AI pioneer sounds alarm on technology
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Renowned artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI”, warns that AI systems could become smarter than humans realize and take control, posing an existential threat.
In an interview on 60 Minutes, Hinton said autonomous weapons and other military uses of AI must be banned.
While acknowledging AI’s potential benefits in healthcare and other fields, he insisted that governments urgently impose regulations and collaborate on an international treaty governing AI development and use.
“One of the ways these systems might escape control is by writing their own computer code to modify themselves. And that’s something we need to seriously worry about,” he said.
“I think in five years time it may well be able to reason better than us.”
Hinton argues humanity faces great uncertainty about AI’s impacts and risks, including potential job losses.
“Having a whole class of people who are unemployed and not valued much because what they used to do is now done by machines,” he said.
Hinton believes we must critically evaluate AI’s trajectory and ethical implications to protect the future. By speaking out, he hopes to prompt action before it’s too late.
“I think my main message is, there’s enormous uncertainty about what’s going to happen next. These things do understand, and because they understand we need to think hard about what’s next, and we just don’t know.”
Hinton, a University of Toronto professor emeritus, developed key AI concepts enabling neural networks to analyze data and learn. But he now thinks uncontrolled advancements could have dangerous consequences, recently leaving Google over ethical concerns about the technology he helped create.
