Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “godfather of artificial intelligence (AI),” has issued a stark warning about the economic fallout of rapid AI development. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Hinton said that while AI will drive up corporate profits, it will likely do so at the cost of human jobs, leading to widespread unemployment.
“What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers. It’s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That’s not AI’s fault, that is the capitalist system,” Hinton said.
Awarded the Nobel Prize last year for his pioneering work in AI, Hinton has increasingly raised alarm over the risks of unchecked technological progress. He warned that without proper oversight, AI could destabilise global labour markets.
Highlighting the uncertainty of AI’s trajectory, he added, “We don’t know what is going to happen, we have no idea, and people who tell you what is going to happen are just being silly. We are at a point in history where something amazing is happening, and it may be amazingly good, and it may be amazingly bad. We can make guesses, but things aren’t going to stay like they are.”
Earlier, Hinton cautioned that AI systems could evolve independent communication methods, making them difficult—or even impossible—for humans to fully understand or control. He has also flagged that AI is already capable of generating harmful ideas and may soon develop beyond human comprehension.
Criticising tech companies for downplaying these risks, Hinton said: “Many of the people in big companies, I think, are downplaying the risk publicly. People like Demis, for example, really do understand the risks and really want to do something about it.”
“The rate at which they’ve started working now is way beyond what anybody expected,” he added.
