Stephen Hawking warns that significant advances in science and technology will pose a major threat to our existence before humanity is the most dangerous of the ages.

The chances of a catastrophe on earth over thousands of years are almost one hundred percent. The astrophysicist claims that this can happen over a period of one thousand to 10 thousand. years. The only possible solution to survive would be to establish colonies on other planets, but this would take more than 100 years.

"We have to be very careful"

There will be no independent colonies in space for at least 100 years, so we must be very careful during this time, says Hawking.

Astrophysics' beliefs appear to have been confirmed by Astronomer Royal Martin Rees. In his book, he proclaims us to self-destruct since 2003 - Our Final Century.

Progress will kill us

Among the threats we face, along with the progress of science and technology, the scientist named, among other things, nuclear weapons, genetically modified viruses and global warming. According to Hawking, we are facing artificial intelligence. In his opinion, we must avoid a situation in which robots cease to be controlled.

Most of the threats we face stem from the progress we have made in science and technology. We won't stop progress, so we need to be aware of the danger and control it, says Hawking.

The Cambridge University astrophysicist, who recently turned 74, learned at the age of 21 that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A rare, slowly progressive disease that left most of his body paralyzed. He had to live another 2-3 years, where the disease completely deprived him of motivation. However, from the point of view of time, he says that he was happy. And disability was not an obstacle in his scientific field - theoretical physics. For 30 years, Hawking held the Lucas Chair at Cambridge University, once occupied by Isaac Newton himself. This is one of the most prestigious academic positions in England.

There are many ideas about how humanity will perish. There are a lot of theories about the end of the world, one of them is that we will be “swallowed” by the Sun.

According to a team of philosophers, mathematicians and scientists from Oxford Future of Humanity University, there is growing evidence that our dependence on technology could spell the end of the human race.

The media are actively discussing a whole range of possible disasters that could destroy humanity, but the most “popular” threats, including asteroid impacts, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, are unlikely to destroy the planet’s population in the near future.

This is the opinion of Nick Bostrom, a philosopher and director of the University of the Future of Humanity, who, together with his colleagues, is trying to determine the real causes of death.

According to Bostrom, at the moment there is a real technological race between countries, so people will have to become wise enough to use innovation only for good.

Added to well-known threats such as nuclear holocaust are rapidly evolving technologies, including machine intelligence and nanoscale systems, that present both unprecedented opportunities and risks.

The technology for producing destructive nanobots looks much simpler than creating effective protection against such attacks. Therefore, it may well be necessary to go through a period of vulnerability when these technologies cannot be allowed to fall into the “wrong” hands.

Let us not forget that humanity still faces the threat of nuclear holocaust. Despite the ongoing nuclear disarmament, future races in this area cannot be ruled out. And this could lead to the creation of arsenals many times larger than those created during the Cold War.

There is also the possibility of creating poorly programmed artificial intelligence. Sooner or later, such technology will appear, but if scientists make a mistake in their calculations, then the intellectual superiority of machines will allow them to completely destroy humanity.

Genetic experiments pose another danger. The development of genetic technologies currently taking place could allow any “evil genius” to develop a “doomsday virus.” Moreover, dangerous viruses can appear accidentally as part of laboratory experiments and begin to spread throughout the planet.

Another potential threat that environmentalists talk about is the destruction of ecosystems and resource depletion. The natural resources necessary for the existence of a high-tech civilization are rapidly disappearing. Therefore, if something, such as a cataclysm, destroys the technology we have, it will be very difficult to achieve the current level of progress again.

The deliberate abuse of nanotechnology can be a direct path to death. Advances in science will make it possible to create self-replicating robots the size of bacteria that can be used against people.

Does the development of science threaten human civilization?

Books predicting the death of humanity appear quite often.

In 2003, one of these books was published in the UK - the book by the English scientist Martin Rees “Our Last Hour”. In it, a 60-year-old scientist warns about the most important threats to humanity in the 21st century. These include nuclear terrorism, artificially created deadly viruses and genetic engineering that can change human character.

The author is a professor at the University of Cambridge, a leading expert in such areas as the physics of black holes and the problem of the origin and evolution of the Universe. In addition, Martin Rees is known in the scientific community as a specialist who has never had a penchant for loud public statements that could sow fear.

And it is he who voices the idea that if humanity wants to prevent monstrous man-made disasters that could claim millions and even billions of lives this century, then it, humanity, needs to consider the possibility of limiting scientific research in a number of specific areas.

Biotechnology, computer technology and nanotechnology are becoming increasingly complex and becoming more widespread. Insufficiently deliberate actions or even the malicious intent of scientists or one scientist can lead to the death of our civilization. Do we have a chance to survive? “I think that the current civilization on Earth has no better than a fifty-fifty chance of surviving until the end of this century,” says Martin Rees.

What can speed up the approach of disaster? For example, humans will soon be able to create subminiature self-reproducing robots. They will run out of control and destroy everything on our planet in search of the materials they need to reproduce. Or another example. In one of the experiments, physicists will create, either accidentally or on purpose, a black hole or “gaps” in the space-time continuum, which will again lead to the death of the planet.

According to the scientist, now in science, no decision to conduct an experiment that could lead to catastrophic consequences should be made until the population of the planet or a representative part of it comes to the conclusion that the level of risk lies below a threshold value that satisfies everyone.

But how close to zero does the risk have to be for this type of experiment to be allowed to proceed? Is it really that serious?

Let us recall a project that has caused numerous controversies. At Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island (USA), using a particle accelerator, physicists are trying to obtain quark-gluon plasma - a very hot and dense “soup” of subatomic particles that arose 13.7 billion years ago - just after the Big Bang. which gave rise to our Universe. This experiment creates a very high concentration of energy. Here is one of the options for the further development of the event: a small black hole is formed, which draws everything around into itself and destroys the planet. Of course, the experiment's proponents provided calculations showing that nothing like that would happen. In addition, there are independent estimates showing that such levels of energy concentration arise naturally in outer space through the interaction of cosmic ray particles - and cataclysms on a universal scale do not occur. Martin Rees agrees that a catastrophe is very, very unlikely. But, nevertheless, he warns that one cannot be one hundred percent sure of what can actually happen when conducting such an experiment. Is it worth putting the planet and the people living on it at risk, even if the chances of such a cosmic catastrophe occurring are extremely low? Some estimates put it at one in 50 million.

In 2008, construction was completed on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an accelerator of charged particles using colliding beams, designed to accelerate protons and heavy ions (lead ions) and study the products of their collisions. The collider was built at the research center of the European Council for Nuclear Research, on the border of Switzerland and France, near Geneva. As of 2008, the LHC is the largest experimental facility in the world.

At the beginning of the 20th century, two fundamental theories appeared in physics - Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity (GTR), which describes the Universe at the macro level, and quantum field theory, which describes the Universe at the micro level. The problem is that these theories are incompatible with each other. For example, to adequately describe what happens in black holes (a region in spacetime whose gravitational attraction is so strong that even objects moving at the speed of light cannot leave it), both theories are needed, and they come into conflict. The LHC will allow experiments that were previously impossible to conduct and will likely confirm or refute some of these theories. At the LHC, physicists want to capture the Higgs boson, also called the “God particle.” All modern theories of the origin of the universe are based on the theoretical justification of its existence. If the “God particle” is not found, all the laws carefully deduced by physicists will turn out to be just incorrect hypotheses.

