Man dubbed 'Godfather of AI' issues powerful warning that superintelligent systems could trigger human extinction
Computer scientist, Dr Geoffrey Hinton, has released a serious warning about the future of human life.
Dubbed as the ‘Godfather of AI’, he is widely recognized as being a pioneer of modern artificial intelligence, is urging people to be aware of the risks surrounding the technology.
More recently, the expert has warned that if AI becomes superintelligent, then this could ‘lead to human extinction’.
Hinton explained: “We would be very foolish to develop superintelligence now, when there is no scientific consensus it can be developed safely and controllably.
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“Losing control over AI smarter than ourselves could be catastrophic and could even lead to human extinction.”
These comments were placed with a bill that has been written by ControlAI and has been presented to the Labour Party in the UK.
The UK Artificial Superintelligence Security Bill, which aims to prevent superintelligence from being developed, will be put forward to the British Parliament this week.
In a statement, ControlAI said: “Nobel Prize winners, AI scientists, and CEOs of leading AI companies have stated that mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority. Specialized AIs, such as those advancing science and medicine, boost growth, innovation, and public services. Superintelligent AI systems would compromise national and global security.
“The UK can secure the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI by delivering on its promise to introduce binding regulation on the most powerful AI systems.”
This isn’t the first time that Hinton has raised the alarm over the threats of AI. Previously appearing on an episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett, where he warned: “Intellectually you can see the threat but it’s very hard to come to terms with it emotionally.
“I haven’t come to terms with it emotionally yet. I haven’t come to terms with what the development of super intelligence could do to my children’s future
“I’m okay, I’m 77, I’m going to be out of here soon but for my children and my younger friends, my nephews and nieces, and their children, I just don’t like to think about what could happen.”
Hinton went on to explain: “If AI ever decided to take over, I mean it would need people for a while to run the power stations until it designed better analog machines to run the power stations.
“There’s so many ways it could get rid of people all of which would, of course, be very nasty.”