WATCH: Stephen Hawking on Artificial Intelliegence

Physicist Stephen Hawking talked about artificial intelligence Wednesday at the grand opening of a University of Cambridge center dedicated to the future of intelligence.

Hawking heralded the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence as looking to the future for answers instead of “the history of stupidity”.

He said artificial intelligence has a lot of potential, and will continue to grow in the coming decades. There’s nothing stopping machines from thinking in the manner humans think said Hawking who is a director of University of Cambridge’s Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

However, he added there are risks to developing a technology that emulates human thinking. While AI may be used to protect the environment, it can also be used for harmful purposes such as creating, “powerful autonomous weapons”. He added it can also develop its own will that opposes ours.

Here is a transcript of the speech:

“It is a great pleasure to be here today to open this new Centre. We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let’s 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!”