The LHC will be the most high-energy particle accelerator in the world, exceeding the energy of its closest competitors by an order of magnitude.

The collider was officially launched on September 10, 2008. After an accident in the cryogenic system on September 19, it was decided that the LHC would resume operation in July 2009.

Some experts and members of the public have expressed concerns that there is a non-zero probability of experiments carried out at the collider getting out of control and developing a chain reaction that, under certain conditions, could theoretically destroy the entire planet. Because of similar sentiments, the LHC is sometimes deciphered as the Last Hadron Collider. In this regard, the most often mentioned is the theoretical possibility of the appearance of microscopic black holes in the collider, as well as the theoretical possibility of the formation of clumps of antimatter and magnetic monopoles with a subsequent chain reaction of capture of surrounding matter.

Rice.

General relativity in the form proposed by Einstein does not allow the emergence of microscopic black holes in the collider. However, they will arise if theories with additional spatial dimensions are true. According to supporters of the catastrophic scenario, although such theories are speculative, the likelihood that they are true is tens of percent. Hawking radiation causing black holes to evaporate is also hypothetical - it has never been experimentally confirmed. Therefore, there is a fairly high probability that it does not work.

The scientist gives a list of other threats to humanity - these are, in his opinion, nuclear terrorism, deadly viruses that have escaped the control of machines and genetic engineering that can change human personality. All of them can be the result of either an innocent mistake or the malicious actions of one person. For example, by 2020, bioterrorism or an error in biological research could cause the death of 1 million people, says Rice. The scientist also included DNA research, nanotechnology and cloning, as well as experiments with particle accelerators, among the dangerous technologies.

According to Martin Rees, the sword of Damocles of universal destruction has always hung over humanity, and the further we go, the more risky life becomes. It is unlikely that we will cross the next century mark alive. If the probability of a worldwide catastrophe before 1900 could be estimated at 20% (Rees speaks, for example, about the threat of a collision with giant asteroids, pandemics, and the sudden activation of a “supervolcano” that could obscure the light of the entire Earth with the products of its activity), then in our time, while old threats persist, new ones have appeared - nuclear conflicts, environmental disasters (including the threat of global warming), artificial intelligence, cyborgs, bioterrorism and “bioerror” (“bioerror” - a catastrophic mistake when breeding new organisms using biotechnology , the spread of deadly viruses created in scientific laboratories).

Biotechnology can solve many of humanity's problems, but it can also hasten its death. “For the first time, human nature itself is threatened by unpredictable changes,” says Rees. Products of biotechnology and genetic engineering make the path to the abyss easier than ever, because everything can depend on the wrong decision or the evil intent of a single person or a small group of supporters of a sinister cult (like the Japanese Aum Senrikyo or the now well-known al-Qaeda). As an example, Rees cites the story of the panic that gripped the entire United States after September 11, 2001, when, on top of everything else, anthrax began to spread. Thousands of people are now able to design viruses and bacteria that can bring death to millions. Even if one such “perverted personality” cannot kill many people, this type of biological terrorism will seriously change our daily lives, the scientist warns.

The revolution in information technology may also do a disservice in spreading such dangers. Details of scientific research are now spreading around the world almost at the speed of light. While this state of affairs has obvious benefits (for example, amateur astronomers can make important discoveries and interact in real time with professionals), it is certainly a double-edged sword. If scientists unravel the genetic code of a specific virus (a group of scientists from the University of British Columbia did this recently with the SARS virus), then this information can also be made public almost instantly. “It’s safe for amateur astronomers to interact,” says Rees, “but imagine this kind of collaboration among the international community of amateur biotechnologists!”

Martin Rees included rapidly developing nanotechnology in his list of relatively recent man-made threats. Is there any hope for the unfortunate doomed humanity? - Martin Rees asks himself. In this matter, he turns out to be a cautious optimist. To try to cheat fate, a British scientist is calling for better scientific research and greater public scrutiny of critical scientific data and experiments. “We must keep those with potentially dangerous knowledge under control,” reminds Rhys. He also suggests urgent efforts be made “to reduce the number of people who consider themselves exceptional, who are aware of their otherness, who may have a desire to harm people.”

Now other threats have appeared. Not only will technological change in this century be faster than before, it will affect other areas as well. Until now, one of the constant properties throughout human history has been human nature and its physical characteristics; people themselves did not change, only our environment and technology changed. In this century, it seems that man will change through genetic engineering, the development of drugs, perhaps even by implanting something into the brain to increase its abilities. Much of what now seems science fiction may become scientific fact in a hundred years. Fundamental changes like these, as well as the rapid development of biotechnology, perhaps nanotechnology, perhaps artificial intelligence, open up exciting prospects, but also many possibilities for the destruction of society or even universal annihilation.

We must be very careful if we want to survive this rapid development without serious problems. In the very near future, the greatest threat will be the development of biotechnology and genetic engineering. A 2006 official report from the US National Academy of Sciences notes that large enough numbers of people may be able to modify viruses so that existing vaccines are ineffective against them, which could lead to epidemics.

In March 2006, at a press conference at the Interfax central office in Moscow, the director of the Research Institute of Virology named after. Ivanovsky RAMS Dmitry Lvov, who said that there was one step left before the bird flu pandemic. “One amino acid substitution in the genome is missing for the virus to be transmitted from person to person. And then the fire will start.” At the same time, Lvov believes that there is no cure for the bird flu pandemic. “All those who say that it is possible to fight the spread of this virus can probably prevent an earthquake, a tsunami, a hurricane. This is a natural disaster and no one can fight it,” said the academician. According to his estimates, a bird flu pandemic could affect up to one third of the world's population in a short time, and human losses in the event of a pandemic would amount to tens of millions of lives.

The frightening thing is that this does not require a huge terrorist or criminal organization, just one person with an evil mindset is enough. Such people could modify viruses in the same way that hackers modify computer programs.

Civilization itself takes on a different quality due to its newfound vulnerability. The current civilization is becoming horrid (horrid - creepy, terrible). Horror is a state of civilization that is afraid of itself, because any of its achievements - mail, medicine, computers, aviation, high-rise buildings, reservoirs, all means of transport and communication - can be used to destroy it.

If wet dreams, the threat to nature emanating from civilization, colored the second half of the 20th century, then the 21st century may pass under the sign of horror - threats to civilization itself. Horrology is replacing ecology as a primary concern - the science of the horrors of civilization as a system of traps and of humanity as a hostage to the civilization it created.

As one American scientist noted, if the last century was the era of “weapons of mass destruction,” then the current one will be the century of “knowledge of mass destruction.” Whether society will be able to create means of external and internal control adequate to new technologies is a big question.

