Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who with two of his students at the University of Toronto built a neural net in 2012, quit Google this week, citing concerns over the flood of fake information, videos and photos online and the possibility for AI to upend the job market.
Hinton, 75, said he quit in order to speak freely about the dangers of AI, and in part regrets his contribution to the field. Hinton’s research at Google led the way for current systems like ChatGPT, reports The Guardian.
He told the New York Times that until last year he believed Google had been a „proper steward” of the technology, but that changed once Microsoft started incorporating a chatbot into its Bing search engine, and the company began becoming concerned about the risk to its search business.
Some of the dangers of AI chatbots were „quite scary”, he told the BBC, warning they could become more intelligent than humans and could be exploited by ‘bad actors’.
Hinton’s concern in the short term is something that has already become a reality – people will not be able to discern what is true any more with AI-generated photos, videos and text flooding the internet.
Hinton was also concerned that AI will eventually replace jobs like paralegals, personal assistants and other “”drudge work”, and potentially more in the future.
It came as IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg that up to 30% of the company’s back-office roles could be replaced by AI and automation within five years. Krishna said hiring in areas such as human resources will be slowed or suspended, and could result in around 7,800 roles being replaced. IBM has a total global workforce of 260,000.
Toby Walsh, the chief scientist at the University of New South Wales’ AI Institute, said people should be questioning any online media they see now.
„When it comes to any digital data you see – audio or video – you have to entertain the idea that someone has spoofed it.”
