Last updated: June 29, 2023, 5:11 AM IST
While Hinton shares the signatories’ concern that AI may prove to be an existential threat to humanity, he disagreed with the investigation being interrupted. (Image: Reuters file)
Hinton made headlines in May when he announced he was stepping down from a decade at Google to speak more freely about the dangers of AI
Geoffrey Hinton, one of the so-called “godfathers” of artificial intelligence, urged governments on Wednesday to step in and make sure machines don’t take control of society.
Hinton made headlines in May when he announced he was stepping down from a decade at Google to speak more freely about the dangers of AI, shortly after the release of ChatGPT captured the world’s imagination.
The highly respected AI scientist, who works at the University of Toronto, addressed a packed audience at the Collision technology conference in the Canadian city.
Read more: ‘Godfather of Artificial Intelligence’ quits Google, warns of the dangers of AI | Explained
The conference brought together more than 30,000 startup founders, investors and employees in the tech sector, most wanting to learn how to ride the AI wave and not hear a lesson about its dangers or a call for government interference.
“Before AI is smarter than us, I think the people developing it should be encouraged to put a lot of work into understanding how it might try to take control,” Hinton said.
“Right now there are 99 very smart people trying to improve AI and one very smart person trying to figure out how to stop it from taking over and you might want to be more balanced,” he said.
Hinton warned that the risks of AI should be taken seriously.
“I think it’s important for people to understand that this isn’t science fiction, this isn’t just scare tactics,” he stressed. .”
Hinton also expressed concern that AI would increase inequality, with the huge productivity gains from its deployment benefiting the wealthy and not the blue-collar workers.
“The wealth doesn’t go to the people doing the work, it goes to making the rich richer and not the poor and that’s a very bad society,” he added.
He also pointed out the danger of “fake news” created by ChatGPT-style bots and said he hoped AI-generated content could be marked similarly to central bank cash.
“It is very important, for example, to mark everything that is fake as fake. Whether we can do that technically, I don’t know,” he said.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
