AI’s Godfather Quits: Google's leading AI expert quits, starts warning about the tech’s future

Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered to be the Godfather of AI for his work, was Google's leading AI expert. He now claims that a part of him regrets his life's work, and has started warning against the rapid development of AI.

Mehul Reuben Das|May 02, 2023, 12:08:59 IST

Geoffrey Hinton, who earned the 2018 Turing Award with two other so-called "Godfathers of AI" for his fundamental work that led to the present boom in artificial intelligence, now claims a part of him regrets his life's work. According to an interview with the 75-year-old in The New York Times, Hinton just left Google in order to talk openly about the perils of AI."I console myself with the standard excuse: if I hadn't done it, someone else would have," Hinton, who had worked at Google for more than a decade, said. "It's difficult to see how you can keep bad actors from abusing it."How Hinton helped Google develop its AI modelsHinton told Google of his departure last month and spoke with CEO Sundar Pichai personally on Thursday, according to NYT. The specifics of the conversation were not made public.Hinton, a lifelong academic, joined Google when the firm was bought by Google, which had been founded by Hinton and two of his students, one of whom went on to become a top scientist at OpenAI. After analysing millions of photographs, Hinton and his students created a neural network that trained itself to recognise common items such as dogs, cats, and flowers. This work resulted in the development of ChatGPT and Google Bard.ChatGPT and Microsoft changed everythingAccording to the NYT article, Hinton was pleased with Google's management of the technology until Microsoft introduced the new OpenAI-infused Bing, which challenged Google's core business and triggered a "code red" response within the search giant. According to Hinton, such severe rivalry may be hard to stop, culminating in a society with so much phoney images and text that no one will be able to identify "what is true anymore."Google's top scientist, Jeff Dean, attempted to lessen the impact by saying, "We remain committed to a responsible approach to AI." We are always learning to recognise emerging hazards and to innovate aggressively."Hinton also took to Twitter to clarify his position on Google’s plans:

Disinformation is a major concernHinton's immediate worry is the propagation of disinformation. On a longer time horizon, he is concerned that AI will destroy rote employment and, maybe, humans itself if AI learns to create and operate its own programming. "The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — there were a few people who believed that," Hinton told NYT. "However, most people believed it was a long shot. And I thought it was a long shot. I assumed it would be 30 to 50 years or possibly longer. Clearly, I no longer believe that."Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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