Geoffrey Hinton, popularly referred to as the ‘Godfather of Artificial Intelligence’ (AI), has surprisingly resigned from his position at Google to express caution about the risks connected to the technology he helped develop.
Over his four-decade career, Hinton’s groundbreaking work on deep learning and neural networks has enabled the development of many of today’s AI tools.
The rapid introduction of AI technologies is raising alarms among experts.
OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed startup behind ChatGPT, released its most advanced artificial intelligence model, GPT-4, earlier this year.
Other tech giants are also investing in competing tools, such as Google’s “Bard.”
Hinton believes these systems are already eclipsing human intelligence in some ways due to their capacity to analyze large amounts of data.
He communicated to the BBC that several of the risks posed by AI chatbots are “really frightening”.
He went on to tell MIT Technology Review that bad actors could use AI to manipulate elections or instigate violence.
Google affirmed that Hinton had ended his job after a decade at the helm of the Toronto-based Google Research squad.
In a statement to US media, Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean thanked Hinton for his contributions.
“We remain committed to a responsible approach to AI. We’re continually learning to understand emerging risks while also innovating boldly.”
Jeff Dean, Google Chief Scientist
Industrialist Elon Musk and other famous personalities have proposed a slowdown in the creation of AI systems until security protocols can be put in action.
Alondra Nelson and Geoffrey Hinton have called for a national conversation on the regulation of AI, free from corporate influence, in order to protect vulnerable communities from potential biases within AI systems. Sarah Myers West of the AI Now Institute further cautioned that safety must be prioritized above all else when discussing risks associated with AI.
He hopes his comments will be more credible now that he is no longer employed by the tech giant.
