Hinton’s pioneering work on neural networks has shaped the artificial intelligence systems that power many contemporary products. He worked part-time at Google for a decade on the tech giant’s artificial intelligence efforts, but has since developed misgivings about the technology and his role in its development.
Jeffrey Hinton, considered the father of artificial intelligence, has resigned from his position at Google. Warning of the growing dangers of artificial intelligence, Hinton stressed that “the downsides of software for this sector, such as GPT chat, are very scary.”
Hinton’s pioneering work on neural networks has shaped the artificial intelligence systems that power many contemporary products. He worked part-time at Google for a decade on the tech giant’s artificial intelligence efforts, but has since developed misgivings about the technology and his role in its development.
In a tweet on Monday, Hinton said he left Google so he could speak freely about the dangers of artificial intelligence, not out of a desire to specifically criticize Google. “I left so I could talk about the dangers of AI without thinking about how it might affect Google,” Hinton said in a tweet. “Google has acted very responsibly,” he added.
The speed of development of artificial intelligence
In an interview with the BBC, Hinton said: “Right now, these shows aren’t any smarter than us, but I think they might soon be.” Hinton also considered that his age had played into his decision to leave the technology giant Google, saying: “I am seventy-five years old, so it is time to retire.”
Hinton’s pioneering research paved the way for today’s artificial intelligence systems, and he is considered by many to be the founder of the sector. In another interview with The New York Times, Hinton said that “a part of me regrets” having contributed to the development of this technology.
But the British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist told the BBC: “At the moment, what we’re seeing is that things like ChatGBT are outpacing a person in the amount of general knowledge they have and far outperforming a person. But in terms of thinking the person is still ahead.”
However, he points out that “the speed of development of this software leads us to expect that its efficiency will improve, so we have to worry about that.” And Hinton had considered in his article in the New York Times that there are “bad actors” trying to use artificial intelligence for “bad things.”
“nightmare”
When asked by the BBC to elaborate on this, he replied: “It’s just kind of a worst-case scenario, it’s a nightmare.” “You can imagine, for example, that some bad actors like Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to give robots the ability to set their own targets during a war,” he added.
He continued, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the kind of information we develop is very different from the intelligence we have. We are biological systems and these are digital systems.”
On how these bots learn, Hinton explained that they “work in isolation and share their knowledge instantly, as if you had 10,000 people and whenever someone learned something, everyone knew it automatically. So these chat bots can know a lot more than any one person.” .
Hinton is not the first Google employee to raise a red flag on artificial intelligence. In July, the company fired an engineer who claimed an undisclosed AI system had become sentient, saying he violated its hiring and data security policies.
