These days, it's easy to feel all doom and gloom about the state of the world. How could you not? Regardless, you should know that you're not alone. Believe it or not, one of the world's most celebrated scientists, Stephen Hawking, didn't have the most optimistic outlook either. So if someone with his intellectual genius was just as concerned about humanity and the longevity of our planet we are, is our species truly without hope? Whatever the case may be, these are the details of how Stephen Hawking predicted the end of the world.
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00:00Stephen Hawking made some dire predictions, not only about how the planet itself was going
00:04to end, but what was going to become of the universe, too. Spoiler, he predicted humankind
00:09was going to destroy itself long before the universe came to a screeching halt.
00:14Published just before his death in 2018, Stephen Hawking's last paper was all about what was
00:19going to happen to the universe. It was called A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?
00:24University at Buffalo professor Will Kenney says the paper is based on the existing idea
00:28of eternal inflation, or the uneven expansion of the universe. That, in turn, creates pocket
00:34universes that exist with an ever-growing space between them. University of Southern
00:38California professor Clifford Johnson explains it with an analogy.
00:42It's like you have a bath full of lots and lots and lots of different kinds of soap bubbles,
00:47and each soap bubble is a different universe.
00:49Does that mean that there is a universe out there where I am smarter than you?
00:54Yes, and also a universe where you're funny.
00:58According to cosmologist Andre Linde, that would essentially make the multiverse a real
01:02thing. But he says that Hawking and his co-author, theoretical physicist Thomas Herdog, argue
01:07in their paper that
01:08"...the end of eternal inflation may occur in a smooth way, and the variety of the possible
01:13outcomes is limited."
01:15Anyone who has seen any of the Terminator films likely harbors a healthy concern about
01:19artificial intelligence, and Stephen Hawking agreed. In 2017, he told Wired,
01:24The genie is out of the bottle. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether. If people
01:29design computer viruses, someone will design AI that replicates itself. This will be a
01:34new form of life that will outperform humans.
01:37And although it's easy to assume that we won't have to worry about Hawking's prediction for
01:40a while, the truth is, it's already come true. In November 2021, the Vice Institute at Harvard
01:47announced that a collaboration between Vice, Tufts, and the University of Vermont had created,
01:52The first ever self-replicating living robots. Called Xenobots, these tiny, hand-built robot
01:58organisms can hone in on living cells. They then gather together to collect stem cells
02:03to build new, little baby robots inside these cells. The University of Vermont's Joshua
02:08Bongard confirms,
02:10"...with the right design, they will spontaneously self-replicate."
02:14They were created with the best of intentions, but of course, that's how every apocalyptic
02:18sci-fi movie starts. Bongard says that the potential is there for the Xenobots
02:22to be deployed to do things like remove microplastics from the environment and attack cancer cells.
02:27Those are all pretty brilliant applications for a mind-blowing new technology, but will
02:31it get out of hand?
02:32"...I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human
02:38race."
02:40Stephen Hawking had some thoughts about America's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate
02:44Agreement in 2017. He told the BBC,
02:48We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action
02:52could push the Earth over the brink to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees
02:57and raining sulfuric acid.
02:59That's a pretty dismal glimpse into the future, especially since humankind would probably
03:04be wiped out long before we see it. And since Hawking spoke to the BBC, things really haven't
03:09been looking up. In 2021, the BBC reported on the results of a study from the Weizmann
03:14Institute, which found that, on average, every week, each person produces human-made
03:18mass waste greater than their own body weight. Even more upsetting? The weight of human-made
03:23stuff on our planet has surpassed the weight of naturally occurring stuff.
03:27In a Los Angeles Times piece looking ahead to 2022, they wrote that the best they were
03:32hoping for was, quote, a string of little victories. But in the face of a global pandemic,
03:37increasing greenhouse gases, record-setting wildfires and other natural disasters, and
03:42widespread misinformation, even little victories may be ambitious.
03:47Although we now live in a world where over 300 million people have died from COVID in
03:51the past couple of years, in 2017, Stephen Hawking warned that there were too many people
03:56on the planet. He told Wired,
03:57"...our Earth is becoming too small for us. Global population is increasing at an alarming
04:02rate and we are in danger of self-destructing. We need to actively pursue an alternative
04:06way of living if the human race is to survive."
04:08In 2021, though, scientists are scratching their heads about the population of the future.
04:13Currently, there are a little under 8 billion people on the planet. While researchers from
04:17the United Nations suggest that there's going to be 11 billion by the end of our century,
04:21other estimates say it's going to hover around the maximum of 9 billion. The Pew Research
04:26Center says falling fertility rates suggest that the population will essentially stop
04:30in its tracks.
