"Unless you're sure it won't kill you, worry about it," said Geoffrey Hinton, the "godfather of AI," during an April 26 interview with CBS News, warning that unless humanity can be completely certain AI won't someday turn against it, it should be very worried.
He warned that superintelligent AI may arrive sooner than most people expect — and once it does, it could become impossible to control. The physicist, who shares the 2024 Nobel Prize with John J. Hopfield, compared humanity's current approach to AI to raising a tiger cub, unaware it might maul its owner when it grows up.
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AI is Moving Fast And It's Starting To Scare Its Creators
Hinton told CBS News he now believes there's a "good chance" superintelligent AI will exist in 10 years or less — a much shorter timeline than the five to 20 years he projected just last year. He estimated there's a 10% to 20% chance that these systems could eventually seize control.
One key factor fueling Hinton's concern is the rapid rise of autonomous AI agents — not just chat bots but systems that can complete complex tasks without human input. Google DeepMind recently launched AlphaEvolve, an AI that independently developed a matrix algorithm that outperforms the 1969 Strassen algorithm in several use cases.
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AI Agents Are Already Changing How We Live And Work
The impact of these agents is already being felt. Hinton pointed to new systems that not only respond to prompts but can navigate websites, schedule tasks, and book tickets on their own. Microsoft MSFT, for instance, in March unveiled how AI agents are transforming office productivity.
Likewise, Hugging Face released an open-source Open Computer Agent in April that simulates user interactions — booking tickets, filling out forms, and navigating sites in real-time.
According to Hinton, these advances signal that "things have got, if anything, scarier than they were before."
Global Tech Race Makes Superintelligence Nearly Inevitable
"They're all after the next shiny thing," said Hinton, warning that the race among tech giants and nations to build the most powerful AI makes it "very, very unlikely" that society will be able to avoid creating superintelligence. "The issue," he added, "is can we design it in such a way that it never wants to take control that it’s always benevolent."
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The international AI arms race is intensifying. A March report from Stanford University''s AI Index showed that global AI investment surged past $350 billion last year, with China, the U.S., and the EU ramping up funding for both civilian and military applications.
Ethics, Disappointment, And The Military Shift
Hinton also voiced frustration with Big Tech’s shifting ethics. He said he was "very disappointed" in Google — where he worked for over a decade — for reversing its ban on military use of AI.
In February, Google updated its AI principles to remove restrictions on developing systems for weapons and surveillance — a move that stirred concern among researchers and watchdogs.
"I wouldn't be happy working for any of them today," Hinton added.
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