Imaginary time is like another direction in space.

June 17--Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist, attended the "Last Week Tonight" program at HBO, and launched a profound and meaningful dialogue with host John Oliver John Oliver ( At least Hawking's talk was profound and meaningful, and he thought that robots might be "smarter than us".

When Oliver asked Hawking what he most wanted people to understand, Hawking replied: "Imaginary time." ”

He said: "Imaginary time is like another direction in space, a hypothesis that I have not yet been used by science fiction writers in my work." ”

To tell you the truth, although all science fiction is just adding blood and sex to the work of scientists, why is it that no science fiction writer creates stories on the basis of imaginary time? "They don't understand imaginary time," Hawking said. ”

Of course, I can not pretend to understand what is imaginary time. At any rate, it is a matter of time, and it runs in a different direction than the time that erodes us every day.

What Oliver would most like to know, however, is artificial intelligence. Like many artificial products, artificial intelligence can be harmful and even fatal to humans.

Hawking is very certain: "Artificial intelligence in the not distant future may become a real danger." ”

But surely not under the control of Google's group of good boys? Hawking believes this may have nothing to do with the ideas of Google's good boys. Because the average robot can "design and improve itself so that they are smarter than all of us." ”

Oliver continued, "Why shouldn't I be excited to be able to fight a robot?" ”

Hawking's answer was simply: "You're going to lose." ”

Oliver began to worry that Hawking was not talking to him at all, and that there might be an intelligent computer asking questions. Hawking (or pretending to be Hawking's robot) replied, "You're an idiot."

But is it not human nature? Although we think we know everything, at least when we are honest with ourselves, one of the things we know best is that we are all fools. What we do not know is far more than we have done.

In fact, given that there may be many parallel universes in the world, Oliver doubts that he might be smarter than hawking in a parallel universe.

"Yes," replied Hawking, "And there is a universe where you are very interesting." ”