Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist who has been called "the godfather of artificial intelligence", says it is "not inconceivable" that AI may develop to the point where it poses a threat to humanity:
The computer scientist sat down with CBS News this week about his predictions for the advancement of AI. He compared the invention of AI to electricity or the wheel.
Hinton, who works at Google and the University of Toronto, said that the development of general purpose AI is progressing sooner than people may imagine. General purpose AI is artificial intelligence with several intended and unintended purposes, including speech recognition, answering questions and translation.
"Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general purpose AI. And now I think it may be 20 years or less," Hinton predicted. Asked specifically the chances of AI "wiping out humanity," Hinton said, "I think it's not inconceivable. That's all I'll say."
[...] Hinton said it was plausible for computers to eventually gain the ability to create ideas to improve themselves.
Also at CBS News. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
Previously: OpenAI's New ChatGPT Bot: 10 "Dangerous" Things it's Capable of
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Thursday March 30 2023, @12:18PM (3 children)
The other story had a discussion about someone killing themselves supposedly because of what an AI chatbot was telling them. There is a real problem here, but you have to think at a larger scale. Soon everyone may get completely unique customized content unlike canned content that news sites or such push out right now. Instead of needing thousands upon thousands of Putin's pals or Trumpy's Troletariat to manipulate social media, one AI system does it all.
We are talking about a very fine-grained control over what individuals see, think, and ultimately believe. While AIs are not "smarter", they can be faster and operate at this huge of a scale. And at such a scale making small manipulations can do. Products will sell, politicians will get elected, religions will start and fall. And the real power is whoever controls this AI puppet.
An AI targeting a large group of people manipulating them until they kill themselves or others? Perhaps results more subtle than that, but at a scale that could make Adolf Hitler look like a small time schoolyard bully.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2023, @12:34PM
> Soon everyone may get completely unique customized content unlike canned content
This is a scary threat that I can believe, thanks.
Without realizing it, I think I've already been fighting this off when I compare search results with friends--we search for the same things, but live in different parts of the world and have already been pigeon-holed by our past searches. So far the disparities seem pretty benign, annoying at best. However, if someone (or an AI) started controlling this actively I could see real trouble ahead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2023, @06:10PM (1 child)
Meanwhile at Happy Jesus Church, they speak directly to God who instructs everyone to bring about that wacky fire and brimstone ending of the Bible. That's perfectly normal though, talking to supernatural deities. It's the AI that we need to worry about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2023, @05:36PM
Yes, when "god" says something, it is also some corrupt individual or group trying to control people. Usually involving their penises and underage orifices.
GhatGPT will replace them as soon as the penis attachments come in.