The Godfather of A.I. leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

“I contributed to the development of a technology that has become dangerous to the world … and that is why I distanced myself from working in its giant.” With these words only, Jeffrey Hinton, dubbed the “spiritual father of artificial intelligence,” justified on Monday his decision to leave work at Google after years of successful partnership between them.

This announcement was a surprise in the world of technology, especially since Hinton's work on neural networks was mainly in artificial intelligence systems that run many contemporary technical products.

Despite this, the man announced that he left his job at Google last week, in order to speak publicly about the "risks" of the technology he helped develop.

Hinton, through his part-time work at the technology giant for a decade, contributed to Google's artificial intelligence development efforts, but since then he has had concerns about this technology and his role in its development, according to the American New York Times.

“I console myself with the well-known excuse: If I hadn't done it, someone else would have done it,” Hinton said, attributing his departure to his desire to speak freely about the dangers of AI, not to criticize the company, he said in a tweet on Monday.

 

In turn, the company's chief scientist, Jeff Dean, commented on Hinton's decision, saying, "He has achieved major breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence," expressing his appreciation for "a decade of contributions to Google."

He also declared his commitment to a responsible approach to AI, saying, "We are constantly learning to understand emerging risks while innovating boldly."

It is noteworthy that Hinton's decision to reveal his concerns about artificial intelligence came at a time when a growing number of lawmakers and groups raised warnings about the possibility of a new batch of chatbots spreading false information and eliminating a large number of jobs.

In addition, Hinton is not the first Google employee to warn of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Last July, the company fired an engineer who claimed that an undetected intelligence system had become conscious.

While many in this technical field strongly refused to confirm what the engineer said.