AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has raised concerns over the potential threat posed by artificial intelligence to humanity, saying it could be more urgent than climate change.
In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Hinton, known as one of the "godfathers of AI", explained his decision to quit Alphabet after a decade with the company, saying he wanted to speak out on the risks of the technology without impacting his former employer.
Hinton, has expressed concern about the potential threat posed by artificial intelligence. Hinton, who was awarded the Turing Award for his work, has joined a growing number of tech leaders in warning about the possibility of machines surpassing human intelligence and taking over the world.
He stressed that climate change is also a significant risk, but believes that AI could be a more immediate concern.
Hinton recently left Alphabet after a decade at the firm to speak out on the risks of the technology without affecting his former employer.
He added: "With climate change, it's very easy to recommend what you should do: you just stop burning carbon. If you do that, eventually things will be okay. For this it's not at all clear what you should do."
In November, OpenAI, a company backed by Microsoft, made the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT available to the public, starting a technological arms race. The chatbot quickly became the fastest-growing app in history, with 100 million monthly users in just two months.
In April, Twitter CEO Elon Musk signed an open letter along with thousands of others, calling for a six-month pause in the development of AI systems more powerful than OpenAI's recently-launched GPT-4. The signatories of the letter included Emad Mostaque, the CEO of Stability AI, researchers from DeepMind (an AI research company owned by Alphabet), and other AI pioneers such as Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell.
Hinton disagreed with the idea of pausing AI research despite agreeing that it poses an existential threat to humanity. He believes that it is crucial to work hard and allocate resources to figure out how to address the risks.
In response to the open letter from Elon Musk and other signatories, a committee of lawmakers in the European Union called for a global summit on the future direction of AI technology.
They also proposed a set of rules targeting generative AI, which would require companies like OpenAI to disclose any copyrighted materials used in their models.
Meanwhile, President Biden held talks with several AI company leaders, including the CEOs of Alphabet and OpenAI, to discuss the need for more transparency in AI systems. Hinton emphasized that AI affects everyone, and it is essential for both tech leaders and politicians to be involved in the discussion.