Geoffrey Hinton warnings

 

Risks of artificial intelligence

In 2023, Hinton expressed concerns about the rapid progress of AI. He had previously believed that artificial general intelligence (AGI) was "30 to 50 years or even longer away." However, in a March 2023 interview with CBS, he said that "general-purpose AI" might be fewer than 20 years away and could bring about changes "comparable in scale with the industrial revolution or electricity."

 

In an interview with The New York Times published on 1 May 2023, Hinton announced his resignation from Google so he could "talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google." He noted that "a part of him now regrets his life's work".

 

In early May 2023, Hinton said in an interview with the BBC that AI might soon surpass the information capacity of the human brain. He described some of the risks posed by these chatbots as "quite scary". Hinton explained that chatbots can learn independently and share knowledge, so that whenever one copy acquires new information, it is automatically disseminated to the entire group, allowing AI chatbots to accumulate knowledge far beyond the capacity of any individual.[109] In 2025, he said "My greatest fear is that, in the long run, it'll turn out that these kind of digital beings we're creating are just a better form of intelligence than people. […] We'd no longer be needed. […] If you want to know how it's like not to be the apex intelligence, ask a chicken.

 

Existential risk from AGI

Hinton has expressed concerns about the possibility of an AI takeover, stating that "it's not inconceivable" that AI could "wipe out humanity". Hinton said in 2023 that AI systems capable of intelligent agency would be useful for military or economic purposes. He worries that generally intelligent AI systems could "create sub-goals" that are unaligned with their programmers' interests. He says that AI systems may become power-seeking or prevent themselves from being shut off, not because programmers intended them to, but because those sub-goals are useful for achieving later goals.[109] In particular, Hinton says "we have to think hard about how to control" AI systems capable of self-improvement.

 

Catastrophic misuse

Hinton reports concerns about deliberate misuse of AI by malicious actors, stating that "it is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using [AI] for bad things." In 2017, Hinton called for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons. In 2025, in an interview, Hinton cited the use of AI by bad actors to create lethal viruses one of the greatest existential threats posed in the short term. "It just requires one crazy guy with a grudge...you can now create new viruses relatively cheaply using AI. And you don't need to be a very skilled molecular biologist to do it."

 

Economic impacts

Hinton was previously optimistic about the economic effects of AI, noting in 2018 that: "The phrase 'artificial general intelligence' carries with it the implication that this sort of single robot is suddenly going to be smarter than you. I don't think it's going to be that. I think more and more of the routine things we do are going to be replaced by AI systems."[116] Hinton had also argued that AGI would not make humans redundant: "[AI in the future is] going to know a lot about what you're probably going to want to do... But it's not going to replace you."

 

In 2023, however, Hinton became "worried that AI technologies will in time upend the job market" and take away more than just "drudge work". He said in 2024 that the British government would have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality. In Hinton's view, AI will boost productivity and generate more wealth. But unless the government intervenes, it will only make the rich richer and hurt the people who might lose their jobs. "That's going to be very bad for society," he said.

 

At Christmas 2024, he had become somewhat more pessimistic, saying there was a "10 to 20 per cent chance" that AI would cause human extinction within the next three decades (he had previously suggested a 10% chance, without a timescale). He expressed surprise at the speed with which AI was advancing, and said that most experts expected AI to advance, probably in the next 20 years, to be "smarter than people ... a scary thought. ... So just leaving it to the profit motive of large companies is not going to be sufficient to make sure they develop it safely. The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation." Another "godfather of AI", Yann LeCun, disagreed, saying AI "could actually save humanity from extinction".