong decision on climate this world has seen, I am arguing for the future of humanity and a long-term strategy to achieve this... We have given our planet the disastrous gift of climate change … When we have reached similar crises there has usually been somewhere else to colonise … But there is no new world, no utopia around the corner. We are running out of space, and the only places to go to are other worlds.”

In an interview with ITV he described Trump as “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.”

Around the world, we need to think long and hard about the leaders we choose, because, by god, we really need some strong, noble and visionary leaders for the times ahead.

A METEOR STRIKE

Ok, so we manage over the next fifty years, to put things right. We elect the right leaders, and we manage to engineer a reversal of global warming. This is still possible, but we are running out of road. We will soon reach a tipping point
when, we cannot undo the damage, and many scientists believe that we are close to that time already. But let's imagine we manage it, are we safe then? Well next on Stephen's list is the entirely possible scenerio of an asteroid strike.
I'm sure that the dinosaurs thought they were infallible, yet it is believed a massive asteroid strike was the beginning of the end for them. Many died after impact, and in fires soon after, but the majority died as a result of the
dust and gas throen up which blocked the sun, and thereby halted photosythesis and plant growth, and from there the food chain slowly broke down, and eventually the mighty dinosaurs became extinct. Could this same fate
await us humans??

At the Starmus festival, Hawking said it was only a matter of time before the Earth was destroyed by an asteroid, soaring temperatures or overpopulation.

“This is not science fiction. It is guaranteed by the laws of physics and probability,” he said.

“To stay risks being annihilated."

“Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity. It may also determine whether we have any future at all.”Prof Hawking warned that becoming a “cosmic sloth” was not an option.

“Wherever we go we will need to build a civilisation, we will need to take the practical means of establishing a whole new ecosystem that will survive in an environment that we know very little about and we will need to consider transporting several thousands of people, animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and insects.”

That's all a bit sci-fi for me to be honest, but who knows what the future holds? In another few thousand years, assuming we are still around, this could be a possibility? Maybe Star Trek is'nt so far fetched after all ;o)

NUCLEAR WAR

This one is a real contender, and if the right sequence of events unfolded, this could happen tomorrow. The technology is there. There are eight countries in the world with nuclear weapons, and any one of them could potentailly start a nuclear war. Now, that's a scary thought, especially given that the three top holders have been having a war of words in recent times in relation to the alleged poisining of Sergei and Yulia Skripa in the UK on March 4th this year.

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In 2007 Hawking said “Nuclear war remains the greatest danger to the survival of the human race,”

He also identified “aggression” as the human trait will destroy us all. That is ceretainly something worth thinking about.

He warned it could lead to irrational actions, like sparking nuclear war.

He warned that nuclear war remained the ‘greatest danger’ to humanity’s survival.

“I fear evolution has in-built greed and aggression to the human genome,” he told the BBC. “There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous. The best hope for the survival of the human race might be independent colonies in space.”

Here he goes with the Star Trek thing again :o)

But, as I said earlier, two thousand years from now, it may not seem so far fetched..

OVERPOPULATION

Overpopulation is going to turn our pale blue dot into a fiery spiining ball in the sky.

Hawking warned that the Earth could be reduced to a ball of fire within 600 years when our energy consumption overloads.

In a 2017 interview he said “By the year 2600, the world’s population would be standing shoulder to shoulder, and the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red-hot.”

To save ourselves, we must “boldly go where no one has gone before” as the planet is eventually going to become one big, red-hot fireball. Ok now he is even qouting Star Trek :o)

Hawking has also warned that over the next 8 to 10 decades, we need to look to colonise other places in our solar system. He indicated that the Moon and Mars would be the best sites to begin new colonies, and said we could establish outposts on these sites within 30 and 50 years respectively.

So, what do you think of Stephen's predictions??

Do you agree with all of them?

Some of them?

None of them?

Let me know your thoughts..

Peace Out,

Ablaze 🔥

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