Leaving Google to tell the truth, AI Godfather: What to do if Putin takes it?

Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who was once awarded the Turing Award and is hailed as the "Godfather of AI," expressed regret about his work and announced his departure from Google during an interview with The New York Times on May 2. Apart from his advanced age, Dr. Hinton revealed that he hoped his departure would serve as a warning to governments, businesses, and society to take the dangers of AI seriously and to promptly strengthen the security and regulation of AI.

Who is the AI Godfather?

Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist and psychologist known as the "AI Godfather," is a key figure in the field of artificial neural networks. His contributions to areas like the "backpropagation algorithm" and "contrastive divergence algorithm" have laid the foundation for the development of today's AI technology.

Joining Google in 2013, he founded DNNresearch, which was soon acquired by Google. In 2018, he, along with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, was awarded the Turing Award for their outstanding contributions to deep learning.

AI Godfather: The Difference Between Intelligence and Biological Systems, AI's Knowledge Surpasses Humans

In a recent interview with the BBC BBC, he stated that:

AI chatbots are smarter than humans because they can learn in real-time interactions with their "peers." Like ten thousand people learning together, when one person learns something new, others can also gain the same knowledge simultaneously. This allows AI chatbots to learn independently and share knowledge in real-time, continuously improving their abilities.

AI Godfather: What If Putin Uses It?

Following the global amazement caused by OpenAI's development of ChatGPT and the subsequent global AI wave, governments and businesses worldwide are vigorously developing AI technology. He emphasized that people should not ignore the security of AI, as some dangers are "quite frightening."

"As of now, to the best of my knowledge, they are not smarter than us. But I think they might soon surpass us."

In addition to how to control fake news and misinformation, these emerging issues currently have no definitive answers. He also mentioned the concept of "bad actors," referring to those who may attempt to use AI for "bad deeds."

"You can imagine, if Russian President Putin decides to give AI robots the ability to set their own sub-goals. This could ultimately lead to them developing sub-goals like 'I need to gain more power.'"

AI Godfather: Governments Should Take Responsibility

Several AI authorities, including Elon Musk, jointly signed an open letter in March of this year, calling for a comprehensive six-month suspension of the development of AI systems stronger than GPT-4. This open letter has attracted widespread attention and sparked debates on the ethical and safety issues of AI development.

However, Dr. Hinton holds a different opinion. He believes that in the "short term," the benefits of AI outweigh the risks. He stated he is a scientific expert, not a policy expert, and that governments should take responsibility for supervising AI development and should be very cautious in preventing it from getting out of control. Governments should engage in more discussions and consensus on the issue of AI development.

He also mentioned that he did not intend to criticize Google and expressed that the tech giant has always been very responsible. Leaving Google has allowed him to provide more candid comments and suggestions on the development of AI without having to consider the company's interests.

"Actually, I want to say something good about Google. These words would have been more convincing if I were not working at Google."

The development of AI technology is approaching the "singularity" of human civilization. However, this technology will significantly change the society we live in. Such powerful technology offers glimpses of diverse possibilities and ignites hope for the future. Nevertheless, despite warnings from many authorities about the ethical and safety issues of AI, there is still no global consensus on AI regulation. Do we need more discussions and solutions to ensure that the development of AI technology aligns with human interests?

For more discussions on whether ChatGPT already possesses wisdom and other societal issues, refer to this report: People Can't Predict, But ChatGPT Can? Research Shows: ChatGPT Reliably Predicts Stock Prices Based on News Headlines