The British-born godfather of artificial intelligence has issued a chilling warning that humanity is “on the line” with the technology’s rapid development.
Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize laureate, said the technology was “hurtling out of control” and its future had become “extremely uncertain”.
Mr Hinton became known for his studies on artificial neural networks, but after quitting Google in 2023, the computer scientist began to speak out about the dangers of AI.
Writing in The i Paper, he said: “What’s happening at present is there’s this competition between countries, and between companies, to make it smarter and smarter and smarter, in the hope that you can replace lots of workers and get lots of money.
“That’s what’s driving it. And this is the future of humanity that’s on the line.”
While experts have debated the timeline of when the technology will become more intelligent than humanity, Mr Hinton warned the deadline was “always getting closer”.
“And what we ought to be doing is saying, okay, we would like to [still] be around,” he added. “We’re going to have to share the planet with something smarter than us. What would we like the other aspects of that being to be, other than its intelligence?
“And we hardly do any work on that. It’s crazy.”
In September, the British-Canadian author warned US Congress that it may only have one year left to implement safeguards on artificial intelligence before the technology becomes uncontrollable.
Now, he has further warned it was “dangerous” that the world was becoming increasingly reliant on AI companies “because of the characters of some of the people involved”, naming Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
“I wouldn’t buy a used car from any of them,” the AI expert quipped.
Mr Hinton also opened up on how he felt about being compared to American physicist Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
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“And I couldn’t resist, suddenly it flashed through my mind, and I said: ‘Oppenheimer never won the Nobel Prize in Physics,'” he said.
Equally, the AI godfather explained the ways in which intelligence can assist humanity and change the world for the better.
It is able, Mr Hinton said, to create new materials, which theoretically can assist with better batteries to enhance solar and wind power.
“The way to build a fusion reactor is – because they get very hot – it’s to have it about 90 million miles away, and have it refuel itself. And just collect the energy from it. And if we could design materials for better batteries, that would be a big win,” he explained.
AI has also been hailed as a method to enhance productivity and a way to complement as well as streamline business procedures.
For instance, a fortnight ago, Barclays said greater use of technology and AI had allowed it to automate some work, reducing its need for employees in roles including software development.
But, as a result, employees are at greater risk of losing their jobs as leaders look towards budget cuts.
By the end of 2026, Barclays said it would axe around 5,000 jobs, with around 1,000 jobs cut so far.
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