Geoffrey Hinton, a British-Canadian computer scientist often called the godfather of artificial intelligence (AI), has shortened the odds of the technology annihilating humanity over the next three decades.
Previously, Hinton had said that there was a 10% chance of AI invoking a catastrophic outcome for humanity.
Typically understating his point of view, he told CBS News last year that AI wiping out humans “is not inconceivable.” Soon after that interview, Hinton quit his job at Google so he could freely speak about the dangers of AI.
And Hinton is doing precisely that. Asked on BBC Radio 4 if he had changed his opinion about the potential AI apocalypse, Hinton said: “Not really.”
He now gives a 10% to 20% chance of it happening.
“You see, we’ve never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before. And how many examples do you know of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing?” said the professor.
“There are very few examples. There’s a mother and baby. Evolution put a lot of work into allowing the baby to control the mother, but that’s about the only example I know of.”
According to Hinton, who openly criticizes unconstrained AI development that could hurt humans, we would be like toddlers compared with the intelligence of highly powerful AI systems.
He also called the pace of AI development “much faster” than expected. He urged governments to regulate the technology, saying that “the invisible hand,” moving the free market economy, “is not going to keep us safe.”
“Just leaving it to the profit motive of large companies is not going to be sufficient to make sure they develop it safely. The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation,” said Hinton.
And it would seem that leading AI firms are rushing to build artificial general intelligence (AGI). Documents recently showed that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and Microsoft had already agreed on terms regarding AGI development in 2023.
According to The Information, both firms hold that AGI will be achieved once OpenAI develops an AI system that can generate at least $100 billion in profits.
Together with John Hopfield, an American scientist, Hinton was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to machine learning, paving the way for the AI boom.
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