BEATING THE ODDS
Black Hole is probably one of his most memorable works and many of his theories changed the way scientists understand the universe,” Dr Pichet said.
With many great scientists in the world, Prof Hawking is probably the only one who wrote many books aimed at the public. He broke the stereotype of the science book. Many said no one would buy a science book since it is far beyond the comprehension of most, but A Brief History of Time sold 10 million copies worldwide.
Prof Hawking attempted to combine the quantum theory and theory of gravity — an unprecedented approach. However, he achieved it. Dr Pichet said scientists are now trying to work on combining the two theories together more.
“Many Thai scientists are using Prof Hawking’s works as the starting point, especially for understanding black holes. Even though it is not something new,
Prof Hawking left us with the possibility to understand more of the issue in the future. It will take time just like many theories, but we’ll get there eventually,” Dr Pichet said.
Dr Alejandro Saiz is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Physics at Mahidol University. He is an expert on astrophysics and space physics and teaches, among other things, an introduction to General Relativity, Einstein’s theory that scientists use as the base of theories about the universe and to predict the existence of black holes. He explained the importance of Prof Hawking’s works.
“One thing that his theories give us is the peace of mind that our world is not going to be destroyed by an uncontrolled experiment in high-energy physics. Some people speculated that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, operating at higher and higher energies, might create microscopic black holes that would sink into the Earth’s core and slowly eat our planet from the inside. However, thanks to Hawking we know that such small-sized black holes would evaporate before they can do any damage; in fact the radiation signatures of that type of event are being sought for but none have been detected so far,” Dr Saiz explained.
“The currently accepted cosmological model claims that our universe came into existence less than 14 billion years ago. A common question is ‘what was there before that?’” Even though the question makes sense, it cannot be answered based on any observation. Theoretically, though, Prof Hawking was able to justify that there was nothing, not even time or space, ‘before’ that. Imagine that you manage to travel back in time to that very first moment — you would find yourself in a strange place where any direction you choose points to the future, and there is no direction pointing to the past. It is analogous to travelling to the North Pole: once you are there, there is no direction pointing north and every direction points south,” he added. Thanita Thongtan, MD, of the Department of Physiology at Mahidol University told Spectrum about the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that afflicted Prof Hawking all his life. She said ALS itself is a major challenge for physiology experts.
“It can’t be detected and it can’t be treated. No one knows where it comes from. There’s no way to check and detect it like other conditions. You will know it when you start developing it. The worst part about ALS is that there’s no way to cure it,” Dr Thanita.
Global research on reveals that the majority of people who suffer from ALS are 55 and above. They will die within a maximum of three to five years. Among 100,000 ALS patients, only two are recorded as living with the condition for more than 10 years — Prof Hawking was one of them.
“People who suffer from ALS will slowly die as the weak muscles stop working. The medication that we have can only slow down the process but can’t completely heal the patient. The condition will have no progression, only degression. The best way to deal with this condition is to be strong and not give up. Prof Hawking made the most of his life regardless of his illness,” Dr Thanita explained.
HIS LAST WARNING
Many newspapers published Prof Hawking’s warnings about artificial intelligence (AI). He cautioned scientists not to develop
AI too much, fearing that it could take over the world. It may sound like science fiction but his fear for the future of the world was based on what the possibility in the future.
Dr Pichet disagrees with Prof Hawking’s dire view, arguing that AI is here to stay and is largely a benign advancement.
“No one can stop the development of AI since it’s becoming the way for scientists to test their theories and advancement in knowledge. AI also helps makes life easier in many ways. I think what is more important is how humans design AI and the limit we place on AI. We can develop it to be a useful tool to make our lives easier,” Dr Pichet said.
“Some of Prof Hawking’s predictions were wrong. I think his prediction that AI will take over the world is another theory that he misunderstood. He even predicted that black holes don’t exist, but then again he is the one who came up with the black hole theory,” he added.
Dr Saiz explained that when Prof Hawking warned humanity about the dangers of AI, he was referring to a hypothetical time in the future when machines would become self-conscious and decide to attack humans.
“A much more likely, imminent threat is the abuse of AI technology to create deadly weapons, such as intelligent war drones, which would be programmed to make the decision to kill someone. Letting a robot be both judge and executioner of human beings, even during wartime, is a horrible thing, but that is a decision of people. That scenario should not be a reason to stop developing AI,” Dr Saiz said.
“It’s the same as with any great advance in science and technology. It is in our hands to decide how to make use of AI. For example, it may be not far in the future that AI helps detect the early stages of cancer with better accuracy than human doctors. The dangers of AI that Prof Hawking warned about are much more distant in the future. But if some day intelligent machines surpass humans in terms of progress and decide to continue developing themselves without humans’ help, it might make a difference whether those machines ‘evolved’ from the models that were designed to save human lives or those that were programmed to kill,” he added.