This week the Nobel Prize in Physics was received by two pioneers of artificial intelligence, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, for the development of artificial neural networks. Basically for laying the foundations of AI. In fact, one of them, Hinton himself is considered the “father” of this technology.
Hinton’s research in 2012 laid the foundation for today’s neural networks. So much so that a year later Google hires him as vice president to develop the now ubiquitous chatbots, but in 2023, He left his job at the giant to join a group of critics who raised and sound the alarm about technology.
In an interview last year, Hinton said that I had previously thought of Google as a “proper manager” of powerful technology. That was until Microsoft partnered with OpenAI to release the latter’s GPT-4 Large Language Model (LLM), which powers ChatGPT, to the masses.
Although I didn’t think AI was anywhere near its peak. At the time, the 76-year-old computer scientist suggested that it saw the light with the Microsoft-OpenAI deal.
“Most people thought there was a lot missing. And I thought there was a long way to go – Hinton said a year ago -. I thought it was 30 to 50 years away or even more. Obviously, I don’t believe it anymore.”.
Before leaving Google and joining the likes of Elon Musk to sign an open lettercalling for a pause in AI developmentHinton took to the media to warn that the world had reached a “turning point” in terms of technology.
“I think that It is very reasonable that people are concerned about these problems now. – Hinton pointed out at that time -. Even if it’s not going to happen in the next year or two.”
Hinton, who is now a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, has made it abundantly clear in the nearly 18 months since he left Google that he believes AI can escape human control at any timeand once you do, all hell can break loose.
“Here we are dealing with something in which We have much less idea what is going to happen and what to do about it. – pointed out the scientist during a conversation with the Nobel committee -. I wish I had some kind of simple recipe that says if you do this, everything is going to be fine. But I don’t have it.”
Considered the leading “advocate” against AI for his bleak view of the technology he helped create, Hinton said when speaking to the Nobel committee that I was very surprised to find out that I had won the award. and he didn’t even know he had been nominated.
“I hope that winning the Nobel makes my warnings more credible when I say that these things really mean what they say”Hinton concludes.