“Godfather of AI” Predicts Apocalypse in the Next Decades

Artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity in the coming decades, the “Godfather of AI” warns, adding that the promising technology he helped create is developing “much faster” than he expected.

Professor Geoffrey Hinton, along with David Ackley and Terry Sejnowski, laid the foundation for modern AI in the 1980s. Their method recognizes properties in data and identifies characteristic elements in photos. Hinton, a 77-year-old British computer scientist who received the Nobel Prize in physics for his AI work this year, previously predicted a 10% chance AI could lead to a human apocalypse within three decades.

In a BBC Radio 4’s Today interview, Hinton, who resigned from Google to speak more openly about unregulated AI development, was asked whether his pessimistic predictions have changed. He replied, “Not really. I think 10 to 20 [percent], if anything,” adding that in the next few decades, humans might be like toddlers compared with rapidly evolving AI.

He compared this rapid progress to the Industrial Revolution when machines made human strength less relevant. However, human intelligence still controlled those machines, which may not be true with AI. “Now, there’s a threat that these things [AI systems] can take control, so that’s one big difference,” he stressed.

Hinton previously shared his regrets about introducing this technology to the world. “There’s two kinds of regret,” he said. “There is the kind where you feel guilty because you do something you know you shouldn’t have done, and then there’s regret where you do something you would do again in the same circumstances, but it may in the end not turn out well,” clarifying that his remorse is the second kind. He worries that systems more intelligent than humans will “eventually take control.”

He also expressed concern about large companies motivated by profit developing AI unethically to benefit the rich while making others poorer. “The only thing that can force those big companies to do more research on safety is government regulation,” he concluded.

Despite his pessimism, Hinton hopes other “very knowledgeable” experts have reasons to be more optimistic. Yann LeCun, another “godfather of AI” and Meta’s chief AI scientist, believes AI “could actually save humanity from extinction.”