AI Godfather Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google: 'Hard To See How You Can Prevent The Bad Actors' From Using Tech Behind ChatGPT

Artificial Intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton said he has quit his job at Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG subsidiary Google so he can talk more freely about the risks posed by the technology.

What Happened: Hinton said he regrets his role in the development of AI technology. "I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn't done it, somebody else would have," he said, reported The New York Times.

Hinton, who is described as the "godfather" of deep learning, said in the interview with NYT, "It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things."

He reportedly told Google last month that he was quitting and talked with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on the telephone.

Hinton reportedly worries that the internet will be overwhelmed with fake photos, videos and text and that a layperson will "not be able to know what is true anymore."

He is also concerned that AI technologies will affect the job market by not only taking away the drudge work but more than that. 

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Why It Matters: Hinton and his team comprising his students Ilya Sutskever and Alex Krishevsky built a neural network in 2012 that could analyze photos and identify common objects like animals and vehicles, noted NYT.

Google later acquired the company started by Hinton and his students for $44 million, which led to the creation of chatbots like Alphabet's Bard and ChatGPT.

Hinton also expressed concerns about future iterations of AI learning to run and execute code on its own, which could lead to the evolution of truly autonomous weapons such as killer robots, reported NYT.

"The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that," said Hinton. He said he had similar beliefs.

"I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that."

Hinton said that the race between Google and rival Microsoft Corporation MSFT on artificial intelligence could transform into a global race that wouldn't stop without worldwide regulation.

"I don't think they should scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it," said Hinton, reported NYT.

In March, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and more than other signatories urged a pause on training systems exceeding OpenAI's GPT-4. Hinton didn't sign the letter at the time as he didn't want to criticize Google or other companies until he quit his job, reported the Times.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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