Among the countless prophecies about our future, the most controversial is the "Apocalypse from Hawking"
Humanity tends to come up with new apocalypses over and over again. We have survived the Millennium and 2012, and it was on these dates that the next "ends of the world" fell. But we may not survive the next millennium. At least according to the most famous scientist.
Four horsemen, four messengers of the end
Michel Nostradamus frightened our ancestors and continues to periodically frighten us with his predictions. Even five centuries later (and he lived at the beginning and middle of the 16th century), his predictions continue, albeit indirectly, but come true. And this is somewhat alarming, since among his insights into the future there is, for example, the third world war, in which, by the way, sooner or later the forces of the Western world must win.
But, on the other hand, war will become a powerful engine of progress, and in the middle of the century, mankind will defeat all diseases, build a base on the moon and land on Mars.
It happens that the predictions of the French astrologer contradict themselves. He, for example, predicted the emergence of a certain "great monarch", during whose reign there will be 57 years of peace. You can argue for a long time and attract facts. Or you can listen to people who are much more modern and no less competent. For example, British scientist Stephen Hawking argues that humanity is indeed under threat. Moreover, a global catastrophe may occur in the next millennium.
And, of course, the fault is not an alien invasion or a meteorite fall, although, according to the scientist himself, these options should not be discounted. “Although the chance of a catastrophe for the entire planet Earth in any given year can be very low, over time it increases and after thousands or several tens of thousands of years it becomes a practical inevitability,” said a professor at the University of Cambridge.
Promotional video:
But rather, humanity will dig its own grave on its own. Moreover, there are several ways of potential self-destruction. Four, to be precise. And, of course, their combinations. Moreover, Hawking considers the most likely reason for the disappearance of a technogenic factor, namely the development of artificial intelligence.
Despite the fact that the first developments in the field of artificial intelligence were very useful, its development threatens the further, if not the existence, then the development of man as a species. Firstly, because self-learning neural networks will be able to oust a person from many jobs, thereby creating an economic and social crisis. Man, limited by the rate of biological evolution, in the end will not be able to keep up with the pace of development of artificial intelligence and will be "replaced".
The problem is that sooner or later artificial intelligence can reach a completely human level of self-awareness, and in this case, from a moral point of view, it will perceive itself as the dominant species. It can even go as far as a full-scale war of robots and people, more abruptly than all Hollywood science fiction stories.
And then an interesting choice arises: continue to develop AI, but come up with many constraining factors, or generally limit the development of artificial intelligence at a certain level, but also, accordingly, its usefulness.
Such a dilemma, according to many scientists, will face humanity in the next hundred years. And at the same time, it is far from the only one that we will have to solve. There are at least three other things we mentioned above.
If there are atomic bombs, then they must be …
“One of the main shortcomings of humanity that I would like to correct is aggression,” Professor Hawking is quoted by the BBC during his lecture at the Science Museum in London. “For the cave dwellers, this had its advantages, aggression contributed to obtaining food, conquering territory or a partner for procreation, but today it threatens to destroy all of us.”
Nuclear war is the second scenario for the destruction of humanity. Moreover, it can just throw the development of civilization back a couple of millennia, or completely destroy all life on Earth.
There are supposedly nine countries in the so-called "nuclear club" today. Presumably because Israel, although it announced the presence of weapons, did not officially publish the test data. The presence of warheads in North Korea is also questionable, but the potential of the People's Democratic Republic should not be underestimated. Moreover, they conducted their tests literally ten years ago, in 2006.
However, the remaining seven powers and their warheads are quite enough to completely destroy our planet. For example, Russia has more than eight thousand of them, of which at least two and a half thousand are in a state of constant combat readiness. The United States has slightly less of them. And Great Britain, France and China have in total no less than a thousand nuclear missiles, half of which can be activated in a matter of minutes.
And that's not counting the countries that have completely got rid of nuclear weapons. Among them, by the way, Kazakhstan. As a result of the work of the Lisbon Protocol, 1400 nuclear warheads were destroyed and deactivated in our country during the period 1992-1996. Another five thousand were destroyed in Ukraine.