Accelerating the pace of scientific and technological progress

Projected futures include both environmental catastrophe, a utopian future in which the poorest people live in conditions that today would be considered rich and comfortable, and even the transformation of humanity into a post-human form of life, as well as the destruction of all life on Earth in a nanotechnological disaster.

In July 2006, the leading American strategic center RAND Corporation officially presented the report “Global Technology Revolution 2020”.

The overall conclusion of the study is: “Today we are in the midst of a global technological revolution. Over the past thirty years, a serious breakthrough has been made in a number of technological sectors, thanks to which radical changes may soon occur in all spheres of human activity. Moreover, according to our estimates, the pace of development of these breakthrough industries in the next fifteen years will not only not slow down, but, on the contrary, may turn out to be even more impressive.”

There are no signs that the pace of scientific and technological progress will slow down in the next decade and a half. Each country will find its own, sometimes unique, method of benefiting from this process. However, this requires significant efforts by many countries around the world. At the same time, a number of technologies and discoveries could potentially pose a threat to human civilization.

The countries of North America, Western Europe and East Asia will continue to play the leading role in global scientific and technological progress. China, India and Eastern European countries are expected to make steady progress over the next decade and a half. Russia's position in this area will be slightly weakened. The gap between the leaders and the technologically backward countries of the world will deepen.

The report included an overview rating of modern scientific and technological capabilities of the countries of the world, within which factors such as the number of scientists and engineers per 1 million population, the number of published scientific articles, expenses on science, the number of patents received, etc. were analyzed. In preparing the rating Data from 1992 to 2004 were used.

According to this rating, the United States has the greatest potential in creating new materials and technologies, as well as their application in practice (received 5.03 points). The United States is far ahead of its closest pursuers. Japan, which ranks second, has only 3.08 points, while Germany (third) has 2.12. The top ten also included Canada (2.08), Taiwan (2.00), Sweden (1.97), Great Britain (1.73), France and Switzerland (1.60 each), and Israel (1.53).

Russia was the first among all post-Soviet states and took 19th place in the final ranking (0.89). It was ahead of South Korea, Finland, Australia, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Italy.

According to the authors of the report, Russia will be relatively successful in applying new technologies in practice in the fields of healthcare, environmental protection, and security. Its results in the development of agricultural areas, strengthening the armed forces, and improving the functioning of government bodies will be less impressive. In all these areas, it will be ahead of not only industrialized countries, but also China, India and Poland.

In the modern era, the increasingly accelerating development of Civilization has become especially noticeable. Moreover, recently everything has changed literally before our eyes, within the lifetime of even one generation.

For a visual comparison, it is appropriate to cite here an excerpt from the notes of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, made by him in the 70s of the 2nd century AD. e.:

“...Yes, whether you live at least three thousand years, at least thirty thousand, just remember that a person does not lose any other life than the one by which he lives; and lives only on the one he loses. So it turns out that one on one is the longest and the shortest. After all, the present is equal for everyone, although what is lost is not equal; So, in a moment, it turns out that we are losing, but the past and the future cannot be lost, because you cannot take away from anyone what he does not have. So remember two things. The first is that everything has been uniform for centuries and revolves in a circle, and it makes no difference whether one observes the same thing for a hundred years, two hundred years, or indefinitely. And another thing is that both the longest-lived and the one who is early to die lose exactly the same amount. For the present is the only thing they can lose, since this and only this is what they have, and what you don’t have cannot be lost.”

Previously, people did not even notice any progressive development. Now, it’s hard not to notice him. A modern “middle-aged” person, in just his lifetime, could observe how personal computers, the Internet, cell phones appeared, and now anyone can become the owner of a personal car, etc.

Distances don't matter so much anymore. In the early 90s of the last century, a sharp increase in the processes of globalization and interpenetration of the economies of different countries began. Developed countries are already, in fact, increasingly turning into some kind of giant management office. This could happen, however, only under the condition of the simultaneous industrialization of developing countries, where the main production is moving. This leads to a deepening of the international division of labor.

The growth of the most important indicators - population, energy consumption, accumulation of industrial products, the growth of scientific information - is occurring exponentially. Since such development involves the consumption of energy and other resources, it is clear that over time they must be depleted. The question is when will this happen?

Sociologist M. Sukharev in his popular work “The Explosion of Complexity” paints the following picture:

“Another pattern is visible in the development of society - the acceleration of the growth of complexity over time. For tens of thousands of years, tribes armed with spears and bows lived on Earth. In a few hundred years we have passed through industrial and technical civilization. It is not known how many years the computer stage has had, but the current rate of evolution of society is unprecedented.

If we extrapolate these trends into the future, it turns out that the speed of development of society should increase so much that social formations will begin to change every fifty, ten or less years, and humanity will unite into a superstate during the 21st century.”

Calculations show that at the current (exponential) growth rates of energy consumption and industrial processing of earthly matter, development limits are quite quickly reached, beyond which further growth becomes impossible.

If the current trends in the development of our Civilization continue, say scientists and ecologists, then already in the first decades of the 21st century a critical situation will arise, caused by the depletion of resources, a drop in industrial production, a sharp reduction in the amount of food per capita, while simultaneously severely polluting the environment.

“...If today we do not take special measures, do not change the nature of our civilization (i.e., the value systems that determine the activities of people), then the biosphere, which is losing stability, even without the shock effects of man, will go into a state unsuitable for his life .

The loss of stability of the biosphere can hardly be identified with an environmental crisis: a crisis can be survived, a way out of it can be found, but there cannot be a return of the biosphere to a state suitable for human life!”

This means that modern technical civilization may cease to exist...

We owe all the achievements of technical civilization to scientific and technological progress and natural energy sources. But the reserves of the main energy sources (oil, gas, coal) are finite, and their depletion period is several decades. The transition to the widespread use of nuclear and thermonuclear energy, even if possible, will still not be quick and painless (and other alternative energy sources - solar, wind and hydropower are unlikely to be able to cover the exponentially growing needs of Civilization).

As astrophysicist L.M. writes in his work. Gindilis:

“The urgency of the situation is that collapse should occur very soon, in the first decades of the 21st century. Therefore, even if humanity knew how to “turn around” (or at least stop) this process, if it had the means and will to carry out the turn today, it simply would not have enough time, since all negative processes have a certain inertia, due to which they cannot be stopped immediately...

The Earth's economy is like a heavily laden vehicle that rushes at high speed across off-road terrain straight towards the abyss. Apparently we had already passed the point where we had to turn in order to fit into the “turn path”. And we don’t have time to slow down either. The situation is aggravated by the fact that no one knows where the steering wheel and brake are located. Nevertheless, both the crew and passengers are very complacent, naively believing that “when necessary” they will understand the structure of the transport and will be able to perform the necessary maneuver. I don’t think that the picture painted means the inevitable death of humanity, although difficult trials for us are apparently inevitable. If humanity can pass through these trials, then the nature of development must change radically.”

At the VISION-21 symposium, which was held in 1993 by the NASA Space Research Center. Lewis and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, there was a sensational speech by mathematician and writer Vernor Vinge. In it, considering the prospects for the development of computers, Vinge proposed a new term “technological singularity”.

