A British-Canadian computer scientist often touted as the “godfather” of artificial intelligence has shortened the chances of AI wiping out humanity over the next 30 years, saying the pace of technological change is “much faster” than expected. I warned you.
Professor Geoffrey Hinton, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on AI, said there was a “10% to 20% chance” that AI would lead to human extinction within the next 30 years.
Hinton previously said there was a 10% chance the technology would have catastrophic consequences for humanity.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today program if he had changed his analysis of the potential AI apocalypse and the one in 10 chance of it happening, he said: “No, it’s between 10% and 20%.” answered.
Upon hearing Hinton’s estimate, Today’s guest editor, former Prime Minister Sajid Javid, said: “You’re going to go up,” to which Hinton responded: “You’re going up.” You know, we’ve never had to deal with anything smarter than ourselves. ”
Furthermore, he added: “And how many examples do you know of something more intelligent being controlled by something less intelligent? There are very few examples. There’s a mother and a baby. In evolutionary theory, the baby controls the mother. It took a lot of effort to make it possible, but this is the only example I know of.”
Hinton, a London-born professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said humans would be infantile compared to the intelligence of very powerful AI systems.
“I like to think of it like this: Picture yourself and a 3-year-old. We’re in third grade,” he said.
AI can be loosely defined as computer systems that perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.
Last year, Hinton resigned from his position at Google to speak more openly about the risks posed by unfettered AI development, citing concerns that “bad guys” could use the technology to harm others. It became a hot topic. A major concern of AI safety activists is that the development of artificial general intelligence, or systems that are smarter than humans, could allow the technology to evade human control and pose an existential threat.
Hinton reflected on how far he thought AI development had come when he first started researching AI technology. I thought at some point in the future we would get here. ”
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He added: “Because in the current climate, most experts in this field believe that AI that is smarter than humans will probably be developed within the next 20 years.” And that’s a very scary thought. ”
Hinton said the pace of development was “very fast, much faster than expected” and called for government regulation of the technology.
“My fear is that an invisible hand will not protect us, so leaving it to the profit motive of large corporations alone is not enough to ensure safe development.” It’s not enough,” he said. “The only thing that can force these big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation.”
Hinton is one of three “Godfathers of AI” to receive the ACM AM Turing Award, the computer science equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for their work. But Jan LeCun, lead AI scientist at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, one of the trio, downplayed the existential threat, saying AI “could actually save humanity from extinction.”
