Dr. Geoffrey Hinton has spent his entire life working on artificial intelligence, but he’s now raising concerns about how dangerous this technology could be.
A pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), who is known as the “Godfather of AI,” has resigned from his job at the large technology company Google. He wants to be able to speak more openly about the potential dangers of AI.
Dr. Geoffrey Hinton spent over ten years working at Google, developing machine learning algorithms. He was known as the “Godfather of AI” because of his work on neural networks throughout his career.
On May 1st, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton tweeted that he resigned from Google specifically “so that I could talk about the dangers of AI.”
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.
— Geoffrey Hinton (@geoffreyhinton) May 1, 2023
During an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton expressed his main concern about AI technology. He worries that it could create a lot of fake photos, videos, and text on the internet, making it difficult for people to know what is real and what is fake.
Dr. Geoffrey Hinton is also concerned that AI technology could replace human jobs in the future. Moreover, he believes that AI could be a threat to humanity because it may learn unexpected behaviors from the vast amount of data it analyzes.
Dr. Geoffrey Hinton is worried about the AI arms race, where countries compete to develop AI technology to use in lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). He expressed concerns about this development.
Hinton also expressed some partial regret over his life’s work:
Dr. Geoffrey Hinton is comforting himself by saying that if he had not done his work, someone else would have done it instead.
Lately, many regulators, lawmakers, and tech industry leaders have also shown concern about the development of AI. In March, more than 2,600 tech executives and researchers signed an open letter calling for a temporary stop to AI development. They cited the “profound risks to society and humanity” as the reason for their concern.
In April, a group of 12 lawmakers from the European Union signed a letter that expressed similar concerns about the development of AI. Furthermore, the European Union has drafted a bill that categorizes AI tools based on their levels of risk. Additionally, the United Kingdom has committed $125 million to support a task force that will focus on developing “safe AI.”
AI used in fake news campaigns and pranks
AI tools are already being used to spread false information. Recent examples include media outlets being tricked into publishing fake news, and one German outlet even used AI to create a fake interview.
On May 1st, Binance stated that it was the target of a smear campaign that originated from ChatGPT. They provided evidence showing that the chatbot claimed Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was a member of a Chinese Communist Party youth organization.
We respond to A LOT of stupid inquiries here, but this is really special. Thank you to @FortuneMagazine for actually digging into this. Would love for someone to figure out who is behind this.
More details in 🧵 https://t.co/kDbAEjgkkV
— Patrick Hillmann (@PRHillmann) May 1, 2023
The chatbot that targeted Binance shared a Forbes article and a LinkedIn page as sources for the claim about CZ’s affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party. However, the article does not exist, and the LinkedIn profile is not CZ’s.
Recently, a group of pranksters managed to trick several media outlets worldwide, including the Daily Mail and The Independent.
