“Godfather of artificial intelligence” spoke about the dangers of his offspring

Jeffrey Hinton, who has been called the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” confirmed that he left his position at Google last week to speak out about the “dangers” of a technology he helped develop.

Hinton’s pioneering work on neural networks has shaped the artificial intelligence systems that power many of today’s products, CNN tells CNN. He worked part-time for a decade at Google developing the tech giant’s artificial intelligence, but has since developed misgivings about the technology and his role in driving it forward.

“I console myself with the usual excuse: if I hadn’t done it, someone else would have done it,” Hinton told The New York Times.

In a tweet Monday, Hinton said he left Google to speak freely about the risks of artificial intelligence, and not out of a desire to specifically criticize Google.

“I left to talk about the dangers of AI without thinking about how it will affect Google,” Hinton tweeted.

Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google, said that Hinton “has made fundamental breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence” and credited Hinton for “ten years of contributions to Google.”

“We remain committed to responsible AI,” Dean said in a statement provided to CNN. “We are constantly learning to understand emerging risks while boldly innovating.”

As CNN notes, Hinton’s decision to step down from the company and speak out on the technology came as a growing number of lawmakers, advocacy groups and tech insiders have raised concerns about the potential emergence of a new generation of AI-powered chatbots to spread disinformation and dislodge workers. places.

The wave of attention that hit ChatGPT late last year has helped reignite the arms race among tech companies to develop and implement similar AI tools into their products. OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are at the forefront of this trend, but IBM, Amazon, Baidu and Tencent are also working on similar technologies.

In March, some prominent figures in technology signed a letter calling on AI labs to stop training the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “serious risks to society and humanity.” The letter, published by the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit organization backed by Elon Musk, comes just two weeks after OpenAI announced GPT-4, an even more powerful version of the technology that supports ChatGPT. In the company’s early tests and demo, the GPT-4 was used to draft lawsuits, take standardized exams, and create a working website from a hand-drawn sketch.

In an interview with The New York Times, Hinton reiterated concerns about the potential of artificial intelligence to eliminate jobs and create a world in which many “can no longer know what is true.” He also pointed to the staggering pace of progress, far beyond what he and others expected.

“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people was something that few believed,” Hinton said in an interview. “But most people thought that would be far from the case. And I thought it would be far from it. I thought that before that, another 30-50 years, or even more. Obviously I don’t think so anymore.”

Even before leaving Google, Hinton spoke publicly about the potential of artificial intelligence to bring both harm and benefit.

“I believe that the rapid progress of artificial intelligence will transform society in ways we don’t fully understand, and not all of the consequences will be good,” Hinton said in his 2021 commencement speech at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Mumbai. He noted how artificial intelligence will improve healthcare while enabling lethal autonomous weapons: “I find this prospect much more immediate and much more terrifying than the prospect of a robot takeover, which I think is very far away.”