Geoffrey Hinton, one of three so-called “Godfathers of AI” that won the 2018 Turing Award for their foundational work on AI, has quit Google and said that part of him regrets his life’s work.
In an interview with The New York Times, Hinton said that “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.”
Hinton had been employed by Google for a decade after his company, DNNresearch Inc, was acquired by the Search giant.
Speaking to the Times, Hinton said that “It is hard to see how you can prevent bad actors from using it [AI] for bad things.”
In particular, Hinton said that while he had been happy with Google’s stewardship of his technology, the launch of Microsoft’s OpenAI-powered Bing search engine and Google’s response might have set in motion a world with so much fake imagery and text that it will be impossible to stop — saying that nobody will be able to tell “what is true any more.”
Hinton also told the Times that he is worried about the future of jobs and even humanity itself once AI starts to write its own code — also known as the singularity.
“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that,” said Hinton. “But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”
Following the publishing of the article, Hinton tweeted to clarify that he did not leave Google to criticise the company, adding that it “has acted very responsibly.”
“When I read it I thought it could easily be interpreted as implying that I left so that I could criticize Google and that is certainly not the case,” he added in another tweet.
Google’s chief scientist also said that “We remain committed to a responsible approach to AI. We’re continually learning to understand emerging risks while also innovating boldly.”
When Hinton handed in his notice at Google last month, he spoke directly to the CEO Sundar Pichai — though the details of that discussion have not been disclosed.
