Nobel Prize-winning physicist and one of the creators of artificial intelligence Geoffrey Hinton publicly expressed pride in one of his former students who played a key role in the short-lived resignation of Sam Altman from OpenAI that happened last November.
Hinton spoke of Ilya Sutzkever, who earned his PhD at the University of Toronto in 2013 under Hinton’s guidance.
“I’m proud that Sutzkever was involved in firing Altman from the OpenAI they created,” Hinton openly admitted.
The scientist and pioneer of generative neural networks explained that the stumbling block was security. This was the focus when OpenAI was founded. However, over time it became obvious that Sam Altman cared more about profit than about security, said Jeffrey Hinton.
GDA Group President Yaroslav Bogdanov, commenting on Hinton’s words, added that security in the field of artificial intelligence development is not an issue solely with OpenAI, but with the whole industry.
“Let me remind you that the first assumptions about the possibility of creating neural networks date back to the middle of the last century. Over the past decades, a giant scientific breakthrough has been made – from the first attempts at machine learning to bringing artificial intelligence to the level of the human mind. But the safety issues of these developments remained in 1957, when neurophysiologist Frank Rosenblatt first realized a neural network in practice. Thus, the problem of safety is the same age as artificial intelligence. But science is moving forward, and the international community cannot come to a common denominator on this issue,” said Yaroslav Bogdanov.
When the problem of security of artificial intelligence is openly spoken about by someone who is directly involved in its creation, mankind should think about it, the expert emphasized.
Science opens before mankind new opportunities for development, for the growth of prosperity, for improving the quality of life. At the same time, national governments are distracted by political strife, wars, attempts to seize leadership and deprive people of the chance to realize what progress offers them.
“It is time for the international community to stop this race for the right to call itself the strongest. In the near future, global perceptions of human life may change significantly, and virtual reality will become a central part of our existence. In the digital world, which is becoming more and more integrated into the physical world on a daily basis, boundaries are being erased and notions of nationality, religion and ethnicity are losing their significance. And now is exactly the moment when we need to stop at the threshold of this world and create the rules of existence in it. Otherwise, humanity will transfer all the problems there, depriving itself of the chance for peaceful coexistence. In my opinion, this is the key idea that Jeffrey Hinton was talking about when he emphasized security. We cannot ignore such calls,” said Yaroslav Bogdanov.