In his opinion, the acceleration of technological progress is the main feature of the 20th century. We are on the verge of changes comparable to the appearance of man on Earth. The main reason for these changes is that the development of technology inevitably leads to the creation of entities with intelligence exceeding human intelligence. Science can achieve such a breakthrough in many ways (and this is another reason why a breakthrough will happen).

Computers will become “conscious” and superhuman intelligence will emerge. At present there is no consensus on whether we will be able to create a machine equal to man, but if this succeeds, it will soon be possible to construct even more intelligent creatures.

Large computer networks (and their connected users) can become "self-aware" as superhumanly intelligent entities.

The machine-human interface will become so intimate that the intelligence of users can reasonably be considered superhuman.

Biology can provide us with the means to improve natural human intelligence.

The first three opportunities are directly related to improvements in computer hardware. Hardware progress has been remarkably stable over the past few decades. Based on this trend, intelligence superior to human intelligence will emerge within the next thirty years.

What will be the consequences of this event? When progress is guided by intelligence superior to human intelligence, it will become much more rapid.

Such an event would invalidate the entire body of human laws, perhaps in the blink of an eye. An uncontrollable chain reaction will begin to develop exponentially without any hope of regaining control over the situation. Changes that were thought to take “thousands of centuries” (if they happen at all) are likely to be realized in the next hundred years.

It would be quite justified to call this event a singularity.

Perhaps Vinge’s views were influenced by strict adherence to the ever-accelerating development of computer technology, the so-called “Moore’s Law”? After all, the computing power of computers is growing at an astonishingly high and surprisingly constant rate.

In April 1965, approximately three and a half years before the creation of Intel Corporation, Gordon Moore, who at that time held the position of director of the development department of Fairchild Semiconductors, in an article for Electronics magazine, gave a forecast for the development of microelectronics, which soon became known as “Moore’s Law.” Having presented the growth in the performance of memory chips in the form of a graph (Fig. 4), he discovered an interesting pattern: new models of chips were developed after more or less the same periods - 18-24 months - after the appearance of their predecessors, and their capacity increased every year. times about twice. If this trend continues, Moore concluded, the power of computing devices will increase exponentially over a relatively short period of time.

Moore's observation, not yet elevated to the rank of law at that time, was subsequently brilliantly confirmed, and the pattern he discovered is still observed today, with amazing accuracy, being the basis for numerous forecasts of productivity growth. For example, in the 30 years between the introduction of the 4004 microprocessor in 1971 and the release of the Pentium 4 processor, the number of transistors increased more than 18,000 times: from 2,300 to 42 million.

The statement, made in 1965, over the past years has acquired the status of almost a law of nature and has been confirmed in many areas, both microelectronics itself and related areas: according to Moore’s law, both RAM chips and microprocessors become more complex, clock frequencies increase electronic computer hearts, many other parameters and indicators are being developed. Even the dimensions of telescopes (mirror/lens area, sensitivity) obey this law.

Over the past forty years, skeptics have predicted the imminent demise of Moore's Law hundreds of times, but it continues to operate.

“Moore’s law” is far from mathematical accuracy: it even describes the complexity of microcircuits very approximately, and Moore himself, when editing in 1975, was forced to rely on figures obtained through approximation. At its core, Moore's Law is not a law of nature, but rather a rule of thumb.

Rice.

nanotechnology microprocessor anthropic risk

But sooner or later, the complication of microelectronic products will lead to the exhaustion of the capabilities of existing technologies (a transistor cannot be smaller than an atom).

The leading processor manufacturing corporation (Intel) has announced plans for the near future. The transition to a 45-nanometer process was planned for 2007, the introduction of a 32-nm process for 2009, and in 2011 the turn of the 22-nm technological process will come.

The minimum possible value is 4 nanometers. And if Moore’s law continues to be implemented, this figure will be reached by 2023.

By that time or a little later, the sizes of all elements of the transistor will reach atomic sizes and it will be simply impossible to reduce them further, so new approaches are already being sought. Time will tell which way further development will go. But one conclusion can be drawn - 2023 is one of the critical points. And if we proceed from the fact that development proceeds according to the principle that the increase in value is proportional to the value itself (self-similar development), then after each critical point, the time remaining until the critical date (singularity point) will be half the duration of the cycle. That is, the duration of the microprocessor cycle: 2023-1971=52. The singularity will occur in 2023+52/2=2049, which is somewhat later than predicted by Vernor Vinge.

The main consequence of Moore's law: somewhere between 2015 and 2035, the computing power of personal computers will become equal to the raw computing power of the human brain (the latter is estimated at 1016 operations per second - although signals in the human brain are transmitted extremely slowly, due to parallel processing its overall performance is still higher), and then will surpass it. This does not necessarily mean the appearance of AI, but such a possibility will appear.

Over the past 10 years, we have witnessed a revolution in neuroscience. Brain scanning technologies and molecular biology have provided a broad understanding of how memory, perception and consciousness work. In parallel with this, the inevitable growth in productivity of both personal computers and supercomputers continues. And the latter are already almost equal to the productivity of the human brain.

For a project to simulate the human brain, a special version of the supercomputer, codenamed Blue Brain, was built in 2005. With its help, researchers hope to shed light on the main mysteries of the human brain - cognition, memory, and, if possible, consciousness itself. The machine has a peak speed of about 22.8 teraflops.

According to preliminary calculations, it will take at least ten years to build a fully functional model of the human brain.

The famous supercomputer Deep Blue, which in 1997 beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time in history, had a performance of 1 teraflops. And already in 2006, IBM announced that it was starting to create a new supercomputer for the US Department of Energy, which is in charge of nuclear safety issues. The Roadrunner supercomputer, which has a peak performance of 1.6 petaflops (equivalent to 1600 teraflops or 1x1015 operations per second), was delivered in 2008. This is more than a thousand-fold increase in productivity compared to the supercomputer that beat Kasparov, and in just about ten years.

In 1956, when IBM invented the hard drive, storing 1 MB, adjusted for inflation, cost $65,000. Today, a USB flash drive with 2GB of data is equivalent to a device that would have cost $130 million in 1956.

Now let’s extrapolate this trend to the near future. In 2025, for just $100, you can purchase storage media for 6.3 petabytes of data at any store. To better understand what 6.3 petabytes is, imagine if everything that happens around you were filmed on a digital camera with this amount of memory from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution - that is, from 1700 - to the present day. Even in this case, the camera would have free disk space for several years of operation. And all this gigantic amount of information in 18-20 years can be purchased for only 100 dollars!

Or this example. IBM estimates that by 2010, the amount of digital information in the world will double every 11 hours. We create so much data that finding useful and relevant information is becoming increasingly difficult.

The prospects are even more interesting. Molecular computers, which will become a reality in 10-20 years, will have a performance billions of times greater than the current ones based on silicon microprocessor technologies. Their processors will be tens of thousands of times smaller than modern ones. Great hopes for the future are placed on quantum computers.

The dynamics of the development of microelectronics in the previous 30 years and the forecast for the next decade, using the example of the growth in the parameters of large integrated circuits of RAM for personal computers, is shown in Fig. 5.

