‘Godfather of AI’ resigns from Google, warns of the dangers of AI
An Artificial Intelligence (AI) pioneer, nicknamed the “Godfather of AI” has resigned from his position at Big Tech firm Google so he could speak more openly about the potential dangers of the technology.
Before resigning, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton worked at Google on machine learning algorithms for more than a decade. He reportedly earned his nickname due to his lifelong work on neural networks.
However, in a tweet on May 1, Hinton clarified that he left his position at Google “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.
In an interview with the New York Times, his most immediate concern with AI was its use in flooding the internet with fake photos, videos and text, where he voiced concern that many won’t “be able to know what is true anymore.”
Hinton’s other worries concerned AI tech taking over jobs. In the future, he believes AI could pose a threat to humanity due to it learning unexpected behaviors from the massive amounts of data it analyzes.
He also expressed concern at the continuing AI arms race that seeks to further develop the tech for use in lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS).
Hinton also expressed some partial regret over his life's work:
In recent months, regulators, lawmakers and tech industry executives have also expressed concern about the development of AI. In March, over 2,600 tech executives and researchers signed an open letter in March that urged for a temporary halt of AI development citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”
A group of 12 European Union lawmakers signed
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