Stephen Hawking: Could Artificial Intelligence destroy civilization?

Man connects with Artificial Intelligence

This concept goes back to the play, R.U.R. by Karel Čapek in 1921, about robots sickened by human behavior, deciding to kill all that are on earth. And then there was Demon Seed where too much power is ceded to AI and robots begin to impregnate human beings for half-breeds. I worked closely with AI when in the junk mail industry and found the potential scary. And now physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to destroy civilization, with other experts saying there is a 50 percent chance that AI will be able to perform all human tasks better than humans in 45 years. And Ray Kurzweil, chief engineer for Google and famous futurist, says, although risky, it could be very good for mankind. Think I am way too old to worry.

In R.U.R. Robots take over and kill all humans...

In Demon Seed, robots with new found power impregnate human beings...

Stephen Hawking says AT could doom mankind...

Other experts say AI will do all our work for us...

But wait, Google's Ray Kurzweil says it won't be so bad...