04:31The idea of genetically engineered superhumans sounds a little far-fetched, but Stephen Hawking
04:36didn't think so. He even included a warning about this in his book Brief Answers to the
04:41Big Questions, which was published posthumously in 2018. In that book, he wrote,
04:46"...I am sure that during this century people will discover how to modify both intelligence
04:50and instincts such as aggression. Laws will probably be passed against genetic engineering
04:55with humans, but some people won't be able to resist the temptation to improve human
04:58characteristics such as memory, resistance to disease, and length of life."
05:04Hawking saw the result of such genetic tinkering as a massive and dangerous division between
05:08genetically engineered people and what he called unimproved humans. But while he saw
05:12it happening before the end of the century, it's actually already happened. In late 2018,
05:18Chinese biophysicist Ha Zongqi announced that he had genetically engineered twin girls,
05:22who he claimed were born with a genetic immunity to HIV. The announcement predictably sent
05:27the scientific world into a tizzy, sparking a global debate.
05:30"...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't
05:33stop to think if they should."
05:34He was sentenced to three years in prison, and his closest associates also got prison
05:38terms. But now that the advancement has been made, there's no putting the cat back in the
05:43bag.
05:44In 2016, Stephen Hawking gave the BBC's Reith Lectures, where he called out genetically
05:49engineered viruses as a possible serious contender to end the human race. Medical Daily agreed,
05:55quoting an article from the Journal of Toxicology and Environment Health, that these viruses
05:59"...possess significant unpredictability and a number of inherent harmful potential
06:03hazards."
06:04Of course, most scientists aren't engineering viruses with the intent of wiping out humanity.
06:08For example, researchers from Texas A&M wrote a 2016 piece for The Conversation about their
06:14work engineering a virus that would interfere with the way the brain's neurons create pathways
06:18to addiction. And there have been other pieces of research that have looked at engineering
06:22viruses to target and fight cancer cells, boost a person's immune system, and treat
06:26a variety of diseases. That all sounds great, but there is a catch. In 2020, Foreign Policy
06:32ran a terrifying piece on how easy it is to acquire the equipment needed to engineer viruses
06:37at home by simply ordering it online. They added,
06:40"...one technology in particular makes it almost as easy to engineer life forms as it
06:44does to edit Microsoft Word documents."
06:48Stephen Hawking didn't live to see the COVID pandemic or the rampant distrust in the scientific
06:52community that came with it. If he had, he may have said something like,
06:56"...I told you so."
06:57When he spoke to Wired way back in 2017, the world was already on an anti-science warpath.
07:03Explaining that people didn't trust it because they didn't understand it, Hawking said,
07:06"...it seems as if we are now living in a time in which science and scientists are in
07:10danger of being held in low and decreasing esteem. This could have serious consequences."
07:15He expressed similar sentiments in 2015 when he said,
07:18"...we have come to expect a steady increase in standard of living at science and technology
07:22abroad, but people distrust science because they don't understand it."
07:26And that, he went on to say, is the key that will unlock the Pandora's box of all the things
07:30that could end the world, from genetic engineering to climate change. Without a basic understanding
07:35of scientific principles and trust in scientific conclusions, bad decisions are bound to be
07:40made. Hawking had a simple fix for this, though — scientific education, especially for the
07:45younger generation.
07:46In his words,
07:47"...no one needs to have a basic understanding of science to make informed decisions about
07:51the future."
07:52While it's nice to think that in the centuries to come, humans might look at the Earth, see
07:56its problems, and come together to fix them, that's not what Stephen Hawking saw happening.
08:00In fact, he wasn't particularly optimistic about the future of Earth at all. In 2016,
08:06he gave a lecture at Cambridge University where he was pretty straightforward about
08:09what he believed, saying,
08:10"...I don't think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile
08:14planet."
08:15By the following year, Hawking halved that amount of time and set his doomsday date to
08:19the year 2600. He was speaking at the Tencent W.E. Summit when he said,
08:23"...by the year 2600, the world's population would be standing shoulder to shoulder, and
08:28the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red-hot."
08:31But Hawking's timetable got even worse after that, dropping to just 100 years. His revised
08:36timeline came after the United States pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. He saw
08:40this as such a catastrophic decision that he suggested humankind needed to work on finding
08:44a new planet to live on as soon as possible, fearing we may have squeezed all the life
08:48out of this one.
08:50Fortunately, NASA is pitching regular missions to Mars starting in the 2030s. But while that
08:55might be enough to save some of humankind, it looks like the rest of us are going to
08:59be in for a bumpy ride.