"Better If It Had Never Existed"... Warning of AI 'Chernobyl Accident' Risk

Interview with Professor Hinton Geoffrey, the Godfather of AI
"World Leaders Will Pay Attention"

Geoffrey Hinton, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and a leading AI researcher often called the godfather of modern artificial intelligence, has drawn attention for remarks suggesting that he regrets developing AI. He warned that AI models are becoming increasingly dangerous.

On November 3 (local time), Hinton warned of the risks of large-scale cyberattacks using AI in an interview with the British daily The Guardian. He cited the possibility of a large-scale attack on the power system or a so-called “Chernobyl accident” in which a bank hack paralyzes the financial system for about a week.

Jeffrey Hinton, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. EPA Yonhap News.

“We could recover from such an incident,” Hinton said, adding, “The world’s leaders would then wake up and pay attention.”

He predicted that humanity would find out within the next 10 years whether it can properly control the risks posed by AI. He warned that if risk management succeeds, AI could bring prosperity through enormous productivity gains, but if it fails, it could lead to an extreme widening of the wealth gap, mass unemployment, and social conflict and instability.

Hinton also continued to criticize the CEOs of major AI companies, strongly condemning OpenAI CEO Sam Altman by saying, “I don’t trust him at all.” He mentioned Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, saying, “They understand the risks of AI, but they don’t care. I think they just want more money.”

However, Hinton did not portray AI’s future as entirely bleak. He said AI could bring about a “wonderful future” and added that he is not a pessimist about AI.

Hinton pioneered research into artificial neural networks in the 1970s, and his work laid the foundations for modern AI. He received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. Hinton also founded the AI company DNN Research. After Google acquired the company in 2013, it continued its AI research as part of Google. However, Hinton left Google after a decade and has since focused on warning about the risks of AI.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.