In a tweet, Hinton addressed the issue surrounding Google’s involvement in AI development and clarified that he did not leave the company to express criticism towards it. As a pioneering figure in technology, he aimed to clear the air.
“In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly,” he said in his Tweet.
He said to the New York Times that he thought Google was managing the technology responsibly until Microsoft included a chatbot in its Bing search engine and the company became worried about its search business. He warned that some of the risks associated with AI chatbots were “quite scary” and that they may eventually surpass human intelligence and be used by “bad actors” to their advantage. People won’t be able to tell what is true any longer as AI-generated images, videos, and text flood the internet, which is Dr. Hinton’s fear in the near run that has already become a reality.
Regulators, legislators, and IT sector executives have all recently expressed alarm about the advancement of AI. An open letter calling for a temporary pause to AI development in March was signed by more than 2,600 IT leaders and researchers and cited “profound risks to society and humanity.”
A similar petition was signed by 12 EU legislators in April, and a new EU draft rule divides AI products into danger categories. Additionally, the UK is providing $125 million to help a task force for the creation of “safe AI.”
