Artificial intelligence is more urgent than climate change, warns AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton

Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "godfather of artificial intelligence" in the industry, said that compared to climate change, artificial intelligence (AI) may be "More pressing" threats to humanity. In the interview, Hinton said that climate change is a huge risk, but the risk of artificial intelligence is indeed more pressing.

He added that in response to climate change, it is relatively easier for humans to come up with some effective response strategies, such as reducing carbon emissions. If you do this, everything will be fine in the end. But when it comes to the risks of artificial intelligence, you simply don’t know how to start.

Hinton’s research into deep learning and neural networks (mathematical models that mimic the human brain) helped lay the foundation for the development of artificial intelligence—earning him the nickname “The Godfather of Artificial Intelligence.” He joined Google in 2013 after the tech giant acquired Hinton's company, DNN Research, for $44 million.

Hinton compared AI to a hive mind that can replicate thousands of itself. Then everything one replica learns, the entire hive learns. With advances in multimodal models trained on video (visual and auditory/sensory information), these machines will be smarter than large language models trained on language alone.

In addition to Hinton, many AI experts, including developers, researchers and regulatory agencies, have recently expressed their concerns about the possible harm of current AI:

1. The outbreak of cyber attacks. The right prompts can now generate effective malicious code, which means more, bigger, and increasingly diverse cyberattacks. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a competitor of ChatGPT, said the massive expansion of such attacks is his biggest recent concern.

2. The scam is getting worse. Using social media posts and other personal information, new AI-assisted phishing and fraud schemes will take the form of authentic-sounding, falsetto-voiced calls for help from your friends and relatives.

3. The detonation of false information. Propaganda and various attacks will be algorithmically optimized and distributed at scale by tech giants. Multimodal AI—text, voice, video—could make it impossible for the public to distinguish fact from fiction.

4. Monitor lock. America's 70 million CCTV cameras and unregulated personal data already allow authorities to match people to footage. Artificial intelligence can enhance this tracking for businesses and governments, enabling behavioral predictions at scale, but with personalized precision.

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