Why Geoffrey Hinton Decided He Should “Blow the Whistle” on Technology

New York (CNN) Geoffrey Hinton, also known as “The godfather of artificial intelligenceHe decided he had to “blow the whistle” on the technology he helped develop after worrying about how smart it was, he told CNN on Tuesday.

“I’m just a scientist who suddenly realizes these things are getting smarter than us,” Hinton told CNN correspondent Jake Tapper in an interview Tuesday. “I want to kind of blow the whistle and say we should be seriously concerned about how we keep these things from taking over us.”

Hinton’s pioneering work on neural networks shapes the artificial intelligence systems that power many of today’s products. On Monday, he made headlines for leaving his position at Google, where he worked for a decade, in order to speak candidly about his growing concerns about the technology.

In an interview on Monday with The New York TimesHinton, who was the first to report his move, said he worries about AI’s ability to eliminate jobs and create a world where “many won’t be able to tell what’s right any longer.” He also noted the astonishing pace of progress, which is far beyond what he and others had anticipated.

“If it got smarter than us, it would be very good at manipulation because it would have learned that from us, and there are very few examples of something more intelligent being controlled by something less intelligent,” Hinton told Tapper. Tuesday.

“She knows how to code, so she’ll figure out ways to get around the restrictions we put on her. She’ll figure out ways to manipulate people into doing what they want.”

Hinton isn’t the only technology leader who’s been outspoken about his concerns about AI. A number of community members signed a message in March Asking AI Labs to stop training the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “deep risks to society and humanity”.

the message, published From the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit Supported By Elon Musk, just two weeks after OpenAI announce GPT-4, a more powerful version of the viral chatbot technology that supports ChatGPT. In early tests and the company’s demo, GPT-4 was used to draft lawsuits, pass standardized tests, and build a working website from a hand-drawn sketch.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who was one of the signatories to the letter, appeared on “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday, echoing concerns about its ability to spread misinformation.

“Deception will be much easier for those who want to deceive you,” Wozniak told CNN. “We’re not making any changes in that regard – we just assume that the laws we have will take care of it.”

Wozniak also said that “some kind of organization” might be needed.

For his part, Hinton told CNN he did not sign the petition. “I don’t think we can stop the progress,” he said. “I didn’t sign the petition that said we should stop working on AI because if people in America stop, people in China won’t.”

But he admitted there was no clear answer as to what to do instead.

“It’s not clear to me that we can solve this problem,” Hinton told Tapper. “I think we have to put a lot of effort into thinking of ways to solve the problem. I don’t have a solution at the moment.”