Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the “Godfather of AI” has won the Nobel Peace Prize in Physics alongside John Hopfield for their work in machine learning.
Hinton, who was awarded a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1978, built on Hopfield’s work to successfully revolutionise artificial neural networks, which laid the groundwork for modern AI systems.
Professor Helene Hastie, head of the School of Informatics, commented in a press release that the recognition “celebrates the transformative power of artificial intelligence, solidifying Edinburgh University’s legacy as a crucible for pioneering minds and ground-breaking research”.
Hinton previously won the Turing award in 2018 alongside Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun for their collective work on deep learning.
According to AP News, the computer scientist resigned from Google in 2023 to speak freely about the potential dangers AI holds within modern society.
Speaking on AI chat boxes, such as ChatGPT, Hinton told the BBC in 2023, “they’re not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be”.
Talking to Scott Pelley of CBS’ 60 Minutes, Hinton reiterated, “We have a very good idea of sort of roughly what it’s doing. But as soon as it gets really complicated, we don’t actually know what’s going on any more than we know what’s going on in your brain”.
In an open letter published in 2023, tech experts warned about the “profound risks to society and humanity” that the quick advancement of AI poses, urging a temporary closure of AI labs.
The rapid growth of AI use amongst students in academia was reported by Harvard this year.
One student, Anton, told us, “I don’t see many risks of the AIs we currently have, they’re brilliant machine learning tools”.
Another student, Chunxi, commented, “I have a rather optimistic view about AI” but, “as for surpassing humans, I am of the belief that it’s probably going to surpass humans in the more logical side of intelligence, but not in the emotional side of intelligence”.
Ethan, another student, believes, “the biggest long-term risk is the displacement of workers in industries that AI can absolutely replace humans in once it reaches a certain level of intelligence”.
“I think the known risks outweigh the theorised gains”.
“RCZ_1297” by collision.conf is licensed under CC BY 2.0.