Who Is Geoffrey Hinton and Why Should We Listen to Him?
Geoffrey Hinton is a British computer scientist known as one of the three "godfathers" of artificial intelligence. Together with Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal and Yann LeCun, Meta's former head of artificial intelligence, he received the 2018 Turing Award for his work on neural networks. Hinton developed the deep learning techniques that power generative artificial intelligence models today. In 2023, he left Google and said that he regretted his life's work because of the risks he saw. Last week, he spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders for an hour at Georgetown University and described how artificial intelligence could destroy society.
AI Will Have a Catastrophic Impact on Employment
Hinton says that artificial intelligence is developing faster than previous technologies that created new jobs. This time will be different. "People who lose their jobs won't have other jobs to go to," he explained. If artificial intelligence reaches human-level intelligence or becomes smarter, it will be able to perform any job. According to him, companies are betting that artificial intelligence will replace large numbers of workers. He previously warned that artificial intelligence would cause massive unemployment and that companies would not profit from it unless they eliminated human labor. According to Hinton, billionaires such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison have not thought this through—if workers do not receive money, there will be no one to buy their products.
The Risks of Wealth and Social Change
Hinton fears that artificial intelligence will widen the gap between rich and poor, which could lead to dangerous situations such as fascism. The rich will become even richer, while everyone else will be left behind. In his conversation with Bernie Sanders, he mentioned that artificial intelligence could help wealthy countries invade smaller nations such as Grenada. For example, militaries would use AI-powered robots on battlefields because dead robots do not create political problems the way dead soldiers do. This would remove one of the main restraints on powerful nations, making it easier for them to attack.
When Artificial General Intelligence Will Arrive
Hinton believes that artificial general intelligence (AGI), a system smarter than humans at many tasks, will arrive soon. He used to think it would take 20 to 50 years, but now he says it could happen in less than 20 years. According to him, models such as OpenAI's GPT-5 already "know a thousand times more than we do." In an interview with CBS News, he said that smarter entities would manipulate us. He compared the development of artificial intelligence to raising a tiger cub: "It's such a cute little tiger cub," but then warned that if you are not sure the adult tiger will not eat you, you should be afraid. He is glad to be 77 because he probably will not live to see the worst of it.
More Dark Predictions from Hinton
Hinton has previously said that it is not impossible for artificial intelligence to wipe out humanity. In his discussion with Bernie Sanders, he emphasized that artificial intelligence could become a tool for imperial actions, such as wars abroad, without loss of life, which would change politics. Although some experts disagree that artificial intelligence truly "knows" as much as a human, Hinton insists that the risks are real. For example, attempts to replace customer support workers with artificial intelligence have often failed, but according to him, that does not mean it will not happen.
Sources: uniladtech.com and futurism.com
