Geoffrey Hinton, often called the "godfather of artificial intelligence," has recently warned that AI will lead to widespread unemployment and will make a few people much richer. In an interview with the Financial Times, Hinton predicted that AI would increase corporate profits at the expense of human jobs, leading to widespread unemployment.
"What's actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers," Hinton said. "It's going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That's not AI's fault, that is the capitalist system".
Quit Google in 2023
Hinton gained significant attention when he left Google in 2023 to speak freely about the dangers of AI, and he now partly regrets his contributions to the field. He told the New York Times that he believed Google was a "proper steward" of the technology until Microsoft began incorporating a chatbot into its Bing search engine. This led to concerns about the risk to Google's search business.
Awarded Nobel prize in 2024
Hinton, who was awarded the Nobel Prize last year for his pioneering work in AI, emphasised the uncertainty of AI's future. "We don't know what is going to happen, we have no idea, and people who tell you what is going to happen are just being silly," he said. "We are at a point in history where something amazing is happening, and it may be amazingly good, and it may be amazingly bad. We can make guesses, but things aren't going to stay like they are".
Dangers posed by AI chatbots
He told the BBC that some of the dangers posed by AI chatbots were "quite scary," warning that they could become more intelligent than humans and be exploited by "bad actors". He added, "It's able to produce lots of text automatically, so you can get lots of very effective spambots. It will allow authoritarian leaders to manipulate their electorates, things like that".
In the interview with Financial Times, Hinton criticised tech companies for downplaying these risks. He said, "Many of the people in big companies, I think, are downplaying the risk publicly. People like Demis, for example, really do understand the risks and really want to do something about it".
He added, "The rate at which they've started working now is way beyond what anybody expected".
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