By Marni Rose McFall
Copyright newsweek
A warning made about AI technology by British theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking in 2014 has grabbed attention as multiple videos made by OpenAI’s Sora 2 technology go viral online.
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” he told the BBC. “Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”
Newsweek has reached out to OpenAI and the Hawking Foundation for comment.
Why It Matters
As usage of AI becomes more mainstream, AI-generated images of public figures have become common online. A 2024 study from Google‘s DeepMind found that the creation of images, video and audio materials that looked real but were fake, was nearly twice as common as the next highest kind of generative AI tool misuse, which was falsifying information using text-based tools.
Professor Stephen Hawking addresses The Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, on November 21, 2017.
A 2023 study from the University of Waterloo in Canada found that only 61 percent of people were able to correctly identify AI-generated images, which was below the anticipated 85 percent.
With the AI revolution well underway, concerns about the technology and its impact on society are becoming louder, with individuals in a number of industries sounding the alarm on potential harms the tech may cause.
What To Know
Open AI’s “Creating images and videos in line with our policies” page says that editing images or videos that depict any real individual without their explicit consent is not permitted. When OpenAI launched the Sora2 video generator in September, the company said that it would be taking measures to block depictions of public figures.
However, according to a report from Ars Technica, creators have found a loophole in the technology that allows for the creation of videos of deceased public figures.
A quick glance at social media reflects this, inundated as it is with AI-generated videos of celebrities like Stephen Hawking, Tupac and Michael Jackson. These videos have received significant traction
Newsweek is not including any examples of AI-generated videos of Hawking in this article because of the distasteful nature of their content.
The rise of such videos has prompted a heartfelt plea from the daughter of the late actor Robin Williams, Zelda Williams. In a story shared to Instagram, she said: “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t.”
What People Are Saying
Professor Stephen Hawking, speaking to the BBC back in 2014, said: “It [AI] would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate.”
Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams, in a message shared on her Instagram said: “Please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”
What’s Next
Hawking’s foundation has yet to comment on the viral AI videos or his comments about AI resurfacing.