“Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton warns about its dangers
Geoffrey Hinton is one of the pioneer researchers working on artificial intelligence. He was also a Google employee until recently. Nicknamed the “Godfather of AI,” Hinton left his position in the company and issued a warning about the new technologies. He called AI “scary,” stating that criminals or unconscientious people could use it for harmful purposes, and the results could be catastrophic.
In the ChatGPT era, when artificial intelligence is becoming more and more popular, and many investors are pouring money into its developing companies, some high-profile figures are sounding alarms, cautioning people about using or creating technologies that could potentially become very harmful in the wrong hands. Noam Chomsky, Elon Musk, ad Henry Kissinger also spoke against this technology.
However, while these people are well-known around the world, they are still outsiders. When the warning comes from the insiders, who work on the AI themselves, their world has more weight on the broader scale. Geoffrey Hinton stated that he decided to quit his job to be able to speak about the dangers of artificial intelligence freely.
Hinton worked on the development of AI for decades. He helped to lay the foundation for almost all the technology that we use today. Moreover, Hinton worked on neural networks, developing them along with deep learning algorithms.
Hinton is 75 old, and he spends most of his career on these developments. He noted that he retired from Google because he couldn’t warn people about the potential risks of AI technology while he still worked for the company.
AI’s popularity is increasing. Is the danger real?
Artificial intelligence attracted lots of attention over the last months. Many companies introduced their plans about how to incorporate AI into their work process and use it to make the job easier. For example, in March, OpenAI, which is San Francisco-based startup, introduced its new AI model, GPT-4. This company is also behind ChatGPT, and it has Microsoft’s backing.
Other high-profile tech companies are also investing in various AI tools. Google’s “Bard” is one of them, but many other firms are working on different AI algorithms.
Hinton stated that AI chatbots have many abilities, and some of them are very scary. For now, they aren’t as intelligent as humans, but the technology is still in the early stages of development. And if it continues evolving in the current direction, soon, the bots might become superior to humans. There is also the possibility that, at that stage, humans mightn’t be able to control the bots. That, on the other hand, might cause much damage to our society.
One of the dangers Hinton spoke about is manipulating elections; he also mentioned that bots might be able to instigate violence. At the same time, Hinton stated that Google’s conduct has been very responsible regarding artificial intelligence, adding that the tech giant has a lot to recommend it. But Hinton believes that his warning will be more credible if he doesn’t associate with Google anymore. The company confirmed that the “Godfather of AI” is no longer its employee.
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