China is now a leading advocate of artificial intelligence (AI) and its prominence is being acknowledged by those who are promoting it. In fact, when the Association of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence's meeting's schedule fall on Chinese New Year, it was postponed so that Chinese representatives can attend. Stephen Hawking warns the "sleeping giant" on the potential risks of AI.

According to Hawking, "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and could be superseded by AI." This has been his first warning concerning AI although he has also said that it could be the only hope of the world's poverty and disease.

He and Tesla founder Elon Musk have agreed that artificial intelligence could end the human race if utilized dangerously. They have signed the "Asilomar AI Principles," a twenty-three point roadmap to ensure that AI would be used productively in the future.

These principles were created by the Future Life Institute (FLI), founded in March 2014. MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, DeepMind research scientist Viktoriya Krakovna, and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallin are the people behind the FLI. Musk and Hawking are both members of the institute's board of advisors.

Hawking targeted China for his warning because, in just two years time, the country's researchers became prominent in machine learning particularly "deep learning."

ZDNet reported that Hawking revealed that AI has its good outcomes but if misused can cause the total destruction of the human race. He and Musk believe that AI is like a nuclear bomb that has the potential of wiping out living things once it explodes due to misuse.

RT reported that Stephen Hawking has warned that "humans face being superseded by computers if the race to develop artificial intelligence continues apace." The warning was delivered during his speech at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing Thursday.

The 75-year-old scientist said that computers can copy human intelligence and exceed even it. So we have no way of knowing if it will infinitely aid humans or be ignored by it of even destroyed by it. Stephen Hawking also added that AI can destroy millions of jobs as they replace humans in their normal activities.