(RFI) Britain’s Geoffrey Hinton, often dubbed “the godfather of artificial intelligence” quit his job at Google to speak out about the dangers of the technology, American media reported Monday (1).
Hinton, who created a technology foundation for AI systems, told The New York Times that advances made in the field pose “profound risks to society and humanity.”
The scientist said that competition among industry giants is driving companies to launch new AI technologies at dangerous speeds, risking jobs and spreading misinformation.
“It’s hard to know how to prevent bad actors from using this for bad things,” he told The New York Times.
In 2022, Google and OpenAI – the startup behind the popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT – began creating systems using much larger amounts of data than before.
Hinton told the American Journal that he believed these systems were eclipsing human intelligence in some way because of the amount of data they were analyzing. “Maybe what’s happening in these systems is actually much better than what’s happening in the brain,” he said.
Although AI has been used to support human workers, the rapid expansion of chatbots like ChatGPT could put jobs at risk.
AI “takes away the hard work,” but “it can take away more than that,” he told The New York Times.
Spreading misinformation
The scientist also warned about the potential spread of misinformation created by AI, saying that the average person “will no longer be able to distinguish what is true.”
Hinton notified Google of his resignation last month, The New York Times reported.
Jeff Dean, principal scientist of Google AI, thanked Hinton in a statement to U.S. media. “We are continually learning to understand emerging risks while also innovating boldly,” he wrote.
In March, tech billionaire Elon Musk and several experts called for a pause in the development of AI systems to allow time to ensure they are safe.
An open letter, signed by more than 1,000 people, including Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, was prompted by the release of GPT-4, a much more powerful version of the technology used by ChatGPT.
Hinton did not sign the letter at the time, but told The New York Times that scientists should not “ramp this up until they have understood whether they can control it.”