World affairs

For all those who were concerned about a Terminator-style apocalypse with robots killing everyone, you can relax, Hawking's got this one covered.

By Adrian Collins

Stephen Hawking has joined The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk, which looks at ways to protect us from “developments in human technology (which) may soon pose new, extinction-level risks to our species as a whole”, or in other words TERMINATOR!

As has been argued by those who examine these issues, artificial intelligence is progressing to a point that it's surpassing human ability in many fields, like chess and handwriting recognition.

The possibility that we would have to stop these robots from developing once they reach human levels of intelligence is still a way off, but as the Cambridge Project says, the fact that we don't know a huge amount about this is worrying enough.

This is a serious organisation from the University of Cambridge though, which not only looks at artificial intelligence but also other serious issues like climate change.

Hawking and Co. have got our backs on this one anyway, so no need to worry about it for the next while. Still, keep your eye out for Austrian robots asking for your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.