Okay, that’s what I was curious about. I don’t entirely agree with you on that stance (though I don’t entirely disagree, either). But stating that shows that you aren’t simply going after Israel.
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I think you are missing a huge piece…
Hawking was sent a series of emails from an organization that is organized (in large part) by people that are seeking the death of all Jews. Everywhere. Myself. My wife. My daughter. All of us.
Those emails suggested that he shouldn’t step foot on Israeli soil.
Hawking agreed with that organization.
Your example would be more apt if it were…
“Eich emailed Jono suggesting he shouldn’t go to a tech conference that has gay men and women in attendance… and then Jono makes a public statement that Jono will not attend that conference because Eich makes a good point about gay people.”
Would that make you appear to be anti-Gay? Yes. Yes, it absolutely would. But you wouldn’t do that. Because you’re a cool dude. No cool dude would do something like that.
Or, even more apt (and to make another example with Stuart, because it amuses me) …
“Representatives from the Al Qaeda send Stuart Langridge an email suggesting that he shouldn’t step foot on USA soil. Stuart then releases an announcement stated that he agrees with what Al Qaeda said to him and he will now boycott the USA and events held in the USA.”
In that example… does it stand to reason that Stuart would agree with Al Qaeda? Yes. Of course. That is the clear message. Now, if Stuart comes out and talks about how he does not agree with Al Qaeda… but he’s boycotting the USA for different reasons… then that changes things considerably.
In the case of Hawking, he agreed with people who seek the death of my daughter. And then he acted according to his agreement with them (by making a statement and boycotting). Does that make him antisemitic? Probably. But, even if he isn’t, he did a bad (or, at the very least, profoundly stupid) thing.
The only information that I have dug up is stating that he received emails from Palestinian academics and, internationally, from others also calling for a boycott. Unless you have specific information, one would have to assume that these academics were in agreement with the ones calling for the death of all Jews.
I do completely understand the wariness and sensitivity of Jews on this matter, but there seems to be a real lack of reason as things get more and more polarized. And now, what is being risked is that, actually, the calls of antisemitism could be a result of prejudices in themselves. And it could result in a form of prejudice unintentional. How? Right now, after investigating this matter about Mr. Hawking, and seeing all the cries and blogs about how he is antisemitic, based on scant information and a lot of inference,speculation and assumptions, the next time I hear that someone is antisemitic, I’m going to…sigh and wonder if it is another instance just as this one is. And, then, after further investigation, I see that it’s this story all over again, I may start ignoring such cries.That is not a good thing for me or anyone concerned. It might make me dismiss something that should have my attention.
This organization that you are referring to, is it BRICUP? As far as I am aware, they urged Hawking not to go to Israel and I see no evidence to suggest that they seek the death of all jews.
Again, I think you are drawing conclusions that don’t exist in evidence. If Hawking had publicly stated that I believes that Jews should be oppressed, restricted, or in the extreme case murdered, I would agree with you…but there is literally no evidence that this is the case.
BRICUP has a track record of hosting and supporting antisemitic individuals. Their stated goal is to isolate Israel from the rest of the world.
BRICUP is a (vocal) advocate for BDS. BDS is funded, directed and fueled by both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Both of which have a stated mission of murdering every Jewish child on the planet. Their goal is not adjusted borders. Their goal is not to help residents of the West Bank or Gaza. Their goal (evident in their mission statements, public announcement and actions) is the death of all Jews.
Are the people of BRICUP all Jew-haters? No idea. I’d like to think not. But one is judged by the company one keeps. If “Bad Voltage” decided to become a chapter of the Nazi party… would people assume that we believe the things the Nazi’s believe? Yes. Duh. Because we joined and made a public announcement as such. By that very same measure, there is no reason to believe that BRICUP does not believe that all Jews should be murdered. The onus is on them to show the world that they are anything other than monsters.
I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt. I like to give folks second (and 3rd and 4th) chances. But when you join (or pledge support for) an organization that is undeniably evil… it becomes up to those individuals to prove to me that they have good in them.
Tons of evidence. Oodles of it. So much evidence that it is astoundingly clear.
Some (more than enough) of which has been talked over in this thread already. Hawking expressed support for an organization that calls for the death of all Jews. Did he do so via one degree of separation (Hawking → BDS → Hamas/etc.)? Yes. And, because of that, I give the man the chance to redeem himself. He’s been called out on this numerous times and has yet to clarify or correct anything. Which makes it appear more and more likely that his personal beliefs are closer to that of Hamas than I would like.
Let me ask you this…
If there were an organization that was dedicated to murdering your son. Specifically your son. They want him dead. And that organization emailed me suggesting that I make some sort of public display (even only a tangentially related one) that I support their cause. And I did so. What would you think of me?
Because that is exactly what is happening here. It gets wrapped in politics… but the issue is clear. My family, my people… my daughter… are being threatened. By evil people. When someone expresses support for those people (even in small doses) it makes my family less safe.
You are absolutely right on that. That is a very real problem.
… and that becomes a whole different topic. One that I find rather interesting (and applies to many organizations, peoples and events around the world).
Where is it?
I am still yet to see categorical evidence that Hawking had publicly stated that I believes that Jews should be oppressed, restricted, or in the extreme case murdered.
If you provide the tons and oodles of evidence I am sure we will all agree with you. 
