Hinton hits out at AI’s destructive potential
The debate surrounding artificial intelligence rages on. Recently, the CEO of Digital Science & Research Limited, Dr Daniel Hook, claimed that modern workers must embrace AI to thrive. His comments seemed to assuage worries that AI (artificial intelligence) could threaten jobs; now, however, the man considered to be its ‘godfather’ has taken drastic actions to speak out on the dangers of artificial intelligence.
In a statement to the New York Times, Geoffrey Hinton has announced that he is resigning from his high-ranking role at Google, stating that he regrets his work with the burgeoning technology. In the past, it seems like we have all been on the receiving end of a chafing chatbot we know isn’t human, ping-ponging us to different sectors of a site with no real clue what we’re after. Well, Hinton says the dangers of AI chatbots are, “quite scary”.
“Right now, AI chatbots are not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be.”
– Dr Geoffrey Hinton
Look to the future: the dangers of artificial intelligence
Dr Hinton was awarded the 2018 Turing Award, alongside his colleagues Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, for their work on deep learning, and it’s no understatement to say that his pioneering work on neural networks charted the progression of AI systems now prevalent such as Google’s own Bard technology, and ChatGPT. Neural networks, we already know about in terms of human physiology, and in tech terms, they work in a similar fashion, enabling artificial intelligence systems to learn from experience. That’s an important distinction from how traditional computers operate.
The British government is keen to promote investment in AI in the UK – it thinks the burgeoning tech will eventually drive productivity across the economy. That’s a long-term plan, but what about right now?
We might angle towards a tech utopia, but Dr Hinton warns of “bad actors” in the tech space, who might use its functionality for “bad things” too. “Given the rate of progress,” he shares, “we expect things to get better quite fast. We need to worry about that.”
Right now, protocols are put in place to rein in artificial intelligence, but that could easily change; ChatGPT currently constricts its accessible data to September 2021, a clear line in the sand for users. It’s not supposed to solve today’s problems, but it can help generate answers to broader themes and topics. We have always pooled information to overcome our species’ greatest obstacles, but until now, it’s never been instantaneous.
A million mighty minds
The totality of mankind’s achievements is measured in an instant – this instant. Countless advancements is philosophy and science have been incremental, and have taken centuries, if not millennia, to solve. Hinton warns that multitudes of AI models share the same information, and this is where the dangers of artificial intelligence lie.
it’s as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learnt something, everybody automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person.”
The exponential rate at which AI is developing has the potential to change everything going forwards. It may not be a Skynet future we’re barrelling towards, but Hinton and other leaders in the tech sector are conscious that we need to take a step back… to move forwards in a way that doesn’t threaten our way of life.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/technology/ai-google-chatbot-engineer-quits-hinton.html | Additional information: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65452940
Which side of the fence do you fall on? Is real life replicating the scariest sci-fi? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to read what Dr Daniel Hook thinks of the oncoming AI revolution? Click: CEO: Modern Workers Must Embrace AI to Thrive
