Geoffrey Hinton Departs Google
AI legend is moving on.
Created on May 1|Last edited on May 1
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AI has experienced a significant shift as one of its founding fathers, Geoffrey Hinton, resigned from Google. The 75-year-old British researcher, known as the "Godfather of AI," made this decision partially to freely speak about the potential dangers of AI technology, particularly generative AI.
The Legend
The 2012 breakthrough occurred when Hinton and two of his students, Ilya Sutskever and Alex Krizhevsky, built a neural network capable of analyzing thousands of photos and teaching itself to identify common objects such as flowers, dogs, and cars. This development paved the way for increasingly powerful AI technologies, including new chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard.
Dangerous Race
As companies like Google and Microsoft race to develop and deploy increasingly powerful AI technologies, Hinton now fears that these advancements pose a risk to society. One of Hinton's immediate concerns is the proliferation of false photos, videos, and text online, which could lead to people losing trust in the veracity of information.
He is also worried about AI technologies upending the job market, with chatbots potentially replacing paralegals, personal assistants, translators, and others handling routine tasks. Hinton's long-term concerns include AI systems learning unexpected behavior from vast amounts of data and the possible development of truly autonomous weapons.
Although many experts consider these threats hypothetical, Hinton believes that without global regulation, the race between tech giants and countries to develop AI technologies will continue to escalate.
Hinton's Advice
Hinton's decision to step down and voice his concerns may hopefully inspire other researchers to take the potential dangers of AI seriously. By recognizing the risks associated with AI, the scientific community can work together to create a safer environment for technological advancements.
Instead of pushing the boundaries without regard for the consequences, researchers can strive to understand the implications of AI and develop strategies to control and regulate its growth. In order to avoid potential dangers, Hinton suggests that the world's leading scientists should collaborate on ways to control AI technology, rather than continuing to scale it up without understanding its implications.
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