‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton warns about advancement of technology after leaving Google job
Acclaimed computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton has joined numerous other industry experts to warn against the rapid development of artificial intelligence that could threaten privacy and jobs.
Tuesday 2 May 2023 04:24, UK
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An artificial intelligence trailblazer, dubbed the “godfather of AI” has issued a warning about the technology he helped create.
Geoffrey Hinton is the latest to join a growing list of experts who are sharing their concerns about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence.
Mr Hinton went so far as leaving his job at Google to speak openly about his worries for the technology and the real threat it could pose to humanity.
“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people – a few people believed that,” he said in an interview with The New York Times.
Dr. Geoffrey E. Hinton
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Geoffrey Hinton. Pic: AP
“But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”
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In 2019, Mr Hinton, along with scientists Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, won the Turing Award – the tech industry’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize, for their advancements in AI.
At the time they were open about their concerns, but remained optimistic about the potential of use of the technology to detect things such as earthquakes, floods and health risks.
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The possible limitations of the technology that Mr Hinton and other experts in the field are worried about include the potential for AI systems to make errors, to provide biased recommendations, to threaten privacy, to empower bad actors with new tools, and to have an impact on jobs.
At the end of April, over 1,000 tech giants, including Elon Musk, signed a letter calling for a halt to AI development.
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