Toronto , Canada - 28 June 2023; Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI, University of Toronto, on Centre Stage during day two of Collision 2023 at Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada. (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images)
Geoffrey Hinton, widely regarded as the “Godfather of AI,” has issued a stark warning that artificial intelligence could drive the human race to extinction within the next 10 years. Hinton also believes that AI could make humans the equivalents of “three-year-olds,” with the machines becoming the “grown-ups.”
The Telegraph reports that in a recent interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Prof. Geoffrey Hinton, the British computer scientist who was instrumental in developing the foundations of modern AI, expressed grave concerns about the rapid advancement of the technology he helped create and its potential to threaten the existence of humanity. Hinton, who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his groundbreaking work in the field, believes that AI could lead to the downfall of humankind within the next decade.
Hinton’s warnings come at a time when AI is making unprecedented strides, with the technology developing much faster than he had anticipated. He likened the current situation to the industrial revolution, where machines replaced human strength, but cautioned that this time, AI could replace human intelligence and potentially “take control.”
“We’ve never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before,” Hinton said. “And how many examples do you know of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing? There are very few examples.”
The 77-year-old computer scientist, who invented a method in the 1980s that enables machines to autonomously find properties in data and identify specific elements in pictures, believes that AI could make humans the equivalents of “three-year-olds,” with the machines becoming the “grown-ups.”