The total capacity of all nuclear weapons today exceeds 850 thousand kilotons. This is about … 47 thousand explosions that thundered in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Almost fifty thousand cities razed to the ground. However, after the first couple of hundred explosions on the planet, most likely, a nuclear winter will come, as a result of which all mankind and almost all species of animals and plants will die.
As another famous astrophysicist Carl Sagan said: “A nuclear arms race is like two men standing waist-deep in gasoline. One has three matches, the other has five."
We will not burn out, so we will get sick
Stephen Hawking spoke about the problem of the development of virology back in 2001. A single deadly virus that has escaped from control can almost completely destroy the human race and even most of the animals and plants. Most, and not all, because in relation to viruses, like bacteria, random mutations can sometimes cause increased resistance or even complete resistance of some individuals.
However, this still means that civilization in its modern form will disappear completely. Hawking worries that in the long run, it is biology and genetic engineering that can play a cruel trick on humanity. “To create nuclear weapons, large enterprises are needed, and genetic engineering can be done in a small laboratory. You can't keep track of every laboratory. Therefore, the danger is that, by accident or intentionally, we can create a virus that will destroy us."
However, mankind has no plans to stop the development of science in these areas. Moreover, it is here that the latest developments are most successful. The cultivation of artificial organs can in the future make a person practically immortal, and with the help of artificially grown products, people can not be afraid of hunger and wars for territories.
However, progress also has a negative side. In addition to a number of random hazards that can arise in each technological process, the very development of production capacities and technologies leads to the slow but sure death of the planet. This is, of course, about global warming. The danger here is that the rise in temperature can become self-sufficient if it has not already happened. That is, from a certain moment, the process of increasing the temperature will become irreversible. And in the future, our planet may become like Venus, the temperature on the surface of which reaches 460 degrees Celsius, and rains from sulfuric acid make up the standard for weather forecasting.
“Droughts and deforestation are causing less and less carbon dioxide to be absorbed from the atmosphere. In addition, the melting ice of the Arctic and Antarctic leads to a decrease in the level of solar energy reflected into space, which leads to further increases in temperatures,”says Hawking. According to his forecasts, if humanity does not deal with this issue in the next twenty years, the consequences may be irreversible.
We don't belong here?
What can save, if not our planet, then at least its representatives? The physicist himself proposes to develop technologies for space and preferably interstellar travel. In the short term, there is a possibility of colonizing Mars as the closest relatively habitable planet. Other options boil down to the fact that humanity will have to leave not only the Earth, but also the solar system. However, this perspective is highly controversial.
According to the latest reports from NASA, there are several potentially habitable planets at a distance of 39-40 light years from Earth. In general, by cosmic standards, it is not that far. But for a person, this means that to fly there at the speed of light, which we have not even reached close, is at least half of our life. At modern speeds, taking into account all the conventions, you can get there in 150-200 years. Agree, this is not a very realistic option yet. And the suitability of a new habitat may be relative.
That is why Professor Hawking advises to advance science as soon as possible in order to develop technologies that will help make space travel possible. Such developments may include, for example, a gravitational drive capable of reaching near-light speeds. Also, medical developments are designed to increase life expectancy to periods comparable to projects of interstellar travel.
This can also be helped by the latest research related to cryogenic suspended animation. We remind you that scientists at the University of Pittsburgh managed to enter into a state of hibernation and without consequences to get out of it laboratory mice. At the same time, there was a decrease in vital signs up to twenty times with their complete subsequent recovery. The hibernation technology could potentially be used on spacecraft to simplify the human flight procedure.
Perhaps sleeping for a couple of hundred years to colonize another star system is also a way out for humanity. Or at least for part of it. But the solution, again, is purely technocratic.
The only question is whether we will have time to escape from the planet before we have destroyed it and ourselves together with it. Hawking advises you to stop looking at your feet and start looking at the stars. Who knows, maybe we should do exactly the opposite and try to preserve the cradle of humanity? And only then can we reach the stars.
Dmitry Akmaev
