Stephen Hawking: Artificial Intelligence Could End Human Race

Stephen Hawking recently began using a speech synthesizer system that uses artificial intelligence to predict words he might use. Credit: Flickr/NASA HQ PHOTO. View full size image

The eminent British physicist Stephen Hawking warns that the development of intelligent machines could pose a major threat to humanity.

“The development of full artificial intelligence (AI) could spell the end of the human race,” Hawkingtold the BBC.

The famed scientist’s warnings about AI came in response to a question about his new voice system. Hawking has a form of the progressive neurological disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), and uses a voice synthesizer to communicate. Recently, he has been using a new system that employs artificial intelligence. Developed in part by the British company Swiftkey, the new system learns how Hawking thinks and suggests words he might want to use next, according to the BBC. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]