Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that a disaster on Earth within the next thousand or ten thousand years is a ‘near certainty'. The cosmologist said that genetically engineered viruses, nuclear war and global warming all threatened to wipe out the human race in the foreseeable future.
He argued that unstoppable developments in science and technology were likely to prove the biggest danger, adding that the human race may only be able to survive in colonies on other planets in the solar system.
"Most of the threats we face come from the progress we’ve made in science and technology" Professor Stephen Hawking
“We face a number of threats: nuclear war, global warming and genetically engineered viruses," said Prof Hawking, speaking to the Radio Times ahead of his BBC Reith Lecture.
“Although the chance of a disaster on planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, becoming a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years.
“By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so it would not mean the end of the human race.
“However, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period."
Killer robots from the film Terminator
Previously Prof Hawking has spoken of the dangers of the rise of artifical intelligence and has called for global agreements to prevent robots becoming uncontrollable.
He added: “Most of the threats we face come from the progress we’ve made in science and technology. We are not going to stop making progress, or reverse it, so we must recognise the dangers and control them. I’m an optimist, and I believe we can.”
Prof Hawking was responding to a question from a schoolboy who asked whether the world was likely to end at the hand of humans, or from a natural disaster.
“Science and technology are changing our world dramatically, so it’s important to ensure that these changes are heading in the right directions," added Prof Hawking.
"In a democratic society, this means that everyone needs to have a basic understanding of science, to make informed decisions about the future.”
Hawking agrees with the Bible 100%. First come the 7 last plagues which last about 100 years, and kill all the fish in the sea and make much of the earth too hot for the survival of life, including human life. And a thousands years from now the earth will indeed be destroyed, either by ourselves or an extra-terrestrial (God). Then we will continue on "a new earth without any sea" (in all liklyhood, Mars, as Hawking says).
