Stephen Hawking Says Most Of Our History Is "The History Of Stupidity"

In a recent lecture at the University of Cambridge, Stephen Hawking made yet another bold statement that the creation of AI (artificial intelligence) will be "either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity". The lecture was held for the celebration of the opening of the new Leverhulme Centre of the Future of Intelligence.

During the lecture several of the best minds in the field of science will try to provide the accurate answers about the future of robots and artificial intelligence. According to Hawking, we need to do a lot more of.

Hawking said during the lecture:

We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity.

But in spite of all our time consumed looking back at past errors, we are still making the same mistakes over and over again.

Hawking explained:

So it’s a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence,

Just last year, hawking united with Elon Musk and hundreds of other researchers in signing an open letter requesting the governments to ban self-governing weapons that might one day be able to turn against human-mankind.

Hawking also said few months back:

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race

In his recent lecture, he confessed that he was still worried about "powerful autonomous weapons" and "new ways for the few to oppress the many", which come with AI.

Hawking also admitted the positive outcomes of technology. He added:

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.

Director of the Leverhulme Centre, Huw Price, said:

Machine intelligence will be one of the defining themes of our century, and the challenges of ensuring that we make good use of its opportunities are ones we all face together. At present, however, we have barely begun to consider its ramifications, good or bad.

With Google already making artificial intelligence tech that can acquire new techniques from its own memory; Elon Musk is already concerned about humans becoming the dumb "house pets" of AI in the future; and new computer systems already surpassing four-year-olds in IQ tests, it's certainly something worth thinking about sooner rather than later.

As Hawking says, it might end up being "crucial to the future of our civilisation and our species".