From past stupidity to future intelligence: Stephen Hawking speaks, not without irony, about AI at the new Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge. From his remarks:

We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it is a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.

Intelligence is central to what it means to be human. Everything that our civilisation has achieved, is a product of human intelligence, from learning to master fire, to learning to grow food, to understanding the cosmos.

I believe there is no deep difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain and what can be achieved by a computer. It therefore follows that computers can, in theory, emulate human intelligence — and exceed it.

See also the press release from Cambridge University and the article in myscience

h/t Postwaves Science group