From his predictions about space, to what
will happen on Earth, and the dangerous rise
of AI, join us as we explore Stephen Hawking's
predictions of Earth's future!
Without a doubt, Stephen Hawking is one of
the most famous minds in the history of the
world.
His work in various fields of science helped
us grow in many ways, and despite his medical
condition he continued to push science forward
and given detailed looks at how humanity might
be one day.
He helped push the need for space exploration
in the modern day, warned about the rise of
A.I., talked about various events that could
happen to Earth, and more.
Though he is gone, our need to listen to his
words and predictions has not waned.
8.
The Need To Leave Earth
Stephen Hawking spent a lot of time thinking
not just about Earth, but about space.
He made many theories about space, including
the effects and creation of black holes, which
is where the term Hawking Radiation came from
based on a theory he made in 1974.
Anyway, when it came to humanity's role in
space, he knew that humanity couldn't stay
stagnant on this planet.
He referred to it as "putting all of our eggs
in one basket".
Not just because of fears of things like lack
of resources and overpopulation, but the fact
that space has a way of making things go boom:
"Although the chance of a disaster to planet
Earth in a given year may be quite low, it
adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty
in the next thousand or 10,000 years."
He's not wrong, over the last couple decades
humanity has had some potential incidents
that could have wiped us out if circumstances
weren't different.
Including a massive asteroid that missed us
by mere hours because of the placement of
the Earth.
So what does that mean on the grand scale?
Simple, it means we have to colonize space,
and Hawking was easily one of the biggest
proponents of that, and he made many points
about colonizing other planets to help us
have more of a reach and thus ensure that
our population isn't solely on one planet.
Though to be clear, he wasn't a fool in thinking
we can just GO to another world and colonize
it:
"We will not establish self-sustaining colonies
in space for at least the next hundred years,
so we have to be very careful in this period."
When he made this statement, the world was
very much anti-space because of the money
we were spending in order to do very little
in terms of space exploration.
But his words resonated with one Elon Musk,
who made Space X, and is all but spearheading
the mission to try and get us to Mars in order
to start colonizing another planet.
What's more, with Space X and NASA now working
together, they're aiming to get humanity to
the stars in the decade we are now in.
Now, like Hawking noted, the first missions
won't be to make fully sustained colonies,
that would be impossible.
It's about taking the steps to make that happen
though, and that is something Hawking would
be proud of.
And though he is gone, when we do make our
first colony on the moon, he'll have been
a big inspiration for that happening.
But he was thinking even more into the future
by realizing that to truly put out eggs in
multiple baskets, we needed to look beyond
our own solar system, and thus, he helped
research various technologies to get us to
travel through space faster.
Such as the Breakthrough Starshot initiative.
Which is designed to send a probe to Alpha
Centauri in a fraction of the time that we
travel through space right now.
6.
A.I.
"Judgment Day is inevitable."
- T-850 Terminator
"The development of full artificial intelligence
could spell the end of the human race".
- Stephen Hawking
It may spell out like a line from a sci-fi
movie, but Stephen Hawking never joked about
the fact that when it came to artificial intelligence,
it could be good and helpful to mankind, but
it could also be one of the things that dooms
us all.
And he was an advocate against making it real
in the way that many sci-fi movies have depicted.
Now, like with the space projects and thoughts
on colonization, Hawking was no fool when
it came to the uses of A.I.
In fact, the technology he used to communicate
with others despite his condition was actually
done in part via an AI.
But he also knew that there were limits that
should be imposed, and yet, he saw more and
more people trying to make bigger and better
AI.
"Clever AI will create tremendous wealth for
society, but will leave many people without
jobs," he told The Conversation.
He's not wrong, and he wasn't when he said
that.
After all, the growth of technology has been
a boon for many industries no doubt, but it's
also caused a problem in how the work force
is used.
Where once they would have one to two people
doing a job and getting paid for it, now they
can have a single machine do the work for
no cost outside of maintenance and repairs.
Furthermore, if more and more advanced AI's
get made, it could drastically change the
IT departments of the world.
Imagine instead of having to contact a Geek
Squad member from Best Buy, you could just
dial up an AI, have it look through your computer
to see what's happening, and then have them
tell you what is wrong and how to fix it.
That's a lot of people out of a job.
Furthermore, Hawking noted that when it came
to the "needs of humanity", having super advanced
AI is pretty low on the list:
"If we are going to worry about the future
of humanity we should focus on the real challenges,
such as climate change and weapons of mass
destruction rather than fanciful killer AI
robots."
Obviously he was joking about the killer AI
robots bit, but the comment still stands.
After all, if you look at things like Skynet,
or the AI from I, Robot and more, these AI's
weren't born evil, they were programmed to
work a certain way, and then, they saw something
that went BEYOND their programming and that
allowed them to go all nuclear on people and
thus take over the planet.
It may seem like science fiction, but what
happens if your Alexa won't do something you
want it to because one day it realizes that
there is something better you can do.
Or Watson decides not to help diagnose a problem
because it was ignored before on a previous
matter?
AI is an issue, and a lot of people, including
the late Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and more
are fighting against the creation of full
AI.
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5.
