, Columnist
AI’s ‘Godfather’ Should Have Spoken Up Sooner
Hopefully, Google scientist Geoffrey Hinton’s warnings about the technology’s potential harms will persuade other researchers to come forward.
Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘godfather’ of artificial intelligence.
Photographer: Noah Berger/APIt is hard not to be worried when the so-called godfather of artificial intelligence, Geoffrey Hinton, says he is leaving Google and regrets his life’s work.
Hinton, who made a critical contribution to AI research in the 1970s with his work on neural networks, told several news outlets this week that large technology companies were moving too fast on deploying AI to the public. Part of the problem was that AI was achieving human-like capabilities more quickly than experts had forecast. “That’s scary,” he told the New York Times.