Rice. Dynamics of development of microelectronics in the previous 30 years and forecast for the next decade using the example of the growth of parameters of large integrated circuits of RAM for personal computers

Accelerating the pace of biological and social evolution

Along with the acceleration of scientific and technological progress, there is an acceleration in the pace of both biological and human evolution.

A very interesting study of this issue was carried out by the Russian scientist A.D. Panov in his work “The Crisis of the Planetary Cycle of Universal History and the Possible Role of the SETI Program in Post-Crisis Development.” To understand the ongoing processes, he uses the concept of an attractor, which is usually defined as a trajectory in the state space of the system to which all real trajectories are attracted. The attractor of history is an ideal self-similar sequence around which the points of real revolutions fluctuate.

“We can say that, despite the crisis nature, the entire previous history of mankind follows a single smooth attractor, characterized by self-similar acceleration of historical time...

An ideal self-similar sequence of points tn is described by the equation

tn = t* -- T / an

In the formula, a > 1 is the acceleration coefficient of historical time, showing how many times each subsequent epoch is shorter than the previous one. T specifies the duration of the entire described period of time, n is the number of the revolution, and t* is a certain moment in time, which can be called the moment of singularity...

It is easy to see that as n tends to infinity, the sequence tn unlimitedly approaches the singular point t*, never passing it. The intervals between crises or revolutions near the singularity tend to zero, and their density is infinite. Evolution in a self-similar mode does not continue beyond the singularity, and in fact cannot even get close to it, since a situation where successive revolutions are separated by days or hours does not make sense.

Since the singularity was predicted as early as 2027, it is safe to say that the time of the automodel history has expired or will expire in the near future. Therefore, the approaching evolutionary crisis is not an ordinary evolutionary crisis, of which there have been many, it is a crisis of the entire attractor of the history of civilization. We can say that this is a crisis of the most previous multi-million-year crisis of the development of intelligence on Earth, a crisis of crises. It is difficult to make long-term forecasts for the development of civilization, but one prediction can be made with complete certainty: the effect of accelerating historical time will no longer exist, since we are already near the point at which this speed is formally infinite. Now the nature of human evolution must inevitably change profoundly, history must pass through the point of singularity and take a completely new direction. It is important to note that passing through the singularity point does not mean an imminent catastrophe for humanity.”

Moving on to the consideration of biological history over the entire existence of the Earth, the author shows that similar self-similarity is characteristic of the entire period of its development (about 4 billion years). “The best approximation is given by the self-similarity coefficient a = 2.66 (which is surprisingly close to the number e = 2.718...).” Using exactly e and t* = 0 - assuming that the singularity occurs approximately in our time (this simplifies the formula, but does not make it less accurate). Let us take time T equal to 4 billion - the approximate period of biological evolution on Earth. Substituting natural numbers starting from zero into the development formula (t = T/e), we obtain the time of the key event, which can be compared with the real “revolutionary” events that took place in the process of evolution on Earth. The formula reflects the same principle of development - the increase in value is proportional to the value itself.

As you can see, the match is very good.

“It is clear that self-similarity took place with amazing accuracy throughout the entire 3.8 billion years of the history of the biosphere, including the history of mankind (with two small violations, which are not surprising, since we are not talking about exact self-similarity, but about a self-similar attractor). .. For the singular point, the value obtained is t* = 2004, which is very close to 2027, obtained based on the analysis of human history only. The difference between these two dates is determined by the scale of the error of the applied mathematical procedure... It can be assumed that the result obtained is not accidental: the entire evolution of the biosphere and then the noosphere is indeed a single process, subject to a single deep evolutionary law, the main manifestation of which is the self-similar acceleration of evolution ...

And just now this single automodel process has come to an end. Not only the history of mankind, but also the entire planetary evolution must turn in some completely new direction. Therefore, the modern systemic crisis of civilization is a crisis of the global planetary attractor of Universal history, and not just the attractor of human history.”

St. Petersburg historian I.M. Dyakonov, in his review of the history of mankind “The Paths of History,” pointed out the exponential reduction in the duration of historical periods - phases of development of society - as we approach our time: “There is no doubt that the historical process shows signs of a natural exponential acceleration. At least 30 thousand years passed from the appearance of Homo Sapiens to the end of phase I, phase II lasted about 7 thousand years, phase III lasted about 2 thousand, phase IV

about 1.5 thousand, phase V - about a thousand years, phase VI - about 300, phase VII - a little over 100 years; The duration of phase VIII cannot yet be determined.”

Plotted on a graph, these phases add up to an exponential development, which ultimately implies a transition to a vertical line, or rather to a point - the so-called singularity. Scientific and technological achievements of mankind, as well as the size of the Earth's population, are developing according to an exponential schedule.

Dear comrades! Russia needs a President who will lead it not to destruction, like Gorbachev of the USSR, but to prosperity. We need a wise, educated President, capable of choosing the correct scientific theory of the development of the Russian state. What does correct mean? He must choose such a scientific theory that our state will strengthen and be a reliable support for the people in all spheres of their life. In order for Russia to be able to withstand the challenges and threats of the new information era and take its rightful place, and not dissolve in the new world order. To do this, the President of Russia must have a modern holistic worldview, know the vector of development of world science and the law of the correct choice of life arrangement, formulated by the great Greek sage Aristotle.

I believe and undertake to prove that of the four presidential candidates, only G.A. Zyuganov. meets these requirements. Zyuganov’s scientific works, published in eight languages ​​of the world, confirm that he has a holistic so-called cosmic worldview that corresponds to the modern information era and uses the maximum scientific method of Academician Vernadsky to understand the world. The essence of this method is that true knowledge about the subject and the world can only be obtained by combining scientific and philosophical, religious and mythological, artistic and everyday worldviews. Only such a comprehensive awareness can be the basis of a truly scientific approach to solving global problems facing humanity. That is why Zyuganov, along with exact sciences and philosophical knowledge (he is a mathematician and Doctor of Philosophy), deeply learned Orthodoxy, Islam and Buddhism, as the main religions of Russia, and enriched himself with the creativity of Russian and foreign writers and poets. It is no coincidence that Zyuganov’s team includes leading scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences, led by its vice-president, Nobel Prize laureate Zhores Alferov, and Russian writers, led by the conscience of the Russian people, Valentin Rasputin.

Why do real Russian scientists and Russian writers support Zyuganov and not other candidates? Because these smartest people in Russia see how Putin and his team are destroying Russian science. They know for sure that the other presidential candidates Medvedev, Zhirinovsky, Bogdanov do not have such a holistic worldview as Zyuganov. Therefore, they are not able to make the right choice of a scientific theory for the development of Russia. All of them are hostages of the outdated and outgoing Western purely materialistic worldview. They are all liberals, democrats and marketers. Such presidents will lead Russia not to prosperity, but to a historical dead end. And possibly to death. After all, Gorbachev, infected with the Western worldview, destroyed the USSR.

