A Brief History of the Future

 

Will we colonise the universe? Are aliens out there? Can computers outsmart us? In a unique interview, Professor Stephen Hawking, who has spent a lifetime applying his formidable intellect to the big questions, gives his predictions for the human race.

In Cambridge University’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Hawking holds the professorial chair once held by Isaac Newton. He tells us what he thinks the future has in store for the human race.

If the world population continues to grow at its present rate – doubling every 40 years – there isn’t going to be enough room for us all on Earth by the year 2600. So will we be able to spread out to other planets?

“We shall probably manage a manned or, should I say, personned, flight to Mars in the next century. But Earth is by far the most favoured planet in the solar system. Mars is small, cold and without much atmosphere, and the other planets are quite unsuitable for human beings. We either have to learn to live in space stations or travel to the next star. We won’t do that in the next century.”

Will we humans keep on changing, or will we eventually reach an ultimate level of development and knowledge?

“In the next 100 years or even in the next twenty, we may discover a complete theory of the basic laws of the universe, but there will be no limit to the complexity of biological or electronic systems we can build under these laws. By far the most complex systems we have are our own bodies. There haven’t been any significant changes in human DNA in the past 10,000 years. But soon we will be able to increase the complexity of our internal record, our DNA, without having to wait for the slow process of biological evolution. It is likely that we will be able to redesign it completely in the next 1,000 years – by increasing our brain size, for example. Of course, many will say genetic engineering on humans will be banned but I rather doubt that they will be able to prevent it. Genetic engineering on plants and animals will be allowed for economic reasons and someone is bound to try it on humans – unless we have a totalitarian world order, someone will improve humans somewhere.

“We need to become more complex if biological systems are to keep ahead of electronic ones. At the moment computers have an advantage of speed but they show no sign of intelligence. This is not surprising as our present computers are less complex than the brain of an earthworm, a species not known for its intellectual powers. But computers’ speed and complexity double every eighteen months and this will probably continue until computers have a similar complexity to the human brain.”

Will computers ever show true intelligence, whatever that might be?

“It seems to me that if very complicated chemical molecules can operate in humans to make them intelligent, then equally complicated electronic circuits can also make computers act in an intelligent way. And if they are intelligent, they can presumably design computers that have even greater intelligence and complexity.”

Will we make contact with aliens in the next millennium?

“Even if life developed in other stellar systems, the chances of catching it at a recognizably human stage are very small. Any alien life we encounter will be much more primitive or much more advanced than us. And if it is more advanced why hasn’t it spread through the galaxy and visited Earth? It could be that there is an advanced race out there which is aware of our existence but it is leaving us to stew in our own primitive juices. However, I doubt they would be so considerate to a lower life form. Some people believe that the reason we have not been contacted is that when a civilization reaches our stage of development it becomes unstable and destroys itself. But I’m an optimist. I think we have a good chance of avoiding nuclear war and Armageddon.”

 

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