--- title: "Here’s What Experts Think of Stephen Hawking’s Posthumous Predictions About AI, Gene Hacking, and Religion" description: "## Hawking Claims" date: "2018-10-19" modified: "2018-10-19" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/experts-stephen-hawking-posthumous-predictions" categories: - "Cybersecurity" - "Future Society" - "Hacking" tags: - "george daley" - "richard socher" - "Stephen Hawking" - "the digest" --- # Here’s What Experts Think of Stephen Hawking’s Posthumous Predictions About AI, Gene Hacking, and Religion ![]() *\Image: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images\* ## Hawking Claims Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking passed away earlier this year, but his final book**,** "Brief Answers to the Big Questions**,**" only [came out this week](). In it, Hawking makes a number of bold claims about the future of gene editing, artificial intelligence**,** and even religion. Here's how experts evaluate his predictions. ## Superhuman Overlords Hawking raised eyebrows [when he claimed]() that powerful people will hack their genes to become smarter, stronger**,** and longer-lived. Eventually, he writes in his new book, the rest of us will "die out, or become unimportant." Many geneticists already see this as inevitable. Some [fear that people will use CRISPR]() to edit their genes before the technology is deemed safe, so they advocate new laws to protect non-augmented humans. "We're probably going to need new international oversight structures, so that we don't realize these dystopian 'Brave New World' examples," [said George Daley](), the dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing in 2015. ## Killer AI During his lifetime, Hawking was vocal about his fear of powerful AI. He reiterates his reservations in this book, [writing that ignoring the threat]() of super-powerful AI could be humanity's "worst mistake ever." It could destroy us with weapons "we cannot even understand," he wrote. There's some debate on this point. Many technologists, [including eccentric billionaire Elon Musk](), agree that advanced AI could pose an [existential threat to humanity](). But others play it down. "\[There's\] no reason right now to be worried about self-conscious AI algorithms that set their own goals and go crazy," Stanford machine learning lecturer Richard Socher [told ]()*Fortune.* And a [poll of AI researchers]() found that most believe it will take at least 25 years to create an AI superintelligence — so at least we have a little time to prepare. ## No Gods, No Masters Hawking also came out swinging at religion in the book. "Belief in the afterlife is just wishful thinking," [he writes](), adding that there's "no possibility" of God. Many scientists certainly agree with Hawking on this claim, though not all. A [2015 survey]() found that many researchers around the world are religious, but in most countries, scientists are by and large less religious than non-scientists. **READ MORE:** [Stephen Hawking's Final Book: 'There Is No God']() \[*Esquire*\] ***More on Stephen Hawking: [Stephen Hawking’s Most Dire Predictions for the Future]()*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()