One of the most prominent pioneers of artificial intelligence has some grim predictions about what the technology he created is soon going to unleash onto humankind.<\/p>\n
Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose work on neural networks earned him the title of “Godfather of AI,” suggested in an interview with the\u00a0Financial Times<\/a> that tech CEOs who preach positive outcomes<\/a> for the future of AI are deluding themselves and others.<\/p>\n “What\u2019s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” Hinton told the FT. “It\u2019s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer.”<\/p>\n “That\u2019s not AI\u2019s fault,” he continued. “That is the capitalist system.”<\/p>\n The former Google Brain team leader \u2014 who left the company in 2023<\/a> and began making chilling premonitions<\/a> about the future of AI \u2014 didn’t provide any estimates about when this shift might happen. It’s stark to imagine a world where more people are being replaced with AI, because that very much<\/a> is already happening<\/a>, though those layoffs haven’t yet resulted in the profit boon<\/a> that companies desire.<\/p>\n Although OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his ilk have, as the FT notes, suggested introducing a universal basic income<\/a> (UBI) to counteract AI-induced unemployment, Hinton claimed that such a stopgap “won\u2019t deal with human dignity” and the loss of purpose people may experience without work<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though timelines for this jobs armageddon weren’t provided, Hinton did put dates to another forthcoming AI revolution: when the technology could become superintelligent<\/a>, able to out-think even the cleverest humans.<\/p>\n “A lot of scientists agree between five and 20 years,” he said. “That\u2019s the best bet.”<\/p>\n