Let's see from a scientific point of view whether Medvedev, Zhirinovsky and Bogdanov care about the welfare of the Russian people? Judge for yourself. All historical and scientific experience confirms that politicians are not free to choose a scientific theory of state development. If they want the good of their people, then they must take into account the type of society characteristic of a given country and the worldview of its indigenous people.

In the West, thanks to good climatic and geographical conditions, an individualistic method of obtaining energy and the same type of society have historically developed. And in Russia, due to its harsh conditions, a collectivist type of society has developed. The centuries-old experience of social scientific knowledge confirms that each of these two types of society should have its own scientific system and its own social theory of the development of the state and society.

Western science is aimed at limitlessly satisfying the needs of the egoistic individual, regardless of the future of the planet and humanity. Therefore, it places man above nature and society. It is for the individual a tool to conquer nature and dominate humanity.

Russian science is based on a cosmic worldview, i.e. on the unity of the world - man, society and nature. It is intended not to destroy the balance between them, but to maintain through reasonable sufficiency and knowledge of the objective laws of the development of a single Cosmos and the development of a single national economic complex.

Putin, Medvedev, Zhirinovsky and Bogdanov are hiding from the people that the main thing that the law of correctness of life says is that it is categorically impossible to impose the theory of development of an individualistic one on a collectivist type of society and vice versa. Otherwise they will degenerate. It’s like incompatibility during a blood transfusion: if you put the wrong blood into a person, he will die. The same thing happens with society. Look at the fate of the Soviet Union and Russia.

The transfer of standards of material progress from an individualistic society to a collectivist society and attempts to create a “consumer society” in the Soviet Union and Russia have shown their inconsistency. The processes of democratization, liberalization, and privatization, which proved their worth in the individualistic society of the West and were forcibly imposed on Russia in the early 90s of the twentieth century as a role model, led to disastrous results. Including the crisis of Russian science and “brain drain” abroad.

Modern Russian theorists and politicians Putin, Medvedev, Zhirinovsky, who are developing plans for building a Western-style civil society in Russia, made the wrong choice. This led to the extinction of the population, increased suffering for the majority and the decline of Russia. The introduction in Russia of a market economy and a system of statehood that is alien to the social orientation historically established in the country has led to the fact that currently in Russia there is the formation of two societies hostile to each other. One of them personifies the rebellious people, rejecting an ideology alien to them, and the other, the ruling elite, destroying the foundations of a collectivist society.

Famous scientist, author of the theory of ethnogenesis (national development) Gumilyov L.N. in the book “From Rus' to Russia” he wrote: “The mechanical transfer of Western European traditions of behavior to Russian conditions has yielded little good... You cannot reject someone else’s from the outset, but when studying someone else’s experience, you need to remember that this is someone else’s experience and apply it in your own The country needs to be careful. You can try to enter the circle of “civilized” peoples, but nothing comes for free. The price of Russia’s integration with Western Europe will be a complete rejection of domestic traditions and subsequent assimilation,” i.e. the death of Russian civilization.

The application of the maximum scientific approach in choosing the theory of development of the Russian state, which Zyuganov owns, convincingly proves that the West and Russia have different types of society and different types of life structure, different ways of producing social life and different principles of creation.

Forcibly imposing them on each other brings innumerable disasters to our peoples. And, conversely, following your own path leads to prosperity. Belarus and China practically prove this. This is where the root of our troubles and victories is. The scientist and politician Zyuganov understands this well, but Medvedev, Zhirinovsky and Bogdanov do not want to understand. They stubbornly do not notice that in the world scientific and public sphere there is a growing conclusion about the need to change the Western European worldview that is now dominant in most of the world to a cosmic worldview.

The crisis of scientific positions of Western civilization is becoming more and more clear. The artificial division of the World into the natural world and the human world, adopted by their science, is becoming obsolete. The view of the world only as material for transformation in order to satisfy needs, characteristic of the Western worldview, is dangerous for the life of mankind.

The UN Conference on Environment and Development, held 16 years ago in Rio de Janeiro, determined that Western civilization was imposing an economic system on the entire world that would lead to the destruction of all humanity. Based on achieving profit by any means, the capitalist system destroys the environment and depletes resources. It has already led to an environmental and social crisis. Now in the countries of the “golden billion”, where about 20% of the planet’s population lives and where a “consumer society” has formed, 86% of all the world’s resources are consumed and 75% of all waste from economic activity is generated. The spread of the consumption rate of the countries of the “golden billion” to the whole world requires such volumes of production that our planet simply cannot withstand and will die.

Western science and worldview were good when the world seemed inexhaustible. And now the Planet has entered an era of extreme overload. And the project of science needs to be changed. In 2000, American and Russian scientists, using mathematical and computer modeling, explored the modern world and determined the anthropogenic and socio-economic limits of the world, and also established the patterns of its self-destruction. The result is disappointing. After 2025, there will be systemic disharmony in all spheres of life on the planet and humanity. An “explosion of history” is possible. In this self-destructive world, the war for world domination that Western civilization is now waging, seizing from other nations more and more storehouses of vital resources and destroying millions of people with hunger and drugs, becomes meaningless. This advance of the “golden billion” will not save it from death, because in the new conditions of an extremely overloaded world, the very Western worldview, consumer ways of living and living will lead the spaceship “Earth” with humanity on board to inevitable death. More than 1,000 leading UN experts have recognized that the future of humanity is not connected with a market economy. An increasing number of scientists around the world, including in the West, realize that it is necessary to accept a new scientific picture of the world and a new worldview. It must be based on the awareness of the fact of the extreme overload of the Earth and the impending global catastrophe. Based on this, the highest absolute goal of humanity becomes the preservation of earthly civilization, the transformation of a spontaneous self-destructive world into a controlled, scientifically and spiritually organized world. The worldview of Russian civilization comes closest to this.

At the beginning of the third millennium, it is Russian (spiritual-material) socialism, and not Western materialist capitalism, that should become the modern form of our national idea. Planet Earth and humanity can be saved by transitioning to a cosmic worldview of the majority of peoples and civilizations.

Instead of an economy of profit, an economy of reasonable prosperity should come. Then materialistic management through property will be replaced by reasonable energy management. It will ensure equal rights of people to receive vital energy and information, as well as providing the bulk of the people with the opportunity to control the distribution of energy, which guarantees a healthy life on the planet and freedom of development of the Mind, human movement towards perfection, i.e. to harmony with society and nature. Scientists call this ecological socialism. But in order to carry out such an ideological revolution without a civil war, it is necessary for the rulers of countries, politicians and the entire social vanguard of society to master the method of intersystem analysis and the maximum scientific approach, i.e. cosmic worldview.

Zyuganov understands this very well, but Putin, Medvedev, Zhirinovsky and Bogdanov do not. Is this a misunderstanding or malicious intent? After all, everyone sees how the earth is now taking revenge on humanity for its unreasonable attitude towards nature. It takes revenge with earthquakes, floods, sudden temperature changes, and global climate change. We have almost no snow in winter in Pskov. The planet warns us: stop the spirit of profit, come to your senses, save me and yourself from death.

