Thursday, April 28, 2016

Scientist Think The Apocalypse Could Be On Its Way

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Scientist Think The Apocalypse Could Be On Its Way

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Staff in News // 0 Comments
Is the Apocalypse on its way? Some scientist are fearing the rise in artificial intelligence in man-made robots could end humanity. Other scientist fear asteroids or a meteor could wipe out life on Earth. Yet more expect a disease epidemic that could kill off of the humans on Earth.
Scientific researchers also claim fears of nuclear war, catastrophic climate change, or natural disasters such as mega volcano’s or massive earthquakes could also end all signs of human life as we know it on Earth.
Sebastian Farquhar who is the director at the Global Priorities Project, was quoted in the article telling press association reporters, “There are some things that are on the horizon, things that probably won’t happen in any one year but could happen, which could completely reshape our world and do so in a really devastating and disastrous way.”
“History teaches us that many of these things are more likely than we intuitively think.”Many of these risks are changing and growing as technologies change and grow and reshape our world. But there are also things we can do about the risks,” The article quoted Farquahar.
The article was published by the Mirror out of the United Kingdom on Thursday. The article quotes Farquahar saying, “There is really no particular reason to think that humans are the pinnacle of creation and the best thing that is possible to have in the world.”
“It seems conceivable that some AI systems might at some point in the future be able to systematically out-compete humans in a bunch of different domains and if you have a sufficiently powerful form of that kind of artificially intelligent system, then it might be the case that if its goals don’t match with what humanity’s values are then there might be some sort of adverse consequences,” Farquahar said.
“So this doesn’t depend on it becoming conscious, it doesn’t depend on it hating humanity, it is just a matter of it being powerful, its objectives being opaque or hard to determine for its creators, and it being in some sense indifferent to at least some of the things we find valuable,” the article is quoted Farquahar as saying.
“The biggest long-term threat to civilization is natural and engineered pandemics and nuclear war, according to the report. Strides have been taken to cut the number ofnuclear weapons in the world, but the rise of synthetic biology could open the door to the creation of “off the shelf” deadly viruses,” he said.
“What we want to worry about in the future though is as it becomes easier and cheaper to do a lot of these things in an almost off-the-shelf kind of way, or to order the parts for say a smallpox virus off the internet, that might start to change,” he was quoted as saying.
“We have seen that in the field of synthetic biology and genetic manipulation of small organisms or things like viruses, the cost has come down unbelievably in the last decade.”It is still too expensive to worry about rogue groups trying to use the technology, but that might not remain true,” he said.
“The report calls for the international community to improve planning for pandemics and health systems, investigate the possible risks of AI and biotechnology and continue to cut the number of nuclear weapons,” he continued.
Farquahar said, “What is really important to remember is that many of these risks don’t stop at the borders and wait patiently for their passports to be checked, they are truly global in nature.”
“This is not the sort of thing where one country can say ‘Oh well we are prepared and the rest of the world can fend for itself’. That is one of the things we saw with the Ebola crisis is how this thing spilled over national borders,” he said READ MORE
By Bart Charles Begley
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