THE CRUNCH
Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel prize-winning computer scientist often called one of the godfathers of AI, has said it might turn out that humans would have been better off never developing the technology. He told the Guardian he is not a doomer and believes AI could still lead to a wonderful future, but warned it could trigger a large-scale incident this year or next, such as a temporary blackout of financial or power systems.
The warning carries weight because Hinton's own research into artificial neural networks underpins the technology he is now questioning. His remark is a judgement that it might turn out humans would have been better off never developing it, not a rejection of the field: he explicitly denies being a doomer and still sees a wonderful future as possible.