Geoffrey Hinton, aka “Godfather of AI” and the winner of Nobel Prize of computing, left Google. In an interview with The New York Times, Hinton points out the regrets of his life’s work and warns about the dangers of AI.
Artificial intelligence is the hottest debatable topic among business leaders these days. People like Elon Musk warn about its dangers and even ask for a six-month pause in AI experts. On the other hand, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says there is nothing to be worried about. However, AI is creating fear among its enthusiasts, who are worried about the serious harm AI can pose to civilization.
The 75-year-old Geoffrey Hinton, who has been in the AI space for over 50 years, is now speaking out about AI risks. He has worked with Google for almost a decade and left the company last month. The NYT reports that Hinton had a meeting with CEO Pichai on Thursday. The details of that meeting are not disclosed yet.
Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google while warning about AI dangers
Dr. Hinton joined Google in 2012 after the tech giant bought a company that was founded by him and two of his students, Ilya Sutskever and Alex Krishevsky. Sutskever is now OpenAI’s chief scientist, Google’s biggest rival. Common chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard are now using the same technology developed by Dr. Hinton’s company.
Hinton tries to console himself with excuses like “If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.” He added, “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things.”
Dr. Hinton now believes AI has reached a dangerous level, much different than five years ago. “Take the difference and propagate it forward. That’s scary,” he said.
The AI scientist also alludes to the ongoing competition between Google and Microsoft. He refers to Google as a “proper steward” of AI and even said in his tweet that Google “acted very responsibly.” However, Hinton said Microsoft’s launch of Bing AI challenged Google’s core business and dragged both companies into an unstoppable competition.
Ultimately, Dr. Hinton is worried about AI being used to spread misinformation and eliminate jobs. Additionally, AI’s ability to write and run code is a serious threat that could turn killer robots into reality.
2023-05-08 15:18:48