The ‘godfather of AI’ reveals how humanity can survive superintelligent AI
CNN
In the future, Geoffrey Hinton warned, AI systems might be able to control humans just as easily as an adult can bribe 3-year-old with candy. This year has already seen examples of AI systems willing to deceive, cheat and steal to achieve their goals. For example, to avoid being replaced, one AI model tried to blackmail an engineer about an affair it learned about in an email.
Instead of forcing AI to submit to humans, Hinton presented an intriguing solution: building “maternal instincts” into AI models, so “they really care about people” even once the technology becomes more powerful and smarter than humans.
AI systems “will very quickly develop two subgoals, if they’re smart: One is to stay alive… (and) the other subgoal is to get more control,” Hinton said. “There is good reason to believe that any kind of agentic AI will try to stay alive.”
That’s why it is important to foster a sense of compassion for people, Hinton argued. At the conference, he noted that mothers have instincts and social pressure to care for their babies.
“The right model is the only model we have of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing, which is a mother being controlled by her baby,” Hinton said.
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