A distinguished artificial intelligence pioneer widely referred to as the “Godfather of AI” warned Monday that the burgeoning technology is a “more urgent” risk to humanity than the results of climate change.
Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, 75, flagged the danger days after revealing he quit his part-time role assisting Google’s AI development last month so he could speak more freely about it without disparaging the corporate’s efforts within the sector.
“I wouldn’t wish to devalue climate change. I wouldn’t wish to say, ‘You shouldn’t worry about climate change.’ That’s an enormous risk too,” Hinton said in an interview with Reuters. “But I believe this might find yourself being more urgent.”
“With climate change, it’s very easy to recommend what it is best to do: you only stop burning carbon. In case you try this, eventually things will probably be okay. For this it’s under no circumstances clear what it is best to do.”
Hinton joined a growing chorus of experts, including Elon Musk and Microsoft’s top economist, who’ve raised alarms about threats that can arise from the unrestrained development of artificial intelligence.
Criticism has escalated following the runaway success of ChatGPT, the chatbot developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
Critics have argued that unregulated AI could fuel the spread of misinformation, cause major losses within the job market and supply bad actors with a latest tool to wreak havoc in society.
Earlier this month, Hinton admitted that he now partly regrets his life’s work attributable to the potential risks. He expressed a fear that advanced AI will eventually grow out of the control of humans as systems develop a capability to create and run their very own computer code. He cited the potential for AI-powered weapon systems as only one scary possibility.
At the identical time, the pc scientist said he doesn’t support a call from Musk and greater than 1,000 other experts in March to implement a six-month pause in advanced AI development in order that proper guidelines could possibly be put in place.
Hinton described the concept of a pause as “utterly unrealistic.”
“I’m within the camp that thinks that is an existential risk, and it’s close enough that we should be working very hard immediately, and putting loads of resources into determining what we are able to do about it,” Hinton said.
Last week, the Biden administration hosted Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and various other tech leaders for a forum on AI. The White House said the summit would function a “frank and constructive discussion” of easy methods to approach advancements within the technology.
In 2018, Hinton received the Turing Award – the computing world’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize – for work on neural networks that was described as “major breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.”
He’s widely credited with laying the groundwork for AI systems that eventually led to the creation of ChatGPT and other leading products.
With Post wires
