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The best or worst thing to happen to humanity - Stephen

Hawking launches Centre for the Future of Intelligence

The best or worst thing to happen to humanity

Artificial intelligence has the power to eradicate poverty and disease

or hasten the end of human civilisation as we know it according to a
speech delivered by Professor Stephen Hawking this evening.
Speaking at the launch of the 10million Leverhulme Alongside the benefits,
Centre for the Future of Intelligence AI will also bring
(http://lcfi.ac.uk/) (CFI) in Cambridge, Professor dangers, like powerful
Hawking said the rise of AI would transform every autonomous weapons,
aspect of our lives and was a global event on a par or new ways for the
with the industrial revolution. few to oppress the
many.
CFI brings together four of the worlds leading
Stephen Hawking
universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley and
Imperial College, London) to explore the implications
of AI for human civilisation. Together, an interdisciplinary community of researchers will
work closely with policy-makers and industry investigating topics such as the regulation
of autonomous weaponry, and the implications of AI for democracy.
Success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation, said
Professor Hawking. But it could also be the last unless we learn how to avoid the
risks. Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers like powerful autonomous
weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many.

We cannot predict what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI.
Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some
of the damage done to the natural world by the last one industrialisation.

The Centre for the Future of Intelligence will initially focus on seven distinct projects in
the first three-year phase of its work, reaching out to brilliant researchers and
connecting them and their ideas to the challenges of making the best of AI. Among the
initial research topics are: Science, value and the future of intelligence; Policy and
responsible innovation; Autonomous weapons prospects for regulation and Trust and
transparency.

The Academic Director of the Centre, and Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at
Cambridge, Huw Price, said: The creation of machine intelligence is likely to be a once-
in-a-planets-lifetime event. It is a future we humans face together. Our aim is to build a
broad community with the expertise and sense of common purpose to make this future
the best it can be.

Many researchers now take seriously the possibility that intelligence equal to our own
will be created in computers within this century. Freed of biological constraints, such as
limited memory and slow biochemical processing speeds, machines may eventually
become more intelligent than we are with profound implications for us all.

AI pioneer Professor Maggie Boden (University of Sussex) sits on the Centres advisory
board and spoke at this evenings launch. She said: AI is hugely exciting. Its practical
applications can help us to tackle important social problems, as well as easing many
tasks in everyday life. And it has advanced the sciences of mind and life in fundamental
ways. But it has limitations, which present grave dangers given uncritical use. CFI aims
to pre-empt these dangers, by guiding AI development in human-friendly ways.

Recent landmarks such as self-driving cars or a computer game winning at the game of
Go, are signs of whats to come, added Professor Hawking. The rise of powerful AI will
either be the best or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know
which. The research done by this centre is crucial to the future of our civilisation and of
our species.

Transcript of Professor Hawkings speech at the launch of the Leverhulme

Centre for the Future of Intelligence, October 19, 2016

It is a great pleasure to be here today to open this new Centre. We spend a great deal
of time studying history, which, lets face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it is a
welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.

Intelligence is central to what it means to be human. Everything that our civilisation

has achieved, is a product of human intelligence, from learning to master fire, to
learning to grow food, to understanding the cosmos.
I believe there is no deep difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain
and what can be achieved by a computer. It therefore follows that computers can, in
theory, emulate human intelligence and exceed it.

Artificial intelligence research is now progressing rapidly. Recent landmarks such as

self-driving cars, or a computer winning at the game of Go, are signs of what is to
come. Enormous levels of investment are pouring into this technology. The
achievements we have seen so far will surely pale against what the coming decades will
bring.

The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge. We cannot predict what we
might achieve, when our own minds are amplified by AI. Perhaps with the tools of this
new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the
natural world by the last one industrialisation. And surely we will aim to finally
eradicate disease and poverty. Every aspect of our lives will be transformed. In short,
success in creating AI, could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation.

But it could also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. Alongside the
benefits, AI will also bring dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for
the few to oppress the many. It will bring great disruption to our economy. And in the
future, AI could develop a will of its own a will that is in conflict with ours.

In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing, ever to
happen to humanity. We do not yet know which. That is why in 2014, I and a few
others called for more research to be done in this area. I am very glad that someone
was listening to me!

The research done by this centre is crucial to the future of our civilisation and of our
species. I wish you the best of luck!

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
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Rodrigo Possa Bertazzo 7 months ago

I work with Hybrid Artificial Neural Networks in Quantitative Animal Genetic Improvement since
2003. My doctorate is in Animal Science from the University of So Paulo (USP), Brazil. Last week,
predicting time series of complex transfer functions of 2 million animal phenotypes and about 15
pasture bromatological variables, 11 climatic variables, 3 nutritional variables and 4 soil chemical
variables in data collected from 1980 to 2015 of cattle . I concludes that we can select animals for
specific environments of animal production, such as the phenotype being the complex temporal
function of the effects generated with the environments of animal production. The learning of
machines with recurrent simulative recursions in my C ++ algorithms seems increasingly accurate
in predicting the series of events. The decomposition of parts of the components of genetic
variation quoted by Falconer (1975) and its evolution to mixed models Handerson (ME), Van Vleck
and Boldman (1991/1995) are outdated. The era of machines on quantitative genetics and their
interactions genotypes x environments began, and Brazil, incredible as it may seem, will write its
name in The Theories of Evolution. I liked the text and the video. And I really admire all the
advances in AI. Congratulations.

Rodrigo Possa Bertazzo

rodrigo.bertazzo@bol.com.br
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Angela mccann 7 months ago

I have morgellons disease and believe this to be the result of GOP in our food. I am diagnosed as
dilusional as this disease is ignored by the medical community! I have suffered 11 years and am
told there is nothing wrong with me. It's is being covered up but I believe this cannot be ignored
much longer and is a threat to the human race! I have proof of this disease in photos and videos. 1
think you mr. Hawkins are one of the few scientists who have the ability to see the truth and the
courage to tell the world and help if possible find a cure and end the tremendous suffering we are
going through and made worse by the ignorance of many dr's and scientists! It changes everything
in your life and causes poverty while others get very rich and have no morals. I can send
microscopic and normal photos if anyone will take the time to look and not just throw them in the
bin.
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Published

19 Oct 2016

Image

Stephen Hawking speaking at tonight's launch

Credit: Nick Saffell

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Subjects
Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Philosophy

Politics

Democracy

Weapons

Machine Learning

Poverty
People
Stephen Cave

Huw Price

Zoubin Ghahramani

Chris Abell

Stephen Hawking

Places
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence

Centre for Research in the Arts Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH)

School of Arts and Humanities

Trinity Hall

Related organisations
Leverhulme Trust

University of California Berkeley

University of Oxford

Imperial College London

Research Horizons

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