Years between the 1st transatlantic flight. In 919 and the 1st man on the moon in 96 you know that was 50 years but in the 50 years since then in terms of space size in aviation things havent changed no as we back to the moon. The jumbo jet flew in 96 you know. It could be the dry going to sort of in that level off again so we cant assume the sauce just evolving technology will continue to evolve its breakneck speed. You once wrote a book with a very optimistic tile our last century. 16 years on do you feel like your predictions are coming true or maybe you see the reverse process is yes well i think i was among the highlights the issues that the empowerment of small groups of individuals. Inside is going to lead to new tensions new threats to governance and a growing tension between 3 things we want to name the liberty security and privacy and i think that protection has been borne out. Confronted by these concerns in my opinion but although i think we will have a bumpy ride through the century its always of a unlikely that we ourselves out im not suggesting that but i think we do need to worry about the control that these technologies into of us we can its hard to regulate them but also its depressing that the gap between the way things could be and the way things actually is so wide and possibly getting wider and what exactly do you mean they like the way things could be and the way things are you mean like humans could be more in tune with the technology and more responsible with it and were not and thats where the what exactly do you mean i mean that we could have a wound that provides a decent life for all the 7000000000 people in it and at the moment we have a couple of 1000000000 in abject poverty and some people immensely wealthy and the. Fact that the richest 2000 people in the world have the resources to double the income of the bottom 1000000000 in the world and this is not happening is an ethical indictment and thats just one example because no technological evolution turns out can change a factor of human greed knows that that is right but i think also weve got to have a self interest in trying to level these inequalities because if you think about africa population is growing faster in africa. Its going to double between now and 2050. Un projections it may double again between 20152102 the extent that nigeria will have a population of 900000000 which is equal to europe and north america combined is that what happened. Africa stuck in poverty that would obviously be a. Recipe for mass disaffection mass migration and conflict because the point is that in africa unlike a century ago. They may not have sanitation but they do have mobile phones they know what theyre missing theyre in touch with the rest the world and unless we can reduce the gaps between those in the poorest parts of the world and those like us who are fortunate then i think we will have massive and continuing disaffection and conflicts and powered by these new technologies so that makes for pessimistic so i think we have not only in ethical imperative but the self interest imperative to do what we can to reduce these inequalities and help the country does especially those of african the middle east to develop ill tell you one other reason why we have to do this and that is that we know that the countries of east asia which benefited by cheap manufacturing by having wage levels lower than in europe or north america that gave a big boost to. South korea and countries like that that now has been ticked away because now with robots even rich countries can do their own manufacturing so the countries of africa. Will east have the opportunity to head and catch up which the socalled asian tigers had in the past and thats another reason why i think we need to worry we need to have International Policy which try to level things between the different continents a lot of the nearest scientists that ive spoken to and cognitive psychologists they raise alarm because theyre saying the. Good amount of the problems that were facing here as a humanity is this unfiltered huge amount of the information that internet gives assn and it develops with such a pace that our brains arent. Actually sit to digest do you think its true. Will is too much of the best. Let me into fact. This is a i mean i dont agree with those people who has actually affecting the brain very much but it is making is that they hire. People to. Use of force and what is. This is a sort of cultural which we need to be concerned about so. You are saying that the possible next evolutionary step will be for humans to morph into machines hey. This is very very far future. I have machines carry on instead of humans one stair intelligent enough. Why dont you believe humans will carry on i mean with carried on for a 21st century for the better or for worse i do i think youve misinterpreted me i think that we will continue. And i hope we can regulate these new technologies but i do think that by the end of a century there will be a few well the crazy adventurers who may be living away. Of course they would be ill adapted to that habitat so they would be the people who would have the incentive. The opportunity because their way through the regulators to. Themselves so i think if we imagine some species emerging which is different from. Those crazy people and not from us i think we want to preserve. The habitats that human beings and we have with adapted to that you dont believe in many of the. Scientists saying that actually its inevitable as becoming half machines because now we see like organs that can be replaced by machines and gradually they say human brain and great chip is working on this so here this is. Where we dont know this will happen but i think its important that we should realize that we are adapted to living on earth. And actually we dont want to change very much i think its often interesting to see what rich People Choose to do when they have the choice the 2 things that. They want to have beings to look after the robots they want carers and they want that and also they often want to live. In the country and in nature they have a Country Estate and things like that and so what people aspire to. Is to be in touch with nature and in touch with other human beings. Given the choice we may be that most people never have the choice we should try and ensure that she was being asked about the human beings. Marty and were going to take a break right now when were bad well continue talking to the lord marching. Astronomer roy rogers professor of. And astrophysics at the university of cambridge stay with us. After almost 2 decades of war and occupation American Military involvement in afghanistan appears to be winding down a deal with the taliban will see majority of american troops leave while still allowing a sizable contingent to remain just what exactly is washington political interest to be in afghanistan will americas longest ever. Said she stressed to me not long but this or that the british at the bill of books had out that if you had