Installing an artificial intelligence upgrade to his speech processor hasn’t stopped Stephen Hawking from talking about the danger such technology could pose to the human race.
During an interview published by the BBC Tuesday about the joint Intel and Swiftkey upgrades to his speech AI — which will learn how Hawking thinks over time to help predict the words he wants to say — the physicist warned advancements to AI on a grander scale could eventually lead to our own extinction.
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Hawking said. “It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate.”
Hawking and other like-minded futurists in science and industrial fields, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, have stepped up warnings about the dangers of AI in recent years, explaining how the nature of machine efficiency combined with self-awareness could lead AI to decide wiping out humanity is the most viable means of unimpeded advancement and self-preservation. (RELATED: Elon Musk: Artificial Intelligence Is A Demon)
“Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded,” Hawking said.