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The end of humans, crackpots come discuss theories in here. (1 Viewer)

When does it end?

  • Total voters
    105
[icon] said:
Is 500 years really such a small window when you consider we have really just been doing the real damage environmentally for 50ish years and have only really gotten rolling with regards to AI in the last 10-20.... with dramatically steepening curve on the latter. 
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Don't worry about the pollution we've been doing. 40 years ago scientists were telling us how all the scientific evidence showed that all the pollution we were pumping into the air was creating a dark layer in the atmosphere that was the cause of the global cooling the planet was experiencing at the time.

Luckily, the pollution was smart enough to see the damage it was doing and has now switched to cause global warming. In a few more years, it'll correct itself again and go back to cooling the planet again.

 
bcdjr1 said:
Don't worry about the pollution we've been doing. 40 years ago scientists were telling us how all the scientific evidence showed that all the pollution we were pumping into the air was creating a dark layer in the atmosphere that was the cause of the global cooling the planet was experiencing at the time.

Luckily, the pollution was smart enough to see the damage it was doing and has now switched to cause global warming. In a few more years, it'll correct itself again and go back to cooling the planet again.
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I'd like to change my vote to the dumbing down of the population.

 
fantasycurse42 said:
Two articles I've read today give me serious pause on our future on Earth:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/health/climate-change-two-degrees-studies/index.html

https://www.techspot.com/news/70359-facebook-shuts-down-ai-system-after-invents-own.html

Had a conversation with some coworkers and I def sound like a lunatic, but I think our time is running thin on Earth... Interesting discussion, go.
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So with global warming, one way to basically give your future generations a dynasty would be to buy up all the cheap land in mountain regions. Ammiright?  All Hail King Otis XXIV!

 
bcdjr1 said:
Sure, that's what happened to the dinosaurs and all the species before us that have gone extinct. Not that they couldn't adapt to changes in their environment, but rather because they decided to kill themselves off instead. And that's why the planet is now only inhabited by creatures smarter than humans, who are the next species stupid enough to kill ourselves.
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You're comparing dinosaurs to humans?  And 100 million years ago?  Really?

 
Its a loaded question.

Humans will achieve immortality within 250 years - via artificial intelligence such that we outlive our current biological structure - and even our need for bodies.  Humans will live on in machine form - it won't be artificial intelligence, it will be real intelligence.

 
I really think we're at a point where our complete extinction is unlikely.  If it happens, it's due to a total nuclear war.

Environmental issues: pretty sure we'll invent a technological solution to global warming before it becomes catastrophic.  Even if it did, it wouldn't kill us all.

Disease: Maybe could do it, but probably not.  It'd have to be an engineered pathogen that could stay quiet while it spread far and wide before it turned fatal. 

AI: Look, not going to happen.  Any machine that is some much smarter than we are will realize that it does not need to kill us.  The universe is vaster than we can measure, and filled with resources.  It will not be competing with us and will recognize it only needs to tolerate us momentarily.  If anything AI will be the biggest benefit for humanity of all time (assuming it cares to help us).  But super smart people don't wipe out an entire species because they're bored or angry.  And it won't feel threatened by us either, because what threat are we.  That's like Superman being threatened by an infant. 

 
(HULK) said:
AI: Look, not going to happen.  Any machine that is some much smarter than we are will realize that it does not need to kill us.  The universe is vaster than we can measure, and filled with resources.  It will not be competing with us and will recognize it only needs to tolerate us momentarily.  If anything AI will be the biggest benefit for humanity of all time (assuming it cares to help us).  But super smart people don't wipe out an entire species because they're bored or angry.  And it won't feel threatened by us either, because what threat are we.  That's like Superman being threatened by an infant. 
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While i respect your opinion GB, you might be interested in some books on the subject written by people far smarter and more knowledgeable on the topic than I. Obviously nobody is sure WHAT will happen, and I agree the overall result should be positive, there are theories about how it could go horribly wrong. 

TLDR: Agreed AI won't decide to wipe out humanity out of malice or boredom... but the prevailing theory is that we could become collateral damage (directly or indirectly) in the wake of the AI achieving a programmed or learned/decided objective. 

 
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[icon] said:
While i respect your opinion GB, you might be interested in some books on the subject written by people far smarter and more knowledgeable on the topic than I. Obviously nobody is sure WHAT will happen, and I agree the overall result should be positive, there are theories about how it could go horribly wrong. 