the will to. Stop the show was to write your story a statistic it is easy to see why bush quote all show. Which is you dont have time and now look what youve seen in the response you took over well let me ask for sure you. Want to talk to me sort of my its your bonus for each of you to give. It to mr ellsworth supporters are still with them to the spirit for this interview but you believe that its a student actually a person a person has to be vocal or should stop them spinning. Expressed. What politicians do something to. Put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. So when you want to be president. Or some want to. Have to go right to be precise this is what before 3 in the morning cant be good good im interested always in the waters of our. First city. Banks geysers financial survival you know they say money the bellatrix flood take it easy this is a central bank support dying a good many kind of problem right now so you stop the bad. And were back with lord martin rees martin many people who are actually working on Artificial Intelligence or perfecting robots are telling me that its just a matter of not even a century or 50 years were talking about 10 years 15 years maximum 20 years when robots and machines will be doing most of our stuff and im thinking well capable of doing it the question is do we want them to do it we do very advanced things to protect. Human race as a species but animals do that too but then what defines as humans are Different Things that we do like art that are we love where we know when we see the sun so high in the you know. Im just scared im thinking wake is that all going to die out with evolution are robots going to. Fear. I think weve got to realize that. We do have distinctive human qualities and incidentally i think we can use. And off this intelligence provide a better life because a lot of people who have really mind numbing jumps working in warehouses or telephone cool said things like that and if those jobs can be replaced by dignified well paid publicly funded jobs as people assistance to teachers in School Custodians of public know some things like that which machines can do as well thatll be a plus so a Huge Positive if the deployment of robots and technology is guided by human values you mentioned a couple of times crazy people going to colonize mars because of our mother and i think yeah we have just like we have. Those who climb mountains and do other dangerous sports but they. I mean at the end of the day im thinking they may not even have a choice because we see that humanity exploding in numbers and efforts to contain the Climate Change dismissed by politicians. To interrupt that is such a dangerous to lucian its a very dangerous illusion to stick with an escape the problem by terra forming most its simple compare its simple to do with Climate Change compared to making bars have the terra forming it so its a dangerous delusion to think that weve got a planet be for the risk of us people weve got to do the problems here and the population problem we can deal with in fact the population is going down in 2 thirds of the worlds countries its not going down in africa but. Ways in which we can. Change their lifestyles so to does go down as they become more prosperous so the problems that confront us. And the thing we confront if you tried to live away from the us do you know 6 this serbian director i mean. Hes a very Famous Artist and i was actually speaking team because i also wonder how artists perceive the script of the future and he said to me that the generation of people who will 1st go to mars will be the generation that will create the new sets of values for humanity. That will. Create a new set of values. For themselves because theyre going to be living in of a different. World any of us humans have lived in but its not clear how much relevant stuff i have to restrain him but i mean having said that i think we should have these people because we have anyone who. Goes to the limits of human capabilities extreme sports and the rest of it so we should have these people. We can learn from just as we can learn from Science Fiction i mean i tell my students its better to read straight Science Fiction than 2nd rate science because its more exciting and more likely to be wrong so i think we want to encourage the artists to explore these they will be ideas that will be relevant perhaps to future generations away from the us i think the human exploration of space of course is just an adventure because of. The practical need theres any people into space. Ok so we need we can have robotic fabricators building huge structures in space or on the moon thats the only way is the sending people is as an adventure and for that reason i would not support any public funding being spent on space whether i was in russia europe or the United States it should be left to private Enterprise People like Elon Musk Space x. Who are rich and the left of them but i think we should cheer them on because they can take higher risks. That any western nation could impose on publicly funded civilians so they can do comprise high risk ventures and my prediction is that by the end of a century there will be small communities. Sent by these private event. Himself as if he wants to. But not on impact and i think hes 47 years old now so he might make that so i think there will be a Small Community but what i dont think is that the be mass emigration and i think is a dangerous delusion to talk about. Even more foolish to think of it as desirable. I want to talk about Climate Change i mean it is so real i dont know what else should it take for everyone to realize its here and we should be taking care of it not tomorrow or day after char but we should have done it 10 years ago 20. But not much is being done to be quite honest well what does it take for people to wake up especially the heads of state. When i think it is a problem because of course the the ways of dealing with it its. Expensive and its very hard to get politicians to prioritize something which benefits people in the remote parts of the world 60 years from now. Above dealing with media problems and there are 2 ways in which this will happen and i think it is gradually happening one way is of course its public. Concern rises so the voters. Support a politician who advocates this in the past. Its not a way of getting the votes to say were going to make sacrifices now. Its that changes then i think that will help and i think it is changing now because these campaigns by young people are important to give an example in my country the. Program is called blue planet on a television fronted by david at which the impact of plastics in the ocean of albatrosses return to. Plastic for the young in the nest and all that it was an iconic image which in france millions of people rather like the polar bear on the melting ice floe and that led to even rather on in life british politicians to propose legislation to. Cut down on the use of usable plastics so thats an example where politicians will