No joke. Hawking (and many, many others) have gone public in their concern about combining AI drones and weapons:

"In an open letter posted online Monday, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and hundreds of other scientists warn humanity about such a dystopian military future.

Like something from a Hollywood blockbuster, the scientists caution that only a ban on autonomous weapons now can stop an arms race that could see killer robots wipe out humans tomorrow. 'If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable,' the letter says, 'and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow.'"

More at

http://m.torontosun.com/2015/07/27/stephen-hawking-fields-questions-on-artificial-intelligence-on-reddit

Edited July 28, 20159 yr by El Kabong

Very True but the Stupid MEAT HEADS in Defense will say they have to build them before terrorist countries like Russia, Syria, Iran, North Korea and China builds them.

 

Sadly humanity will be very self destructive to itself.

How do you even argue with Stephen Hawking?? The man says skynet is around the corner, you don't just take it into consideration, you f@#king burn the weapon plans on the spot.

 

If he told me the world was about to rip in half, I'd ask which side has the better view and start making arrangements.