The 'Godfather' of Artificial Intelligence warns of the "danger of the extinction of humanity": How to prevent it

2023-06-01 23:02:15Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Yoshua Bengio

Yoshua Bengio is one of the three "godfathers" of Artificial Intelligence (AI). But it doesn't have the enthusiasm of the beginning.

In an interview with the BBC , Bengio says that if he had known how quickly Artificial Intelligence would develop, he would have prioritized security over its usefulness.

"You could say I feel lost," Bengio said. "But I have to move on, engage, discuss and encourage others to think with me."

The Canadian computer scientist's comments come after he co-signed an open letter with a group of industry leaders warning of the "danger of human extinction" posed by AI, along with fellow AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton, who once the latter quit his job at Google after coming to a similar conclusion.

One of Bengio's concerns at the moment is the possibility that "bad actors" could abuse Artificial Intelligence.

"It could be a soldier, it could be a terrorist, it could be a very angry, psychotic individual," Bengio told the BBC. "So if it's easy to program these AI systems to ask them to do something very bad, that could be very dangerous."

Bengio points out that governments should monitor companies developing Artificial Intelligence in the same way they monitor any other sector such as building airplanes, cars or pharmaceuticals.

To do this effectively, he proposes that people who work on these AI systems undergo some sort of certification in the form of "ethical training".

It's usually never good when pioneering inventors compare their work to the atomic bomb. However, Bengio and Hinton did in their respective interviews.

But the third remaining "godfather", Yann LeCun, is apparently not convinced that Artificial Intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity, as he is the only one of the trio not to have signed the statement, and is even a vocal opponent of a the proposed moratorium on the development of Artificial Intelligence.

However, Bengio thinks the challenge is surmountable.

"It's never too late to improve," he says in the interview. "It's exactly like climate change. We've put a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. And it would be better if we hadn't, but let's see what we can do now."

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