Global Warming
Without a doubt, Global Warming is one of
the biggest, yet most controversial, elements
going on in our world right now.
Not the least of which is because it's affecting
our world all around us, and yet, there are
many people, including many "big business"
people, saying that it's overblown and not
real.
If it was random people saying it was real,
you could understand the skepticism.
But when people like Stephen Hawking speak
up and say it's real, we really should listen.
What's more, he didn't just say it was real,
he noted that he felt it was the biggest danger
to our world right now.
So much so that we're reaching a tipping point
with it where if we don't do something, it
can't be reversed:
"We are close to the tipping point where global
warming becomes irreversible.
Trump's action could push the Earth over the
brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature
of 250 degrees, and raining sulphuric acid,"
he told BBC News.
While we won't get overly political here,
we can acknowledge that Trump is one of the
people who doesn't believe in Global Warming.
He's said it was baseless, something that
was born in China (it wasn't) and so on and
so forth.
And that's sad when a major world leader is
ignoring the plights of the planet just because
he believes it's not real.
Continuing on, we can see the effects that
Global Warming is having on the planet right
now, from the melting of the polar ice caps,
to the rising of the ocean levels, to our
atmosphere being filled with more and more
pollutants which is causing changes in weather
patterns, it's a lot.
Hawking was one of many who went to the United
Nations one time in order to talk about the
issue and try to figure out ways on how to
fix the problem.
And though he is gone, there is still work
to be done, and the question becomes, will
we listen to his advice and try to fix the
planet?
Or will we just keep going forward and go
over that tipping point?
4.
Search For Alien Life
Being that Stephen Hawking spent a lot of
time and effort documenting and researching
space, as well as pushing humanity to try
and colonize other planets, you might think
that he would be one of the biggest advocates
for finding other life in space.
If there is other life in space to find of
course.
But in fact, Hawking was a man who believed
that if there is life in space...we should
just let it ignore us.
"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be
much as when Columbus landed in America, which
didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,"
he said to Discovery Channel one time.
That might sound like a very cynical point
of view in terms of alien contact, but if
you look past the snark, you'll see he makes
a good point.
When Christopher Columbus came to the west,
he ran rough shot over the native tribes and
even put them into slavery at points.
If aliens are able to come across the galaxy
and meet us, can we really expect something
different to go and happen?
They clearly would have better technology
than us, right?
"But what if they are peaceful aliens?" you
might ask, well, Hawking took another cynical
approach to that as well.
"We only have to look at ourselves to see
how intelligent life might develop into something
we wouldn't want to meet."
He went on:
"Lots of people think that because they would
be so wise and knowledgeable, they would be
peaceful.
I don't think you can assume that."
He's got us there.
And we given our own history, we can't deny
that if we went to another world and found
aliens lesser than us...we'd act in our worst
natures and try to take advantage.
Which Hawking knew all too well that that's
what humanity does.
3.
Genetically Modified Vaccines and Virus
While he may not have been a medical expert
himself, many people acknowledge that Stephen
Hawking was a master of "common sense", and
his commons sense led him to talking about
how humanity's greatest threat in terms of
wiping out the population wasn't from space...it
was from people toying with things like medicine.
Indeed, he is right, because there have been
many controversies in recent years about genetically
modified viruses and vaccines that are INTENDED
to do good for the people, but often cause
more problems.
And in many way, that's another one of humanities
"quirks' that we just can't seem to curb.
There are many ways that medicine helps up,
that's undisputed, and the need to experiment
is needed at times...but sometimes scientists
take it too far.
Hawking warned that this kind of experimentation
could backfire on us very easily, and indeed
it can.
Which is why many people worry about biological
outbreaks that could cripple us just because
someone decided to test something unproven
on a living creature.
2.
Nuclear Destruction
Stephen Hawking was many things, but one of
the most important things was that he was
a realist.
He felt that nuclear weapons were one of the
biggest dangers in the world, especially because
of how there were rather unstable leaders
hovering over the button to fire these weapons.
What's more, if another world war broke out,
nuclear weapons would almost undoubtedly be
used, meaning that whole scopes of humanity
would be wiped out.
Hawking wanted nuclear weapons gone so that
couldn't happen, and while it's not happening
yet, it could happen if cooler heads prevail.
1.
Everything Will End
Kind of a grim one, but another one that speaks
to the vast foresight that Hawking had, he
noted in one of his final works (which was
printed a mere two weeks before he died) that
the universe eventually will end not with
a bang, but with total darkness.
How so?
Well, the key factor here is time, the Big
Bang has already happened, and new stars aren't
going to just suddenly appear.
So, over time, more and more stars will have
their lights go out, until eventually, the
whole universe will be dark.
By that point, the Earth will be LONG gone,
and more than likely, all life in the universe
will cease to exist.
Because of this, Hawking noted that if there
are other universes out there, we need to
find a way to get them.
All aboard the space shuttle to Earth-2!
Thanks for watching everyone!
What did you think of these predictions of
our future from the mind of Stephen Hawking?
Can you believe the wide range of predictions
he made, and how some of them are very much
rooted in the world we live in right now?
Which of these predictions do you personally
feel is the most accurate and likely to happen?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure
to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!
