AI’s threat to humanity: More urgent than climate change?

In a recent interview, artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer Geoffrey Hinton expressed his concern that AI could pose a more urgent threat to humanity than climate change.

Hinton’s work has been essential to the development of contemporary AI systems.

Which is worse: AI or climate change?

Hinton is part of an increasing number of tech leaders expressing worry about the potential dangers of AI if machines were to achieve superior intelligence to humans and seize control of the planet.

While he acknowledges the immense risk of climate change, Hinton believes that the threat posed by AI might be even more pressing.

Hinton: A lifetime of AI contributions

But first, who is Hinton?

We could go so far as to say Hinton is the most important person in the history of artificial intelligence.

Even though he didn’t create it, he has a played a massive role its evolution – including ChatGPT.

In 1986, he co-authored the groundbreaking paper, “Learning representations by back-propagating errors”, which laid the foundation for neural networks in AI technology.

Hinton also received the Turing Award in 2018 – the most prestigious prize in the computer science – for his work in this field.

Growing concerns

Hinton, one of the “godfathers of AI”, recently left Google’s Alphabet after a decade at the company, stating that he wanted to discuss the risks of AI without impacting his former employer.

Speaking to Wired, Hinton said he was previously of the opinion that it could take up to 50 years before AI algorithms become smarter than their human creators.

However, he tells the Wired’s Will Knight: “Now I think it’s more likely to be five to 20 [years].”

READ: GPT-5 rumours: Is the arrival of AGI on the horizon?

AI regulation

In November, Microsoft-backed OpenAI released AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, which quickly became the fastest-growing app in history.

In response to the rapid development of AI systems, Twitter CEO Elon Musk and thousands of others signed an open letter in April.

In the letter, they call for a six-month pause on the development of AI technology more powerful than OpenAI’s recently-launched GPT-4.

This call for caution was echoed by a committee of EU lawmakers, who urged US President Joe Biden to hold a global summit on the future of AI technology.

Need for transparency and collaboration

Last week, the committee agreed on a set of proposals targeting generative AI, requiring companies like OpenAI to disclose any copyrighted material used in training their models.

Biden has held discussions with AI company leaders, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, emphasising the need for transparency in AI systems.

Hinton insists that both tech leaders and politicians need to be involved in addressing the potential dangers of AI, as the issue impacts everyone.

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