'Godfather of AI' leaves Google, warns of 'nightmare scenario'

Renowned artificial intelligence researcher Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "Godfather of AI," has resigned from his position as lead researcher at Google, citing concerns about the technology he helped push forward for decades.

In an interview with the New York Times, Hinton warned about the dangers of AI, including the propagation of fake content and the displacement of humans in the labour market.

"It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things," Hinton said, expressing concerns about the broader implications of AI technology. He also raised concerns about autonomous weapons, a technology under active development in the United States.

Hinton's work with Google began in 2012, when he and two of his students invented a mathematical system based on neurons in the brain that could identify common objects from thousands of photos. The breakthrough paper, published that fall, altered the course of computing and revitalised the research area. Neural networks, the core technology behind self-driving cars, social media algorithms, chatbots, facial recognition software and more, are a direct result of Hinton's pioneering work in deep learning and neural networks.

Despite his contributions to the field, Hinton expressed regret about his life's work and warned about the growing dangers of AI. He told the BBC that some of the dangers of AI chatbots were "quite scary," and that they could soon overtake the level of information that a human brain holds.

"Right now, they're not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be," he said.

Hinton's resignation from Google comes as many scientists and researchers working on various forms and applications of AI are expressing concern about the tech's escalating power and impact. Hinton acknowledged that Microsoft and Google's race to build up AI technology may be impossible to stop, as the two firms, along with other tech giants and startups, are rushing to capture the profits of AI-enabled products.

In response to Hinton's resignation, Google's chief scientist Jeff Dean released a statement saying that the company is "committed to a responsible approach to AI". Despite his concerns about the technology, Hinton tweeted after the Times article's publication that he thinks Google has acted responsibly.

"I've come to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we're developing is very different from the intelligence we have," Hinton said. "We're biological systems and these are digital systems. And the big difference is that with digital systems, you have many copies of the same set of weights, the same model of the world."