Quote

Some claim that computers will, by 2050, achieve human capabilities. Of course, in some respects they already have.

Martin Rees

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Martin Rees
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: June 23
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Physicist
Politician
University Teacher
Jórvík
Baron Rees of Ludlow
Martin John Rees
Baron Rees of Ludlow
OM
FRS
FREng
FMedSci
Lord Martin Rees
Professor Martin John Rees
Baron Rees of Ludlow
Achieve
Capabilities
Courses
Respects
Course
Computers
Human
Capability
Humans
Claim
Claims
Computer
Already

More quotes by Martin Rees

Image
I have no religious belief myself, but I don't think we should fight about it. In particular, I think that we should not rubbish moderate religious leaders like the Archbishop of Canterbury because I think we all agree that extreme fundamentalism is a threat, and we need all the allies we can muster against it.
Martin Rees
Image
An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand.
Martin Rees
Image
The universe is still a place of mystery and wonder.
Martin Rees
Image
There may be organic life out there, or maybe machines created by long-dead civilizations, but any signals, even if they are difficult to decode, would tell us that the concepts of logic and physics are not limited to the hardware in human skulls, and will transform our view of the universe.
Martin Rees
Image
Devastation could arise insidiously, rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. Indeed, these pressures are the prime 'threats without enemies' that confront us.
Martin Rees
Image
Crucial to science education is hands-on involvement: showing, not just telling real experiments and field trips and not just virtual reality.
Martin Rees
Image
Science isn't just for scientists - it's not just a training for careers.
Martin Rees
Image
Science is a part of culture. Indeed, it is the only truly global culture because protons and proteins are the same all over the world, and it's the one culture we can all share.
Martin Rees
Image
In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it.
Martin Rees
Image
In this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, but in new and different ways. Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, perhaps even implants into our brains - may change human beings themselves.
Martin Rees
Image
Scientists surely have a special responsibility. It is their ideas that form the basis of new technology. They should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should forgo experiments that are risky or unethical.
Martin Rees
Image
In the case of climate change, the threat is long-term and diffuse and requires broad international action for the benefit of people decades in the future. And in politics, the urgent always trumps the important, and that is what makes it a very difficult and challenging issue.
Martin Rees
Image
Scientists habitually moan that the public doesn't understand them. But they complain too much: public ignorance isn't peculiar to science. It's sad if some citizens can't tell a proton from a protein. But it's equally sad if they're ignorant of their nation's history, can't speak a second language, or can't find Venezuela or Syria on a map.
Martin Rees
Image
The important point there is that when people talk about a mean temperature rise of say two, three or four degrees that's a sort of global average which really is a signature of large scale change in climatic patterns.
Martin Rees
Image
I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.
Martin Rees
Image
The U.S., France, Germany and Canada have all responded to the financial crisis by boosting rather than cutting their science funding. The U.K. has not.
Martin Rees
Image
I'm a technological optimist in that I do believe that technology will provide solutions that will allow the world in 2050 to support 9 billion people at an acceptable standard of living. But I'm a political pessimist in that I am concerned about whether the science will be appropriately applied.
Martin Rees
Image
The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is measured. It's uncontroversial. It's going up. We know that has a tendency to warm the atmosphere and we should be worried about that.
Martin Rees
Image
I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.
Martin Rees
Image
Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity's role in nature. One thing we've learnt from astronomy is that the future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life.
Martin Rees