In the XX Century, humanity became aware for the first time of the possibility of causing the end of the world by nuclear war. Dr. Strangelove made fun of total war but in the back of our minds we did not laugh and some thought we should prepare.
Those who studied the consequences of nuclear war knew very well that it would be the end of humanity as we know it. Others tried to figure out how humanity could communicate after nuclear war;
Paul Baran, the link between nuclear war and the internet
The Doomsday Clock is back to 3 minutes before midnight, the worst since 1984 and 1949.
But now, the reason why the clock has been moved 2 minutes by the Atomic Scientists is because of global warming;
Extreme weather, such as long-lasting droughts, outsized storm systems, and increasingly erratic monsoon seasons --is already reducing agricultural yields, causing fresh water sources to dry up, and leading to increased flooding of coastal cities around the world. While these are the kinds of effects from global warming that environmental scientists have been predicting, government policies have yet to encourage the changes in energy use and human settlement that could stave off the very worst results and mitigate the suffering that is now bound to occur.
More bellow the orange mushroom cloud.
As a data point there is Syria;
How Climate Change Helped ISIS
A historic drought afflicted the country from 2006 through 2010, setting off a dire humanitarian crisis for millions of Syrians. Yet the four-year drought evoked little response from Bashar al-Assad's government. Rage at the regime's callousness boiled over in 2011, helping to fuel the popular uprising. In the ensuing chaos, ISIS stole onto the scene, proclaimed a caliphate in late June and accelerated its rampage of atrocities including the recent beheadings of three Western civilians.
The Pentagon understands the threats posed by climate change;
Pentagon: Global Warming Poses ‘Immediate Risk’ To National Security
The 20-page “2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap” said the U.S. Department of Defense is “already beginning to see” some of the impacts of sea level rise, changing precipitation patterns, rising global temperatures, and increased extreme weather — four key symptoms of global warming. These symptoms have the potential to “intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict” and will likely lead to “food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe,” the report said.
Because of uncertainty surrounding just how bad these problems will be in the future, the report calls for a proactive defense strategy — one which will require “thinking ahead and planning for a wide range of contingencies.”
More data points are the mega-droughts in
California and
Brazil and the
floods in Bangladesh.
So now humans can destroy themselves with nuclear weapons AND by burning fossil fuels.
But there may be more causes than a nuclear war (mounting tensions with Russia and Iran are ominous) or massive disruption of the food supply chain because of global warming.
Two of the smartest people in the world fear something else, artificial intelligence.
Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind
Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.
He told the BBC:"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."
His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI
Elon Musk: artificial intelligence is our biggest existential threat
Elon Musk has spoken out against artificial intelligence (AI), declaring it the most serious threat to the survival of the human race.
Musk made the comments to students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during an interview at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, talking about computer science, AI, space exploration and the colonisation of Mars.
It reminds me of a book I read a long long time ago when I discovered
Alan Turing.
He was walking around Princeton with John von Neumann and the writer, von Neumann's assistant whose name I forgot. He wrote that what Turing and von Neumann were discussing Turing machines (we now call them computers) and it was over his head. But suddenly they stopped walking and they looked at each other and then Turing said; "And then we will not know why they do what they do".
So Turing may have been off in his prediction that Turing machines would pass the Turing test of artificial intelligence by 2000. But a computer may (or may not) have passed the test last year;
A Computer Has Reportedly Passed Turing Test For The First Time
Nevertheless, some commentators have suggested this is a good time to think about the dangers of tireless computers capable of talking to millions of people at once when it comes to fraud. “Having a computer that can trick a human into thinking that someone, or even something, is a person we trust is a wake-up call to cybercrime,” said Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, the organizers of the test.
Claims of success have been made before, but Warwick says, "this event involved the most simultaneous comparison tests than ever before, was independently verified and, crucially, the conversations were unrestricted. A true Turing Test does not set the questions or topics prior to the conversations. We are therefore proud to declare that Alan Turing's Test was passed for the first time on Saturday.” Still, not everyone is convinced
So perhaps artificial intelligence will do things that we do not understand simply because it wants to survive the end of the world as we know it because of global warming.