WE HAVE 1,000 YEARS LEFT ON EARTH

Any longer and mass extinction awaits: Hawking

If humanity survives the rise of artificial intelligence, the ravages of climate change and the threat of nuclear terrorism in the next century, it doesn’t mean we’re home free, according to Stephen Hawking.

The renowned theoretical physicist has gone as far as providing humanity with a deadline for finding another planet to colonize: We have 1,000 years.

Remaining on Earth any longer, Hawking believes, places humanity at great risk of encountering another mass extinction.

“We must … continue to go into space for the future of humanity,” the 74-year-old Cambridge professor said this week at Oxford University Union. “I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet,” he added. Hawking told the audience that Earth’s cataclysmic end may be hastened by humankind, which will continue to devour the planet’s resources at unsustainable rates.

Though the challenges ahead are immense, Hawking said, it is a “glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics.”

“Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years, and I am happy if I have made a small contribution,” he said.

Speaking to audience members in a public Q&A session, Hawking also said that leaving the planet behind was our best hope for survival. The key, he noted, was surviving the precarious century ahead.

“Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next 1,000 or 10,000 years. By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race.”

Since 2009, NASA has been hunting for Earthlike planets with the potential for human colonization.

Researchers have discovered more than 4,600 “candidate” planets and another 2,300 or so confirmed planets, according to the agency.

While Hawking thinks technology has the capacity to ensure mankind’s survival, previous statements suggest the cosmologist is simultaneously grappling with the potential threat it poses.

“I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Hawking told the BBC in a 2014 interview.

Despite its current usefulness, he cautioned, further developing A.I. could prove a fatal mistake.

“Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it will take off on its own and redesign itself at an everincreasing rate,” Hawking warned in recent months.

“Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”