A prominent artificial intelligence researcher known as the “Godfather of AI” has quit his job at Google – and says he now partly regrets his work advancing the burgeoning technology because of the risks it poses to society.
Dr. Geoffrey Hinton is a renowned computer scientist who is widely credited with laying the AI groundwork that eventually led to the creation of popular chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other advanced systems.
The 75-year-old told the New York Times that he left Google so that he can speak openly about the risks of unrestrained AI development – including the spread of misinformation, upheaval in the jobs market and other, more nefarious possibilities.
“I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” Hinton said in an interview published on Monday.
“Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now,” Hinton added later in the interview. “Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.”
Hinton fears that AI will only become more dangerous in the future — with “bad actors” potentially exploiting advanced systems “for bad things” that will be difficult to prevent.
Hinton informed Google of his plans to resign last month and personally spoke last Thursday with company CEO Sundar Pichai, according to the report. The computer scientist did not reveal what he and Pichai discussed during the phone call.
Hellbound and Down 