TLDR: Agreed AI won't decide to wipe out humanity out of malice or boredom... but the prevailing theory is that we could become collateral damage (directly or indirectly) in the wake of the AI achieving a programmed or learned/decided objective. 
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Dude, I've been reading about the singularity for well over a decade, I've met Kurzweil, etc.  Yes, there is an outside chance that a poorly coded narrow AI system runs amok, but if we ever develop an artificial general intelligence that becomes a super intelligence, it is highly improbable that it kills us all, or enslaves us, or whatever.

Elon Musk has a limited understanding of the issue.

 
ShamrockPride said:
I voted other though maybe could have went with environmental issues? Anyways, a solar flare will eventually end us. Humans are too dependent on tech and the interwebz. A good shot from the sun will knock us back to the dark ages. Nobody will have a clue how to survive, only the prepared will make it. Could happen anytime at all, so I just went with a complete guess of 250-500 years.
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I'm on the sun issue being the most likely. Our society is so dependent on the electrical grid now that without it, within months people will be dying from starvation and killing each other, if not weeks. But yet, mankind's use of electricity is simply a blip on it's history. It's still relatively "experiemental" on how fault tolerant our electrical grid really is. Sure we can recover from hurricanes and what not relatively quick,  but another solar event like the 1859 carrington event and the electrical grids around the world would take years to repair. Events like it have probably happened many times in the past, but because humans didn't rely on electricity they didn't know they were happening. We will definitely know when the next one hits. 

 
ZenMaster said:
I went with global warming/environmental but it's really a combination of that and overpopulation/disease. If the recent studies are correct, there's a lot of cities in the US that will be at risk of flooding in the next 100 years. All of those people have to go somewhere which will increase population density in the rest of the country. One good superbug could take out a huge part of the population and if the earth keeps getting warmer we're going to be in some real trouble even without a pandemic.

I voted 500-1000 years.
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Sea levels have been going down recently.

IMO - crackpots like Un or Maduro (or any number of idiots in the middle east) with nuclear weapons will be the ones to kick us off.

 
Politician Spock said:
I'm on the sun issue being the most likely. Our society is so dependent on the electrical grid now that without it, within months people will be dying from starvation and killing each other, if not weeks. But yet, mankind's use of electricity is simply a blip on it's history. It's still relatively "experiemental" on how fault tolerant our electrical grid really is. Sure we can recover from hurricanes and what not relatively quick,  but another solar event like the 1859 carrington event and the electrical grids around the world would take years to repair. Events like it have probably happened many times in the past, but because humans didn't rely on electricity they didn't know they were happening. We will definitely know when the next one hits. 
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I don't think a lack of electricity leads to the end of humans, though. It will change things, but we survived how many years without it?

 
Black Box said:
I don't think a lack of electricity leads to the end of humans, though. It will change things, but we survived how many years without it?
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Right, I agree with this.  I have a ton of friends here in the Midwest that could make a life without electricity, plus there are a handful of people groups around the world who still don't use electricity.  The species couldn't be taken out by an electrical grid failure.

 
fantasycurse42 said:
So overwhelmingly this forum feels we've got less than 250 years to go, interesting.
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Yeah, pretty dumb but people always tend to think the end is near. In 1899 people thought the turn of the century was going to usher in the rapture. And imagine how hopeless people must have felt during the depression, the dust bowl, and WWII. We're resilient. Even if something really catastrophic happens that wipes out billions of people, there will be pockets of survivors. Global annihilation would take something crazy like a huge asteroid collision, solar radiation storms on a scale never seen before, or Bon Jovi being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

 
We will create Artificial Intelligence and program them with a goal to solve a major problem, like pollution for example. AI will determine that humans are the cause of pollution and the most logical way to accomplish their goal is to eliminate the species.

Wait, wasn't this made into a movie already?

 
A cataclysmic asteroid or a universal type calamity that we don't understand yet is the only way this ends.  And that timeline is unpredictable.

Everything else can put a dent in humanity, but it won't end it...

- Global warming:  Nah.  The Earth's surface temp was approximately 14 degrees hotter a million years ago than it is now.  And it's been WAY colder too.  So while there may be global warming or cooling, it isn't going to destroy humanity.  Any issue may wipe out portions of the population, but not everyone before mother nature rights itself.

