Pioneering computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, whose work has earned him a Nobel Prize and the moniker \u201cgodfather of AI,\u201d said artificial intelligence will spark a surge in unemployment and profits.<\/p>\n
In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times<\/a>, the former Google<\/a> scientist cleared the air about why he left the tech giant, raised alarms on potential threats from AI, and revealed how he uses the technology. But he also predicted who the winners and losers will be.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,\u201d Hinton said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That\u2019s not AI\u2019s fault, that is the capitalist system.\u201d<\/p>\n That echos comments he gave to Fortune last month, when he said AI companies are more concerned with short-term profits<\/a> than the long-term consequences of the technology.<\/p>\n For now, layoffs haven\u2019t spiked, but evidence is mounting that AI is shrinking opportunities, especially at the entry level<\/a> where recent college graduates start their careers.<\/p>\n A survey from the New York Fed found that companies using AI are much more likely to retrain their employees than fire them<\/a>, though layoffs are expected to rise in the coming months.<\/p>\n Hinton said earlier that healthcare is the one industry that will be safe<\/a> from the potential jobs armageddon. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you could make doctors five times as efficient, we could all have five times as much health care for the same price,\u201d he\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0on the\u00a0Diary of a CEO\u00a0YouTube\u00a0series in June. \u201cThere\u2019s almost no limit to how much health care people can absorb\u2014[patients] always want more health care if there\u2019s no cost to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Hinton believes that jobs that perform mundane tasks will be taken over by AI, while sparing some jobs that require a high level of skill.<\/p>\n In his interview with the FT, he also dismissed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman\u2019s idea to pay a universal basic income as AI disrupts the economy and reduce demand for workers, saying it \u201cwon\u2019t deal with human dignity\u201d and the value people derive from having jobs.<\/p>\n Hinton has long warned about the dangers of AI without guardrails, estimating a\u00a010% to 20% chance<\/a>\u00a0of the technology wiping out humans after the development of superintelligence.<\/p>\n In his view, the dangers of AI fall into two categories: the risk the technology itself poses to the future of humanity, and the consequences of AI being manipulated by people with bad intent. <\/p>\n In his FT interview, he warned AI could help someone build a bioweapon and lamented the Trump administration\u2019s unwillingness to regulate AI more closely, while China is taking the threat more seriously. But he also acknowledged potential upside from AI amid its immense possibilities and uncertainties.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what is going to happen, we have no idea, and people who tell you what is going to happen are just being silly,\u201d Hinton said. \u201cWe 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\u2019t going to stay like they are.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, he told the FT how he uses AI in his own life, saying OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT is his product of choice. While he mostly uses the chatbot for research, Hinton revealed that a former girlfriend used ChatGPT \u201cto tell me what a rat I was\u201d during their breakup.<\/p>\n \u201cShe got the chatbot to explain how awful my behavior was and gave it to me. I didn\u2019t think I had been a rat, so it didn\u2019t make me feel too bad\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009I met somebody I liked more, you know how it goes,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n Hinton also explained why he left Google in 2023. While media reports have said he quit so he could speak more freely about the dangers of AI, the 77-year-old Nobel laureate denied that was the reason.<\/p>\n \u201cI left because I was 75, I could no longer program as well as I used to, and there\u2019s a lot of stuff on Netflix<\/a> I haven\u2019t had a chance to watch,\u201d he said. \u201cI had worked very hard for 55 years, and I felt it was time to retire\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009And I thought, since I am leaving anyway, I could talk about the risks.\u201d\n<\/p>\n