Stephen Hawking has warned humanity that it is likely to be wiped off the planet within the next 100 years and we will be the one to cause our own demise.
During the BBC Reith Lectures, Professor Hawking was a harbinger of doom, saying that it was more likely that mankind will eradicate itself than from a global disaster. Hawking stated that the most likely lethal culprits could be nuclear war, global warming and genetically-engineered viruses.
Hawking has a solution to this extinction level event: get off the planet and start colonizing immediately.
“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 ten thousand years. By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race. However, 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.”
Despite being one of the world’s leading researchers in science and technology, Professor Hawking AKA Mr. Positivity has previously said that it is our own technology that will ultimately destroy us. In 2014, Hawking painted a bleak Skynet-esque scenario where artificial intelligence becomes self-aware and eliminates the human species.
“It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate,” Hawking said. “Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”
The world-renowned physicist does make some astute observations. We develop these unbelievable technologies, and unfortunately we often utilize these wondrous powers for weaponry to kill one another. All it takes is one international incident and a button can be pushed to obliterate hundreds of millions. Despite all of our amazing technological advancements, our primitive brains still have selfish, greedy and at times, evil intentions.
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” – Albert Einstein
[BBC]