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The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.
STEPHEN HAWKING, People's Daily Online, Jun. 14, 2006
The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.
STEPHEN HAWKING, Reality on the Rocks: Beyond Our Ken, 1995
I am discounting reports of UFOs. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos?
STEPHEN HAWKING, TED talk, "Asking big questions about the universe"
In the history of science we have discovered a sequence of better and better theories or models, from Plato to the classical theory of Newton to modern quantum theories. It is natural to ask: Will this sequence eventually reach an end point, an ultimate theory of the universe, that will include all forces and predict every observation we can make, or will we continue forever finding better theories, but never one that cannot be improved upon?
STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW, The Grand Design
I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.
STEPHEN HAWKING, New Scientist, Apr. 26, 2007
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
STEPHEN HAWKING, attributed, The Prism and the Rainbow
The danger is that global warming may become self-sustaining, if it has not done so already. The melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps reduces the fraction of solar energy reflected back into space, and so increases the temperature further. Climate change may kill off the Amazon and other rain forests, and so eliminate once one of the main ways in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. The rise in sea temperature may trigger the release of large quantities of carbon dioxide, trapped as hydrides on the ocean floor. Both these phenomena would increase the greenhouse effect, and so global warming further. We have to reverse global warming urgently, if we still can.
STEPHEN HAWKING, ABC News interview, Aug. 16, 2006
Computers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.
STEPHEN HAWKING, remarks at Zeitgeist 2015 conference in London
One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.
STEPHEN HAWKING, "Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence -- but are we taking AI seriously enough?", The Independent, May 1, 2014
The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or [a] partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.
STEPHEN HAWKING, "Survival of the human race depends on kindness and co-operation, says Stephen Hawking", Daily Mail, February 19, 2016
The people who actually make the advances in theoretical physics don't think in these categories that the philosophers and the historians of science subsequently invent for them.
STEPHEN HAWKING, Black Holes and Baby Universes
With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.
STEPHEN HAWKING, attributed, Inside the Mind of Stephen Hawking: Quotes from a Scientific Genius
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
STEPHEN HAWKING, "Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared of Capitalism, Not Robots", Huffington Post, October 8, 2015
Everything that civilisation has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools that AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone's list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.
STEPHEN HAWKING, The Independent, May 1, 2014
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