The best minds of Russia have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to mobilize all political parties, all state governments to achieve the highest goal of humanity - the preservation of earthly civilization, which the current world elite is leading to destruction. This definition of the highest goal was formulated in the “Address of Russian scientists to the international scientific community,” to which they included all people who think and are concerned about the fate of earthly civilization. This appeal was signed by leading academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences and, together with the draft “Open Letter from the President of Russia to the international community and the UN,” was sent to the Administration of Russian President Putin at the beginning of 2004, where it has not yet received adequate support.

Unfortunately, the current politicians and parties at the helm of Russia, when choosing between Reason and Capital, choose Capital. They realize not national, not universal, but their own narrow group interests. They blindly follow the course outlined by the world elite, i.e. a course of preserving life only for the “golden billion” by forcibly seizing into its ownership all the vital resources of the planet and exterminating excess feeders. Russia, with the help of the Russian authorities in the person of Putin, Medvedev, Zhirinovsky, has become the main testing ground for developing modern technologies for capturing resources and methods for ossifying society and fooling people.

The initiators of the Appeal of Russian scientists were forced to turn to Zyuganov and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for support. Their choice was not accidental. Unlike other Russian parties, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has made the most progress in understanding the peculiarities of the new era. The Program of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, adopted back in 1992, initially contained the idea that the Russian authorities’ adherence to the Western course would lead to the death of Russian civilization. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation strongly opposes American-style globalization, because the global management of civilization using only the materialistic mechanism of a market economy is impossible. The reason for the approaching environmental and energy catastrophe lies in the uncontrollability of the market mechanism of the economy by logical common sense. World bourgeois thought, to which presidential candidates Medvedev, Zhirinovsky and Bogdanov are committed, is aimed at unbridled enrichment and is not capable of solving universal human problems. The bourgeoisie always and everywhere proceeds only from its own selfish interests - achieving material success. She is immoral. In her mind, any material objects have a price, but she has no idea about the price of the life of a person, a people, a civilization, or planet Earth. And this could destroy all of humanity.

A clear confirmation of this is the attitude of world capital towards the Russian people and Russian civilization. A brutal information and psychological war is now being waged against them. The consequence of the forcible imposition on the Russian people of Western, spiritual, materialistic thinking, which was alien to them, was a deep psycho-biological crisis, consisting in the loss of vital energy by the people, the collapse of families, the birth of sick children, a decrease in life expectancy and a decline in population. And the West does all this in order to seize property in the form of material assets and energy resources.

How to resist aggressors? Can Reason win the battle with Capital? Zyuganov is confident that he can. But for this it is necessary to unite all reasonable people into a single resistance movement. That is why at the 1X joint Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, a fateful decision was made to combine the political and organizational capabilities of the Communist Party with the intellectual potential of Russian science and the spiritual potential of Russian culture. This unification will allow us to reach a qualitatively new level of struggle against the Western yoke by understanding the features of the new information era, the nature of information and psychological warfare, and mastering modern methods and technologies of countering the weapons of aggressors.

At the same time, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation proceeds from the fact that it is Russia that is destined to arm humanity with a new theory of salvation and put it into practice. It is the communists who are in demand in order to once again save humanity from the brown plague, from liberal fascism in the form of American-style globalization.

Today, the drama of Russia is becoming more and more obvious: either a new model of development will be found, or the territory of the Russian Federation, without acquiring a stable political state form, will turn into a subject of activity by world actors of power, and in the worst case, into a dump of human waste.

Currently, before our eyes, a grandiose battle for the future is unfolding, the outcome of which will determine the balance of power in the emerging information civilization. Five superprojects compete with each other for the right to determine the future world order.

The most powerful of them is "Atlantic or American Project". It is supported by all the economic and military might of the only superpower today. The project involves maintaining the achieved power by all forces, as well as dictating one’s will to the whole world and balancing on the brink of military conflicts.

"European Project" provides for the concentration of forces and resources of a united Europe to build an information society.

Promising "Japanese project" designated as the creation of prerequisites for the emergence of sixth generation computers. Powerfully gaining strength " Chinese project”, approaching the technological supply of Western countries and conducting trade expansion throughout the world. " Islamic project", striving at this stage to unite the countries of their religious culture.

But Russia’s place in this future world order has not been determined. She doesn't have an independent project. Russia is trying to integrate into the united “Euro-Atlantic project”. This “catch-up development” strategy is extremely dangerous. While ensuring the transition of developed Western countries to a real information future with its raw materials, Russia itself remains “in the industrial past.” At the same time, it is rapidly losing its economic, and therefore political independence, and is increasingly becoming an object of management for the leading information powers. Meanwhile, it is Russia that now has all the capabilities to put forward its own civilizational project in scale and content comparable to the projects of the West and East.

In order to break into the information community, Russia has a rich scientific and theoretical heritage, and also has problems that require urgent solutions. The primary one is the complete lack of government support for the development of science in accordance with the cosmic worldview. Zyuganov clearly stated in his election program that under him, the development of science will become a strategy of the state, which:

Will immediately double the funding for science with the prospect of bringing it to 8% of the budget expenditures;

Modernizes the laboratory and technical base of scientific institutions;

Will provide scientists with proper working conditions and a decent level of wages;

Will support the main headquarters of Russian science - the Russian Academy of Sciences;

Will develop a network of science cities and implement a program to prevent “brain drain”, the return of scientists and specialists to Russia.

President Zyuganov will create all the conditions to ensure a breakthrough in digital and nanotechnologies, as well as in other areas of fundamental and applied science. This will ensure Russia’s development of advanced technologies, production of competitive products and a worthy place in the new information civilization. By voting for Zyuganov, you are voting for a happy future for Russia and your family. Make the right choice!

Australian professor and eminent epidemiologist Frank Fenner said that the world community will not live to see the 22nd century.

“In a century—by 2110—humanity will completely disappear from the face of the earth,” says the famous Australian scientist Frank Fenner in the London media. “The reason is that ancient human societies were characterized by increased stability, but today’s global civilization is not. Thus, the Australian aborigines have proven that without modern scientific achievements they can survive for 40-50 thousand years. However, today's society, due to its economic and social activities, has brought homo sapience to the brink of complete extinction.

According to Fenner, the main threat to the existence of humanity comes from unbridled consumption, a sharp increase in the world's population, and rapid climate change due to global warming." “The Industrial Revolution and industrialization gave rise to an era that, in its impact on the planet, is comparable to the consequences of the Ice Age or the collision of the Earth with a large comet,” the scientist emphasized.

“I think this is an irreversible situation. I say this not because something else is allowed to be done. People can only delay the inevitable for a certain period. Climate change is just beginning, but its irreversible nature is already clear. The human race will disappear just as the sea of ​​animal species before it disappeared.”

95-year-old Frank Fenner gained worldwide fame for his work in the field of microbiology. He became famous for being one of the men who put an end to smallpox in the 1980s. Now the professor is also dealing with the problems of human survival as a biological species.

Regarding the reasons for his current speech, Frank Fenner noted that he “does not intend to force a change in the civilizational model of humanity, which continues to follow the path of its own biological collapse despite numerous warnings.”