act its a think this public behind so public pressure public demonstrations the effect of charismatic figures is a very important to the great. Said it takes only a few determined people to change the world indeed nothing else ever has an example of that is going to need the Climate Change so thats one thing the other. Win win. Is supported by 20 countries including my country is to greatly enhance research and development into all kinds of teen energy and the reason for this is that at the moment of course its more expensive than co. And if we can. The rates of Research Speed up the development of Better Clean Energy and it will also bring down the cost so to countries like india. Well at the moment they dont have a proper electric grid. People depend on slow burning wood and. They are unhealthy and they want to grid. Unless they can afford Something Better they would build power stations. Which is not going to be good for Climate Change and increase side emissions but it is the cost of clean energy. So Something Else and the storage came down. The indians were directly to Clean Technology just like in the case of. Directly to mobile phones and never had landlines what do you make of the argument that the the counter size hat site has like the politicians and theyre like well humanity has survived so many Climate Changes in 8000 years why are we so afraid of this one and the only reason were still aware is because of the it Information Access what do you tell the truth because the one thing thats complete john ambiguous is the measurements of the Carbon Dioxide concentration. In the atmosphere thats been made since the last 60 years and its gone up by nearly 50 percent and we have records showing its never been that high for the last 800000 years so the speed of the changes is unprecedented so its not true that this is just a fluctuation there are of course the 2 ations and that makes it hard to discern the trend because there are. 2 ations on the timescale of a decade which is why you sometimes get a leveling off and then iraq but i think theres no doubt that something is happening now which hasnt happened in the last 1000000 years. And lastly a lot of people in your field are getting more and more excited about the prospect that theres another earth like planet somewhere out there in space. Do you think there could be another planet with water or carbon all of that a 2nd set of humans maybe forming already have a vault somewhere the exciting thing weve learnt in the last 10 or 20 years due to. Discovery 1st made in switzerland by someone whos now one of my colleagues in cambridge. As a pioneer of this we now know that most of the stars in the sky. By retinues of planets just as a sun is orbited by the earth and. We certainly know that many of those planets are going to be rather like the earths temperature and sides. To life what we dont yet know is how life actually began we understand when in evolution however. Evolved into the biosphere around us know which we are a part but. Surprised to realize we dont understand. What made the 1st life what made the transition from complex chemistry to the 1st entity which metabolize and reproduce we dont understand how that happened so we dont yet know. Was it a rare fluke it only happened here or would it have happened in all these other places will through the galaxy we dont know. I think in 10 or 20 years we will know the answer that question in 2 ways 1st i think we may understand how life. And so we know whether it was a rare fluke or not but secondly we would have observations from the next generation of telescopes particular ajan telescope being built by european astronomers in chile coolie extremely large telescope. But this will have a 39. And this will be able to analyze the light from some of. The stars to the extent to be able to tell if theres any kind of light vegetation. Etc. One is your intuition tell you is there another human race somewhere when i dont think it jewishness have any value in this i think up weve just got to the to say we dont know its an exciting question who call to try and find out its a biological question the a strong it was no with it there are lots of these us live now speed big advance in the last 10 or 20 a now have to better understand him and of course this is talking about any kind of lifes the 2nd question is of course of if this was are the challenges its develops into something intelligent were technological of course is a separate projects a look for any evidence for something thats artificial out there you know artificial radio transmission all some artifacts and there again i think its was a tribe priest resell fastnet he was found something but its even harder to set the betting olds on that for this wonderful inside help we had a chance to do this again i hopes of thank you have much of a do you thank you are compared to centuries of chinese history 2 years is nothing unless budgets 2 years of donald trump with yet another round of terrorists being added to the us the new trade will this last week news chinas strategy of waiting out the enemy likely to work with the current american president. During the Great Depression which im old enough to remember there was most of my family were unemployed. And it wasnt it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. There was a real sense of hopefulness there isnt today todays america was shaped by the turn principles of concentration of wealth and power. Reduced democracy attack solo doubt engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to know on. One set of rules for the rich opposite. Thats what happens when you put her into the hands of narrow sector of will switch will is dedicated to increasing power for itself just as youd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. What politicians do something. To put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. So if you want to be president. Wanted us. To do i. To be close its like that before 3 in the morning cant be good. Im interested always in the water our. First super bowl. Was the us or the gemini that steve globalization and this came in with trump in 2016 that he the idea of monitor ization the global Central Banks cooperating to put out a currency unit of accounts that was better than gold is a 6070 year experiment that is now collapsing which is leading to dollars a synaesthete countries like russia move aggressively away from the dollar and buy gold and dig globalization simultaneously. Their report from a conservative watchdog claims there is a covert multimillion dollar scheme to boost a left wing movements across the u. S. Italys former interior minister Matteo Salvini faces charges of inciting violence against a german rescue boat captain who illegally docked on italian chois with dozens of migrants. And the u. S. Carries out military exercises near venezuelas borders in line with its apparent strategy of some rounding of the enemy. The latest on the stories you can head to our t. V. Dot com stay with us now though for the big picture