Search Search Stephen Hawking: Artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity when it gets too clever as humans will be like ants Chinese inventor Tao Xiangli modifies the circuits of his home-made robot at his house in Beijing, May 15, 2013 / REUTERS/Suzie Wong AI is likely to be ‘either the best or worst thing ever to happen to humanity,’ Hawking said, ‘so there's huge value in getting it right’ 6169789578 Click to follow The Independent Tech Stephen Hawking has warned that artificially intelligent machines could kill us because they are too clever.
 Such computers could become so competent that they kill us by accident, Hawking has warned in his first Ask Me Anything session on Reddit.
 A questioner noted that Professor Hawking’s ideas about artificial intelligence are seen as “a belief in Terminator-style ‘Evil AI’”, and asked how he would present his own beliefs.
 “The real risk with AI isn't malice but competence,” Professor Hawking said.
 “A super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren't aligned with ours, we're in trouble.
 Read more AI system found to be as clever as a child “You're probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you're in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there's an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants.
 Let's not place humanity in the position of those ants.
” Hawking said that eventually humans might become cleverer than their creators.
 Our own intelligence is no limit on that of the things we create, he said: “we evolved to be smarter than our ape-like ancestors, and Einstein was smarter than his parents”.
 Stephen Hawking reads “Relativity” By Sarah Howe If they become that clever, then we may face an “intelligence explosion”, as machines develop the ability to engineer themselves to be far more intelligent.
 That might eventually result in “machines whose intelligence exceeds ours by more than ours exceeds that of snails”, Hawking said.
 In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Boston Dynamics describes itself as 'building dynamic robots and software for human simulation'.
 It has created robots for DARPA, the US' military research company Google has been using similar technology to build self-driving cars, and has been pushing for legislation to allow them on the roads The DARPA Urban Challenge, set up by the US Department of Defense, challenges driverless cars to navigate a 60 mile course in an urban environment that simulates guerilla warfare Deep Blue, a computer created by IBM, won a match against world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
 The computer could evaluate 200 million positions per second, and Kasparov accused it of cheating after the match was finished Another computer created by IBM, Watson, beat two champions of US TV series Jeopardy at their own game in 2011 Apple's virtual assistant for iPhone, Siri, uses artificial intelligence technology to anticipate users' needs and give cheeky reactions Xbox's Kinect uses artificial intelligence to predict where players are likely to go, an track their movement more accurately Hawking said that it wasn’t clear how long such artificial intelligence would take to develop — warning that people shouldn’t trust “anyone who claims to know for sure that it will happen in your lifetime or that it won't happen in your lifetime”.
 But when it does happen, Hawking said, “it's likely to be either the best or worst thing ever to happen to humanity, so there's huge value in getting it right”.
 As such, we should “shift the goal of AI from creating pure undirected artificial intelligence to creating beneficial intelligence”.
 Read more “It might take decades to figure out how to do this, so let's start researching this today rather than the night before the first strong AI is switched on,” Hawking said.
 That echoed the warnings in the open letter about AI that Hawking’s AMA had followed — in it, experts warned that if we are lax about thinking about artificial intelligence, computers will become too clever before we even realise.
 Before the robots become so powerful that they accidentally kill us, they might end up taking our jobs.
 Asked whether the rise of artificially intelligent robots could lead to “technological employment”, Hawking warned that it would depend entirely on how the extra wealth that they create was distributed.
 “Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution,” Hawking said.
 “So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
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