Artificial intelligence may be making waves in the worlds of government and business these days, but for decades, AI research was the domain of unknown researchers who laid the foundations for the gold rush we see today.
Now that their babies are grown, it's always interesting to watch these characters grapple with the world they helped create. For a perfect example, one only needs to look at a recently resurfaced talk in which AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton gave an intriguing answer to the question of whether superintelligent AI will replace humans.
In an online lecture from December that recently resurfaced on Reddit, the so-called “Godfather of AI” was asked whether he would be in favor of a superintelligent AI wiping out humanity and replacing it with “something that is objectively superior in terms of consciousness.”
“I actually agree,” the machine learning scholar replied, “but I think it would be wise to say I disagree.”
As we all know, Hinton left Google last spring over concerns about AI falling into the hands of “bad actors” and even went so far as to say he regretted his role in developing the powerful neural networks that now power everything from ChatGPT to Stable Diffusion.
Given recent events, it was surprising that he would say it, of all people, and when the lecture's moderator, Deborah Fitzgerald, a historian of technology at MIT, asked him to tell us more, things certainly got more interesting and complicated.
“Well, people don't like being replaced,” Hinton said with a laugh.
Prompted by Fitzgerald, he noted that there are many good and “not so good” aspects of humanity, and explained that “it's not clear that we are the greatest intelligence.”
“Obviously, from a human perspective, it's all about humans,” Hinton continued, “but there may come a time when we see something like 'humanist' as a racist term.”
After a long silence, the MIT moderator replied, “OK,” and moved on to the next question, but the response is all the more puzzling given what Hinton said shortly before leaving Google: CBS News It's “not inconceivable” that human-level artificial general intelligence (AGI) could destroy humanity as we know it.
We reached out to Hinton to ask if his views have changed since he left Google, or if he wanted to elaborate on his comments.
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