A leading artificial intelligence researcher, some call the “godfather” of AI, says the technology is developing at a “scary” rate and warns that it should not expand beyond our ability to control it. Geoffrey Hinton, a longtime researcher at Google and newly-retired at age 75, has added his voice to those saying that the potential dangers of the new technology deserve scrutiny.
Software like the GPT-4 chatbot system, developed by the San Francisco start-up OpenAI, “eclipses a person in the amount of general knowledge it has and it eclipses them by a long way,” Hinton told BBC News. “In terms of reasoning, it’s not as good, but it already does simple reasoning. Given the rate of progress, we expect things to get better quite fast, so we need to worry about that,” he said.
GPT-4 is a large learning model trained on enormous amounts of data and historic and contemporary texts written by human authors. It can produce text on its own and generate blog posts, poems, and computer programs. It can engage in human-like conversations and provide answers to questions.
However, these systems are still in the early stages of development and show various flaws. Despite speaking in a confident manner, GPT-4 presents incorrect information as factual and makes up information in incidents researchers call “hallucinations.” At present, these early versions of artificial intelligence lack self-awareness.
CATHOLICS SPEAK OUT
Pope Francis has said that science and technology have practical benefits and are evidence of man’s ability “to participate responsibly in God’s creative action. From this perspective,” the pope said, “I am convinced that the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning has the potential to contribute in a positive way to the future of humanity; we cannot dismiss it.”
“At the same time, I am certain that this potential will be realized only if there is a constant and consistent commitment on the part of those developing these technologies to act ethically and responsibly,” he said.
Pope Francis said he welcomes the regulation of artificial intelligence so that it might contribute to a better world. He also said he is reassured to know many people working on new technologies put ethics, the common good, and the human person at the center. “We cannot allow algorithms to limit or condition respect for human dignity or to exclude compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and above all, the hope that people are able to change,” he said. Published in Catholic News Agency