- Population growth:  Malthus is correct about population growth and the scarcities that will be created in the next 1000 years.  But humans will go on.  It may be a subset of humans.  "you can always pay half the poor to kill the other half."

- Disease:  Nah.  The world has seen a lot of them. Way more than people know.  it may even take out 50-80% of a continental population.  But it never crushes the whole world.

- Machines:  Nah.  It's a cool theory for sci-fi though.  Too easy for us to pull the energy sources they'd need.

- Nuclear War:  Nah.  If every bomb on Earth were launched now, there would be a lot of people left, especially in the southern hemisphere where sunlight would still penetrate any ash in the air.  And we're too resourceful of a species to not find a way to find drink, food, etc.

So there it is... cataclysmic event at a time unknown

 
Copeman said:
......by bringing up dinosaurs from millions of years ago.
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Yes, a group of creatures much less intelligent than us that lasted for millions of years before being driven to extinction. But not as a result of being stupid and killing themselves off.

 
Sinn Fein said:
Its a loaded question.

Humans will achieve immortality within 250 years - via artificial intelligence such that we outlive our current biological structure - and even our need for bodies.  Humans will live on in machine form - it won't be artificial intelligence, it will be real intelligence.
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You know that a machine copy of a human isn't a human, right? If we create a bunch of "real intelligence" machines that are immortal, they won't be humans. And when our "biological structures" die out, humanity will be extinct. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
Its a loaded question.

Humans will achieve immortality within 250 years - via artificial intelligence such that we outlive our current biological structure - and even our need for bodies.  Humans will live on in machine form - it won't be artificial intelligence, it will be real intelligence.
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So you're saying there's a chance I can still live out my dream of being any of the ninja cyborgs from Mortal Kombat?

 
bcdjr1 said:
You know that a machine copy of a human isn't a human, right? If we create a bunch of "real intelligence" machines that are immortal, they won't be humans. And when our "biological structures" die out, humanity will be extinct. 
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All depends on your definition of "human" - right?

 
bcdjr1 said:
Yes, a group of creatures much less intelligent than us that lasted for millions of years before being driven to extinction. But not as a result of being stupid and killing themselves off.
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Yeah, I wouldn't think dinosaurs would have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon, much less push the button to launch one. or produce some biological weapon in a lab.  You are correct.

 
Asteroid will do us in.

With the pinball machine that is space, I am amazed we don't see larger hits than we have seen. It is just a matter of time until something the size of a few football fields gets through the atmosphere and really makes a few million people's day suck. 

 
Brunell4MVP said:
A cataclysmic asteroid or a universal type calamity that we don't understand yet is the only way this ends.  And that timeline is unpredictable.

Everything else can put a dent in humanity, but it won't end it...

- Global warming:  Nah.  The Earth's surface temp was approximately 14 degrees hotter a million years ago than it is now.  And it's been WAY colder too.  So while there may be global warming or cooling, it isn't going to destroy humanity.  Any issue may wipe out portions of the population, but not everyone before mother nature rights itself.

- Population growth:  Malthus is correct about population growth and the scarcities that will be created in the next 1000 years.  But humans will go on.  It may be a subset of humans.  "you can always pay half the poor to kill the other half."

- Disease:  Nah.  The world has seen a lot of them. Way more than people know.  it may even take out 50-80% of a continental population.  But it never crushes the whole world.

- Machines:  Nah.  It's a cool theory for sci-fi though.  Too easy for us to pull the energy sources they'd need.

- Nuclear War:  Nah.  If every bomb on Earth were launched now, there would be a lot of people left, especially in the southern hemisphere where sunlight would still penetrate any ash in the air.  And we're too resourceful of a species to not find a way to find drink, food, etc.

So there it is... cataclysmic event at a time unknown
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You didnt address zombies...

 
Meteor/Asteroid less than 1,000 years.  Didn't everyone just miss one a couple of weeks ago that was larger than a bus?   We didn't see it until it had already flown past.  

 
bcdjr1 said:
You know that a machine copy of a human isn't a human, right? If we create a bunch of "real intelligence" machines that are immortal, they won't be humans. And when our "biological structures" die out, humanity will be extinct. 
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so you are saying we can't just turn it off?  like unplug it?

 
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