I agree, but I don’t believe it is clear that BRICUP is specifically out to eradicate all jews and therefore kill your children. Where can I read that this is their stated mission and goal, as opposed to just assumption?
Other questions are: Were the Palestinian academics that emailed Mr Hawking acting in behalf of these groups? Could these people asking Mr. Hawking to participate in the boycott be acting in behalf of their own conscience? Do these academics agree with the call for killing Jews? Is the “Hawking -> BDS -> Hamas/etc.” known or assumed, inferred? I agree it raises questions, but absolutely does not provide answers.
There is so much focusing on what the activities of groups are and a lack of attention to Mr. Hawking himself. Again, I wish he would have made his position clear.
Starting to think you’re messing with me.
That’s my enire reply for now. Shabbat is about to begin along with the 4th night of Hanukkah). Time for brisket and goofing off.
Two points:
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Semite doesn’t necessarily mean Jewish – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
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Israel (the country) is a very insular and bigoted society: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/shavuot/.premium-1.596576
The fact that it seems a great many people in America (not just Jews) are very defensive over “the Israel situation” makes me firmly believe it’s impossible to have a rational discussion over this, without a great deal of misunderstanding and hurt.
We’re not going to solve the “Middle East Problem” in here, so at least try and be kind and understanding to each other. It’s precisely this kind of name calling and hostility that makes people leave communities they once felt united by.
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But what’s your stance on the machine learning vs artificial intelligence foul up?
Agreed, I think this has been a useful discussion, and its good that we disagree sometimes. Otherwise our discussions become boring. But, I think we have explored this as far as we can for the moment.
So for @bryanlunduke and any other Jews using this site happy Hanukkah, For the Christians Merry Christmas and for everyone else I would like to wish you a good time and if you have a God may your god go with you.
I think everyone has been kind and understanding and as usual we can discuss complex and emotionally charged topics while maintaining a core of dignity and respect.
Agreed that I think we have all said about as much as we can. Thanks, @bryanlunduke, @oldgeek, @WarrenHill, and others for the discussion.
Word. Let’s move on to something else Hawking is off-the-charts wrong about… 
The more I think about it, the more I feel that AI really isn’t that big of a threat to humanity – at least far less of a threat than so many other threats. Big giant rock hitting Earth. Crazy guy with nuclear weapons. Totally nice guy that goes to work a bit sleepy and accidentally pushes the wrong button. All of those seem a lot more likely (and scarier) to me.
Side note: Anyone else watch the trailer for the remake of Short Circuit… I mean “Chappie” yet? Seems relevant-ish.
Especially since what you guys refer to in the show is not AI, but machine learning. Hawking says AI, but AI research is actually very stagnant right now. Machine learning has zero chance of gaining self awareness. It is only more closely related to statistics than thought.
You keep saying this, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so. As you say yourself, AI research is fairly stagnant because what people are generally talking about when they say “AI” is machine learning – adaptive algorithms based on some sort of knowledge substrate, where providing that substrate is another function which falls under “AI”. In my opinion, if we’re distinguishing AI and ML then doing so indicates that AI is an umbrella term for a bunch of different disciplines – that’s a fine and reasonable distinction to draw, but going on to adversarially say that talking about machine learning and not AI is a “foulup” is in my opinion not. That’s why I didn’t draw the distinction in the show; it’s meaningless as a distinction in this conversation. To the extent that people in general worry about the singularity happening, it’s because of algorithms adapting beyond the point we anticipate; nobody’s worrying about a system for knowledge representation becoming self-aware, or NLP or computer vision systems evolving beyond what they’re programmed to do. The whole point of the worry is that a system which is explicitly built to have the capability to grow in directions we can’t a priori predict might grow in a direction we don’t want it to; to the extent that that work’s being done under the AI banner, it’s being done in the machine learning bit of it.
Just a note of appreciation.
Before listening to this episode, the only thing that I knew the word “singularity” applied to was for black holes. So, I had to go look it up on the ‘book of knowledge’ (google) and found that word applies to many things including AI.
I have learned quite a few things by listening to BV. I’ve learned a few words thanks to @jeremy having the ‘word of the sheet toilet paper’ (according to @neuro, that is).
Seriously, though, Thanks!!
Perhaps a government education grant needs to be applied for to fund the show??
Now, on to the AI discussion.
I think that being able to emulate the brain is a very, very optimistic proposal. But, from what I understand, AI really doesn’t need to emulate the brain to be a functional system, does it?
?!
I’m not wanting to further this discussion, but I did want to say I found an email address to Stephen Hawking (I hope it is real and current. [email protected]) and sent the following email:
Dear Professor Hawking,
I have, recently, been involved in a discussion regarding a charge of antisemitism that has been laid upon you. This was due to your refusal to go to the Presidents conference in Israel last year, in support of the boycott against it. The discussion is found here: 1x31: Would you do it in the pouch?
While, in this discussion, there was accusations against you regarding this, some were saying that there is just not enough information regarding your views of Jews and the State of Israel to either justify such an accusation or to acquit you from them. And you probably know of the many accusations made on the internet.
I am inviting you to, please, make a statement regarding your stand on this issue. Having information would help resolve this.
Sincerely,
Greg
I hope doing this is okay with you all. I just felt it would be proper to give the professor (or his staff) an opportunity to express his views.
Will I get a response? Perhaps I shall start holding my breath! 
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