Last year, the world's population, according to UN estimates, was 6.8 billion people. The planet's population will exceed 7 billion next year.

If all people suddenly disappear from Earth

Will the planet disappear without our supervision? Not at all, the scientists answer; on the contrary, she will become noticeably prettier

New Scientist magazine asked well-known forecasters to imagine a fantastic situation: all 6.5 billion inhabitants of the Earth are transported somewhere in another galaxy in an instant - teleported. There's not a soul on the planet. In extreme cases, only one person remains - like the immortal Duncan MacLeod. Watch what will happen. And what will he see? How many years does it take for there to be no trace of human presence on Earth?

End of the world

“Visible changes will become noticeable in the next 24 hours,” says Gordon MASTERTON, president of the British Institute of Civil Engineers. — The lights will start to go out. After all, there will be no one to replenish fuel supplies at power plants. Nuclear power plants and hydroelectric power plants will continue to operate in automatic mode for some time. But without human participation in regulating consuming networks, accidents will occur. Water pumps will stop, sewer and cleaning systems and all equipment will stop working. In a week or two, maximum in a month, the planet will finally plunge into darkness. And in some places even in the slop. (Let's remember the recent sewerage accident in the west of Moscow caused by a power outage. - Ed.)

In the meantime, even from orbit you can see how the Earth sparkles with trillions of light bulbs - environmentalists call their glow light pollution. In some countries it is extremely intrusive - the starry sky is not visible. In Japan, for example, almost the entire territory is artificially illuminated. Which is not at all good for nature.

And the walls will collapse

Modern buildings, although they are designed to last at least 60 years, bridges - for 120, and dams and dams - for 250, but without proper maintenance they will become completely unusable much earlier. According to experts, in a couple of decades, hurricanes and simply bad weather will only speed up the process. An example of this is the city of Pripyat, abandoned by people after the Chernobyl disaster.

“Only 20 years have passed,” says Ronald CHESSER, a biologist from the University of Texas, “and the city has changed a lot. And only from a distance it looks “like alive.” I was there many times: wooden houses fell, the roofs of concrete and brick buildings, especially factory ones, sagged and collapsed in places, collapsing the walls behind them, and the windows burst. Bridges will soon begin to collapse. And arched and vaulted structures last the longest.

“Even when every building on Earth collapses, and the highways crack and crumble, there will still be ruins,” Masterton says. “And it will take several thousand more years for wind erosion and water flows to erase traces of everything we’ve built.” Now you can find almost complete structures and recognizable remains that are more than 3 thousand years old.

Almost 500 Chernobyls

“You don’t have to worry about the fate of radioactive waste,” says Rodney IVING, a geologist from the University of Michigan (USA), “their storage facilities are designed for many thousands of years. But 430 nuclear power plants operating around the world will explode like in Chernobyl. After the water evaporates from the cooling systems of nuclear reactors, they melt. Although the harm from such disasters will not be horrific, as some people think.

“The Chernobyl zone shows us nature’s amazing ability to self-heal,” agrees Chesser. “I expected to see a radioactive desert there.” But the local ecosystem appears to be thriving. Of course, rats, mice, and dogs multiplied first. But within a few years, the local fauna suppressed all this rabble. Now there are 15 times more wild animals in the Chernobyl zone than outside it, full of wild boars, wolves and other large predators.

Everywhere you look there is a dense forest

So, it only took 20 years of desertion for life to improve in a particular place. Other ecosystems will begin to revive at approximately the same speed. Faster in warm and humid regions. But even in the cold North or South the matter will not drag on. After all, the person did less mischief there. Mainly roads and clearings for pipelines. Canadian ecologist Brad STELFOX modeled a “humane-free” future in the northern province of Alberta on a computer. It turned out that in 50 years forests will cover 80 percent of its territory. For 200 years - almost all of it. And even now semi-wild Siberia will probably become overgrown even faster.

However, it will take nature many centuries to “heal” the vast areas occupied by parks containing one or two species of trees. And agricultural land. And some ecosystems will not recover at all.

David WILCOM, a biologist at Princeton University, gives the example of the Hawaiian Islands, where forests are “blocked” by grass that regularly burns and prevents trees from growing.

What will happen to the pets?

“They, of course, are going wild,” Chesser answers. - The division into breeds will disappear. Populations will also decline. For example, there is now an excess of sheep on Earth—more than 3 billion. It will be much less.

And regardless of whether humans remain on the planet or not, those animal species that have already been driven to extinction will most likely disappear. Although in general, according to scientists, a deserted Earth will give the animal world more chances to maintain biodiversity - both on land and in the oceans, where, in addition to fish, coral reefs and plankton will begin to actively recover.

Breathe easily

Nature will quickly get rid of solid muck.

“It will take several decades to clean up the nitrates and phosphates that now turn rivers and lakes into toxic broths,” says Kenneth POTTER, a hydrologist at the University of Wisconsin. “They will last longer in underground waters.” But within a hundred or two years, bacteria neutralize them.

Much faster will the smelly gases disappear - exhaust and various factory gases that accompany the creative activity of people. Within two to three weeks, MacLeod the observer will feel that it has become easier to breathe: during this time, precipitation will wash out nitrogen and sulfur oxides from the atmosphere.

It’s worse with carbon dioxide, the main culprit of global warming.

“By burning fossil fuels, humanity has already released so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that it will significantly affect the environment for another 1000 years,” explains climatologist Susan SOLOMON. — The excess will remain for at least 20,000 years.

“Even if it disappears, humanity will remain guilty of ongoing warming,” says climatologist and forecaster Gerald MIIL. “And it can lead to the release of methane from under the ocean floor, which is still there in a frozen state in the form of hydrates, causing the temperature to jump even higher. And what will happen next is unknown - either a new ice age, or a global flood, or a global fire.

— Current climate models do not yet take into account the methane threat. It's about time. There is evidence that gas has already begun to leak from permafrost zones, says Peter THAN, an expert in atmospheric physics.

And no one will notice that we are no longer there

Scientists agree: in 100 thousand years there will be no visible traces of a highly developed civilization left on Earth. And in this sense, our planet will be equal to Mars. Photographs from orbit or from robotic rovers moving along the surface will not reveal a single artifact. Aliens will have to personally land and conduct archaeological excavations.

“The aliens will probably be surprised by the strange concentration of skeletons of large primates, neatly buried at the same distance from the surface,” forecasters gloomily joke, “and, of course, they will be puzzled by their golden teeth.”

“There may be pieces of glass, plastic and perhaps even paper,” says archaeologist William RATHIER from Stanford University. “The safety of some ancient things has always surprised me.”

And in the bottom sediments, aliens will find layers indicating a short period of massive deposition of heavy metals, especially mercury.

And somewhere 100 thousand light years from Earth, electromagnetic waves from our radio and television broadcasts will continue their journey. With some skill, residents of distant planets could catch them.

QUESTION

Is there really only harm from people? Then for what purpose did we multiply? Maybe in order to one day save the planet from an approaching asteroid by shooting it with nuclear missiles? Or are people needed for something else? What do you think, dear readers?