Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the godfather of AI, expressed his thoughts on the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and the need for increased focus on safety during his Nobel week in Stockholm.
CTV News reports that Geoffrey Hinton, the British-Canadian computer scientist who laid the foundations for modern artificial intelligence, recently shared his views on the rapid progress of AI and the importance of prioritizing safety. Hinton, along with his co-laureate John Hopfield, is set to receive the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their pioneering work in machine learning.
During a press conference in Stockholm, Hinton stated that while he doesn’t regret his groundbreaking research, which dates back to the 1980s, he wishes he had considered the safety aspects of AI earlier. “In the same circumstances, I would do the same again,” he said, referring to his work that has formed the underpinnings of AI. However, he added, “I think it might have been unfortunate in that we’re going to get superintelligence faster than I thought, and I wish I’d thought about safety earlier.”
Hinton predicts that superintelligence, which surpasses the abilities of even the smartest humans, could arrive within the next five to 20 years. He emphasized that humanity may have to “worry seriously about how we stay in control” as AI continues to advance at a rapid pace.
Hinton resigned from Google in 2023 citing his concerns about AI safety. As Breitbart News reported:
In a recent in-depth interview, Dr. Hinton expressed regret over his life’s work, which formed the basis for the AI systems used by significant tech companies. He stated, “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.” Industry leaders believe that generative AI could result in important advances in a variety of industries, including drug research and education, but there is growing concern about the risks that this technology might present.
“It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” Dr. Hinton said. He emphasized the potential for generative AI to contribute to the spread of misinformation, displace jobs, and even threaten humanity in the long term.
The Nobel laureate also highlighted the short-term dangers of lethal autonomous weapons, pointing out that governments are unwilling to regulate themselves in this area. He mentioned that there is an ongoing arms race between major arms suppliers, including the United States, China, Russia, Britain, Israel, and possibly even Sweden.
Despite his concerns about AI safety, Hinton and his co-laureate Hopfield delivered a lecture explaining the research that earned them the Nobel Prize. Hinton’s work on the Boltzmann machine, which learns from examples rather than instructions, has been instrumental in the development of neural networks. These machine learning models make decisions in a manner similar to the human brain and have significantly improved speech recognition technology.
Hinton’s contributions to the field of AI have been widely recognized, and he has received numerous accolades, including the A.M. Turing Award in 2018, which he shared with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun. Recently, Hinton, along with Bengio, LeCun, Fei-Fei Li, and Jensen Huang, was awarded the Vin Future Prize, a $3 million prize for science breakthroughs, in a ceremony in Vietnam.
Read more at CTV News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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