AI doomsayer wins Nobel Prize for key research

Geoffrey Hinton previously worked at Google but left to publicly speak out about the technology's risks.

Oct 8, 2024 - 16:00

British researcher Geoffrey Hinton, who left Google in 2023 to warn of the risks of artificial intelligence, has won the Nobel Prize in physics for pioneering work in AI.

Hinton has helped “initiate the current explosive development of machine learning,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel prizes, said in a press release. It also awarded U.S.-based John Hopfield.

Machine learning is a technology modeled on the structure of a human brain that underpins many AI applications, such as image recognition.

Hinton developed image recognition technology, which was acquired by Google in 2013.

However, in 2023, Hinton left Google to speak out about AI’s risks to jobs, disinformation and humanity. He called AI’s progress “scary” and warned of a flood of misleading, AI-generated pictures, videos and text online.

In later remarks, Hinton said he didn’t see how to “prevent superintelligence wanting to get control of things.” In May, he co-authored a paper urging for more AI governance.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences didn’t address Hinton’s warnings in its remarks at length.

It said machine learning was “revolutionizing science, engineering and daily life” and that its future depended on “how we humans choose to use these incredibly potent tools.”