Human Stupidity: Stephen Hawking Explains, Elon Musk Agrees, Frank Zappa Expounds

Last week, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking delivered an impassioned speech at the University of Cambridge in England where he teaches. While speaking via computer voice to students and faculty at the brand-new, multi-disciplinary Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) at the esteemed university, the 74-year-old scientist said the following.

“We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it’s a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.”

Stephen Hawking remarks that history is the study of human stupidity but AI is the future of machine cleverness. https://t.co/mVFGnGOSEl

— Prof Les Carr (@lescarr) October 20, 2016

Inspired in part by the Cambridge Centre for Existential Risk (CER) and the collaborative Oxford-Cambridge Future of Life Institute, the LCFI will host a number of research projects meant to explore the potential of artificial intelligence, or AI. To date, the institute where Hawking described the history of human stupidity has received in excess of $12 million (£10 million) in grants that are earmarked for robotic and artificial intelligence studies with a focus on “intelligent” machines and how they may best serve society in coming years. Of course, there’s also a chance that humans will wind up being the servants -or even pets- of artificial intelligence. More on that weird possibility in a minute.

AI: It’s not a matter of if, but when

The Centre for Existential Risk features classes that deal specifically with potential problems such as war and climate changes that may face humanity in the not-so-distant future. It’s about time, too. According to a recent press release by the CER, artificial intelligence that rivals or even surpasses human brainpower may be developed within the century.

Stuart Russell, a collaborator on the CER project, is a top AI researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In his estimation, the development of super-smart AI could be “the biggest event in human history.” Professor Stephen Hawking agrees.

“When it (AI smarter than humans) eventually does occur, 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.”

This was not the first time Hawking made his opinion on human intelligence known. In fact, he told Larry King that humanity as a whole is likely to destroy itself due to abject greed and utter stupidity in 2010, says Sunday Express UK.

Are humans poised to become house pets for AI?

PayPal, SpaceX and SolarCity founder Elon Musk told attendees at the invitation-only Recode Code Conference this past summer that typical human intellect is so weak, we’ll probably require “neural lace” brain implants to keep up with artificial intelligence, says Science Alert magazine. Noting that Google is already developing AI software that can learn from itself, Musk said that unless we as a species ditch human stupidity and augment our intelligence drastically, we may well become the “house cats” of AI in the future. Elon also voiced similar sentiments in a rather lengthy tweet.

Creating a neural lace is the thing that really matters for humanity to achieve symbiosis with machines

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2016

How prevalent is human stupidity, anyway?

According to some of the greatest minds that ever lived, human stupidity is a renewable resource that seems to have no limits. Among the notable characters who are credited with expressing their observation that idiots are in great abundance on this small round planet are 20th century scientist Albert Einstein and American composer Frank Zappa.

Although some argue that it may be apocryphal, Einstein is attributed in The Yale Book of Quotations as saying, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” The late Frank Zappa is said to have had little patience with fools, and his take on the subject in 1989’s The Real Frank Zappa Book is equally as adept.

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”

What do you think about the trend toward artificial intelligence? Will humans keep up? Readers are welcomed to leave comments below.

[Featured Image by SIphotography/ThinkStock]