America
Ask questions to Stephen Hawking on Reddit
New York, July 27
If you have questions in
your mind regarding alien life or dark matter, then you have a golden
chance to ask theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author Stephen
Hawking on the social networking site Reddit.
Dark matter is a
hypothetical kind of matter that cannot be seen with telescopes but
would account for most of the matter in the universe.
The
renowned physicist will address the issue of artificial intelligence and
other topics at his first Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) forum, web
portal CNET reported.
Typically, a Reddit AMA is live as people
throw questions at the person and he or she tries to respond as best as
possible. But the format for Hawking will differ from the usual pattern.
For Hawking's AMA, the users will have to pose the questions ahead of time, and he will answer them over the following weeks.
Specifically,
you can submit your questions from July 27 to August 4, at
reddit.com/r/science and Hawking will respond over the next few weeks.
Hawking,
who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), uses a computer
to communicate. So the delayed format will allow him the time necessary
to answer questions.
The topic uppermost on Hawking's mind and
the one he wants to discuss is artificial intelligence, specifically how
mankind needs to ensure that it doesn't get out of hand.
The
pitfalls of artificial intelligence if we allow it to expand beyond our
control has been one of key concern to the physicist.
"One can
imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing
human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing
weapons we cannot even understand," Hawking observed in an article
published in May for The Independent.
Hawking and Russian
technology entrepreneur Yuri Milner have recently launched the biggest
scientific push in the search for alien life.
The $100-billion project "Breakthrough Initiatives" will use crowdsourcing to make contact with an alien civilisation.