Summary
- AI pioneer, Geoffrey Hinton concerned about Ai advancement
- Hinton is concerned machines could outsmart people
- AI is evolving too fast as tech companies battle for dominance
AI Pioneer, Geoffrey Hinton, who on Monday announced that he would be leaving Google, has expressed concern over the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence.
Geoffrey Hinton, who is often called the ‘Godfather of AI’, helped develop the neural networks which have come to shape artificial intelligence. He had been working at Google part-time in the company’s development efforts for a decade, but as he left the company on Monday, he expressed concern over just how fast AI was evolving.
In an interview with New York Times, Hinton stated that he thought he had more time to talk about the potential threat of AI but never thought that it would come sooner than expected.
“I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously I no longer think that,” Hinton said of AI being smarter than people.
Later on in a tweet, he stated that he left Google so that he could speak freely about the dangers of AI without thinking of how it would impact the company.
“In the NYT today, cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.”
Spreading misinformation
Among Hinton’s concerns about AI is how the technology could be used to spread misinformation. Already, deepfakes are leading to a lot of confusion among the general public and people who do not know any better. Hinton said that the confusion over reality and AI-generated content would make it hard to distinguish what is true and what is not any more.
Learning too quickly
Hinton is concerned that AI is learning too quickly and the battle for dominance by tech companies will only hasten the process. He is concerned that AI, rather than be as smart as human beings as he had intended, could become smarter.
So far, AI has begun taking over tasks in major companies worldwide, leaving many people worried about their jobs.