Hawking warns that technological progress can be “own goal” for Humanity – Daily News – Lisbon

The alert scientist to the fact that a “disaster for planet Earth” is “almost certain in the next thousand or ten thousand years,” and points colonies in space as the possibility of survival of man

Stephen Hawking warned of the risks that humanity has made for itself and for its future stating that the technological and scientific progress will create “various forms of things can go wrong “and may even mean an” own goal “of humanity against itself.

The scientist from Cambridge, 74, was the speaker this year’s BBC Reith Lectures. Your communication, centered on the theme of black holes, was presented on the 7th before 400 people at the Royal Institution in London, and will be broadcast on the 26th of January and 2 February.

Enumerating the war nuclear, global warming or genetically modified virus, which added to the dangers of artificial intelligence has previously pointed out by Hawking, the physicist warned that “a disaster for planet Earth” is “almost certain in the next thousand or ten thousand years.”

The survival of the human species reside then in the creation of colonies in space. “However, we will establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period”

If Affirming also, however, an optimist, Hawking, who at age 21 was diagnosed with degenerative motor neurone disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, added: “.. We will not stop progress, or reverse it, so we have to recognize the dangers and control them I am an optimist, I believe that we can”

The scientist answered the questions of young students when he remembered what continues to fascinate the study:. “In my perspective, it has been a glorious time to be alive and doing research in theoretical physics There’s nothing like the moment Eureka in which we discover something that nobody before knew “

In addition to this observation, Hawking warned that future generations should help the general public. – without expertise in the subject – to understand and monitor the progress of science. By evoking a democratic society, considered that “everybody needs to have a basic understanding of science to make informed decisions about the future.”

Hawking’s lecture on BBC Reith Lectures was delayed in November by physical health issues. The scientist would eventually present it on the 7th, before completing 74 years.