Nobel Physics Winner’s Big AI Worry: “These Things Could Eventually”

Geoffrey E Hinton, known as the Godfather of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics 2024, on Tuesday raised concerns about the technology he has created.

The 76-year-old University of Toronto professor said machine learning and AI will have a significant influence on humankind’s future, comparing it to the Industrial Revolution, but flagged the threat of these systems “getting out of control”. “Instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it will exceed people in intellectual ability. People will be able to do the same amount of work with an AI assistant in much lesser time. But there is always the threat of these things getting out of control,” Mr Hinton said.

He further said that his fear is the systems will become more intelligent that people, and eventually take control.

American John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for pioneering work in the development of artificial intelligence. The pair were honoured “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” the jury said.

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“These artificial neural networks have been used to advance research across physics topics as diverse as particle physics, material science and astrophysics,” Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told a press conference. Moons also noted that these tools have also become part of our daily lives, including in facial recognition and language translation.

The jury said Hinton “invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.”

Hinton said he used AI tools such as ChatGPT4 “for almost everything. But it is not a very good expert, and that is good”.

“I’m flabbergasted, I had no idea this would happen,” Hinton told reporters via a phone interview as the laureates were announced in Stockholm. Speaking in a lighter vein, he added, “I’m in a cheap hotel in California that doesn’t have an internet connection or a very good phone connection. I was going to get an MRI scan today, but I will have to cancel.”

The Nobel Prize in Medicine Prize was awarded on Monday to American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun. The US duo were honoured for their discovery of microRNA and its role in how genes are regulated. The physics prize will be followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday, with the highly watched literature and peace prizes to be announced on Thursday and Friday respectively. The economics prize wraps up the 2024 Nobel season on October 14.