Geoffrey Hinton, a pc scientist who has been called the “Godfather of AI,” says it’s “not inconceivable” that AI could develop to the purpose where it poses a threat to humanity.
The computer scientist spoke to CBS News this week about his predictions for the event of artificial intelligence. He compared the invention of artificial intelligence to electricity or the wheel.
Hinton, who works at Google and the University of Toronto, said the event of general-purpose artificial intelligence is progressing faster than people can imagine. General Purpose AI is AI that has several intended and unintended purposes, including speech recognition, query answering, and translation.
“Until recently, I assumed it might be 20 to 50 years before we had general purpose AI. And now I believe it could be 20 years or less,” predicts Hinton. Asked specifically about AI’s possibilities of “destroying humanity,” Hinton said: “I do not think it’s unthinkable. That’s all I’ll say.
Artificial general intelligence refers back to the potential ability of an intelligence agent to learn any mental task that a human can perform. It hasn’t been developed yet, and computer scientists are still wondering if it’s possible.
Hinton said it’s likely that computers will eventually gain the flexibility to generate ideas to enhance themselves.
“That’s the issue, is not it. We should think hard about how one can control it,” Hinton said.
However, the pc scientist warned that a lot of essentially the most serious consequences of artificial intelligence is not going to materialize within the near future.
“I believe it’s extremely reasonable for people to fret about these issues now, even when it doesn’t occur in the subsequent yr or two,” Hinton said. “People should take into consideration this stuff.”
Hinton’s comments come as the recognition of artificial intelligence software continues to grow. ChatGPT by OpenAI is a recently released AI chatbot that has shocked users since it is capable of compose songs, create content and even write code.
“We should watch out here,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said of making his company earlier this month. “I believe people must be pleased that we’re just a little fearful of it.”
