World-renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking suggested there may be a need for a “world government” to protect the human race from extinction due to the rising threat of dangerous technology.
In an interview with the Times, Hawking said that since the dawn of civilization, “aggression” has been advantageous for survival. After all, he explains, “[I]t is hard-wired into our genes by Darwinian evolution.”
However, he warned that the onset of increasingly powerful weapons that can cause catastrophic loss of life in a single strike go beyond simple evolution and could threaten the human species.
“[T]echnology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war,” Hawking said. “We need to control this inherited instinct by our logic and reason.”
Hawking cautiously floated the idea of “world government” that could serve as a streamlined system of identifying and stopping threats before they happen.
“We need to be quicker to identify such threats and act before they get out of control,” he said. “This might mean some form of world government. But that might become a tyranny. All this may sound a bit doom-laden but I am an optimist. I think the human race will rise to meet these challenges.”
Hawking has warned of the danger of technology before. During a 2015 Reddit AMA (Ask me anything) forum, Hawking suggested that superintelligent artificial intelligence might wipe out the human race in much the same way a person inadvertently steps on and crushes an ant.
