‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton quits Google
and warns over dangers of machine learning
The neural network pioneer says dangers of chatbots
were ‘quite scary’ and warns they could be exploited by ‘bad actors’
Josh Taylor
@joshgnosis
Tue 2 May
2023 05.25 BST
The man
often touted as the godfather of AI has quit Google, citing concerns over the
flood of fake information, videos and photos online and the possibility for AI
to upend the job market.
Dr Geoffrey
Hinton, who with two of his students at the University of Toronto built a
neural net in 2012, quit Google this week, the New York Times reported.
Hinton, 75,
said he quit to speak freely about the dangers of AI, and in part regrets his
contribution to the field. He was brought on by Google a decade ago to help
develop the company’s AI technology.
Hinton’s
research led the way for current systems like ChatGPT.
He told the
New York Times that until last year he believed Google had been a “proper steward”
of the technology, but that changed once Microsoft started incorporating a
chatbot into its Bing search engine, and the company began becoming concerned
about the risk to its search business.
Some of the
dangers of AI chatbots were “quite scary”, he told the BBC, warning they could
become more intelligent than humans and could be exploited by “bad actors”.
“I’ve come
to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we’re developing is very
different from the intelligence we have.”
“So it’s as
if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learned something, everybody
automatically knew it. And that’s how these chatbots can know so much more than
any one person.”
Hinton’s
concern in the short term is something that has already become a reality – people
will not be able to discern what is true any more with AI-generated photos,
videos and text flooding the internet.
The recent
upgrades to image generators such as Midjourney mean people can now produce
photo-realistic images – one such image of Pope Frances in a Balenciaga puffer
coat went viral in March.
Hinton was
also concerned that AI will eventually replace jobs like paralegals, personal
assistants and other “drudge work”, and potentially more in the future.
Google’s
chief scientist, Jeff Dean said in a statement that Google appreciated Hinton’s
contributions to the company over the past decade.
“I’ve
deeply enjoyed our many conversations over the years. I’ll miss him, and I wish
him well!
“As one of
the first companies to publish AI Principles, we remain committed to a
responsible approach to AI. We’re continually learning to understand emerging
risks while also innovating boldly.”
It came as
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg that up to 30% of the company’s
back-office roles could be replaced by AI and automation within five years.
Krishna said
hiring in areas such as human resources will be slowed or suspended, and could
result in around 7,800 roles being replaced. IBM has a total global workforce
of 260,000.
The
Guardian has sought comment from IBM.
Last month,
the Guardian was able to bypass a voice authentication system used by Services
Australia using an online AI voice synthesiser, throwing into question the
viability of voice biometrics for authentication.
Toby Walsh,
the chief scientist at the University of New South Wales’ AI Institute, said
people should be questioning any online media they see now.
“When it
comes to any digital data you see – audio or video – you have to entertain the
idea that someone has spoofed it.”
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