Stephen Hawking Quotes

It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.

Science fiction has done a really good job of scaring us into thinking that computers shouldn't get too smart, because as soon as they get really smart, they're going to take over the world and kill us, or something like that. But why would they do that?

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

Machines are on track to be on par with human intelligence in less than 15 years.

Our computers double in capability on time scales of only a few years. It's hardly outrageous to believe that we will successfully develop thinking machines within a handful of decades, or at most a century or two. If that happens, these artificial sentients will quickly leave us behind.

At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

We are still fearful, superstitious and all-too-human creatures. At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

I'm not afraid of computers taking over the world.

Two big questions that people ask me are: if we make these robots more and more human-like, will we accept them - will they need rights eventually? And the other question people ask me is, will they want to take over?

I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

I think that the development of artificial intelligence could lead to the end of the human race.

In order to be truly intelligent, computers must understand - that is probably the critical word.

I think the 'Terminator' idea is a reasonable one - that is that one day the Internet becomes self-aware and simply says that humans are in the way. After all, if you meet an ant hill and you're making a 10-lane super highway, you just pave over the ants. It's not that you don't like the ants, it's not that you hate ants; they are just in the way.

I love stories like 'The Terminator' movies and 'The Matrix,' where our machines become self-aware and turn on us.

Once we no longer have the intellectual upper hand, then we quite literally, by definition, cannot outwit our successors. So unless we are absolutely sure that the machines we are building right now are not going to eventually become our new robot overlords, prudence is called for.

If you ask people whether a computer can be smarter than a human, 99.9 percent will say that's science fiction. Actually, it's inevitable. It's guaranteed to happen.

I'm not so worried about super-intelligence and 'Terminator' scenarios. Frankly I think those are quite farfetched.

'Detroit' started based on a book called 'The Singularity is Near' by Ray Kurzweil, which is about this idea that one day there could be machines that are more intelligent than we are.

A lot of people are scared that machines will take over the world, machines will turn evil: the Hollywood 'Terminator' scenario.

As we get robots becoming more sophisticated, I think we should worry sooner rather than later on how much they could take over, but I think it'll mostly be a positive thing. In terms of deadlines it won't be any worse than nuclear weapons.

Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men.

The danger of computers becoming like humans is not as great as the danger of humans becoming like computers.

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Although we will hate and fight the machines, we will be supplanted anyway, and rightly so, for the intelligent machines to which we will give birth may, better than we, carry on the striving toward the goal of understanding and using the Universe, climbing to heights we ourselves could never aspire to.

Robots may gradually attain a degree of 'self-awareness' and consciousness of their own.