Godfather of Artificial Intelligence (AI) cautions against its impact: How Geoffrey Hinton helped the development of AI

Godfather of Artificial Intelligence (AI) cautions against its impact: How Geoffrey Hinton helped the development of AI

Subject: Science and Technology

Section: Computers

Context:

Geoffrey Hinton, 75, announced his resignation from Google in a statement to the New York Times, saying he now regretted his work.

Hinton is not alone in voicing fears regarding AI. More than 1,000 technology leaders and researchers, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Tesla founder Elon Musk, signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the developing AI systems further, saying they “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Machine Learning

Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer science that provides machines with the capacity to automatically learn from data and previous experiences by identifying patterns to generate predictions for new processes with minimal human intervention.

Applications – social media (Facebook), Transportation (Uber), Language Translation (Google Translate), Image or Speech Recognition (a machine can be fed thousands of images and then trained to identify what different animals or plants look like), Predicting Traffic Patterns, E-commerce Product recommendations, stock market and day trading, online fraud recognition, etc.

Neural Network

A neural network is a method in artificial intelligence that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by working of the human brain with its networks of neurons. It is a mathematical system that learns skills by analyzing data. It is a subset of machine learning, aiming to solve practical problems through novel learning algorithms.

The term ‘neural networks’ refers to “systems composed of layers of relatively simple computing elements called ‘neurons’ that are simulated in a computer.” These “neurons” only loosely resemble the neurons in the human brain, and influence one another – Association for Computing Machinery.

Applications – Speech Recognition, classify objects in images, machine translation, Chatbots answering a wide variety of questions, etc.

Three Concerns with AI

• Tools like ChatGPT may flood the internet with false photos, videos and text so that true data cannot be identified by the average internet user – Concerns of Misinformation.
• Over time machines may take over human jobs
• AI are digital systems that have more capacity to instantaneously process large amounts of data, than the humans who are biological systems. In future such data can be used can be used by “bad actors” for negative uses.

Solutions Proposed

• Companies must develop a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development, which can be overseen by independent outside experts.
• A proper framework with a legal structure and fool proofing, including watermarking systems to help distinguish real from synthetic should be created.

Facts

Bard – Google’s AI Chatbot