Warning of AIs danger, pioneer Geoffrey Hinton quits Google to speak freely

News Summary

  • Hinton, who helped create some of the fundamental technology behind today's generative AI systems, fears that the tech industry's drive to develop AI products could result in dangerous consequences—from misinformation to job loss or even a threat to humanity.
  • However, some notable critics think that such fears are overblown or misplaced.Hinton did not sign that open letter, but he believes that intense competition between tech giants like Google and Microsoft could lead to a global AI race that can only be stopped through international regulation.
  • "I don’t think [researchers] should scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it," he told the Times.Hinton is also worried about a proliferation of false information in photos, videos, and text, making it difficult for people to discern what is true.
  • His departure a decade later marks a notable moment for the tech industry as it simultaneously hypes and forewarns about the potential impact of increasingly sophisticated automation systems.
  • For instance, the release of OpenAI's GPT-4 in March led a group of tech researchers to sign an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on developing new AI systems "more powerful" than GPT-4.
  • In response to The New York Times piece, Dr. Sasha Luccioni of Hugging Face tweeted, "People are referring to this to mean: look, AI is becoming so dangerous, even its pioneers are quitting.
Enlarge/ Geoffrey Hinton, chief scientific adviser at the Vector Institute, speaks during The International Economic Forum of the Americas (IEFA) Toronto Global Forum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on [+4176 chars]