#46: Geoff Hinton Leaves Google, Google and OpenAI Have “No Moat,” and the Most Exciting Things About the Future of AI

Hinton departs Google

Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of deep learning and a VP and engineering fellow at Google, has left the company after 10 years due to new fears he has about the technology he helped develop.

Hinton says he wants to speak openly about his concerns, and that part of him now regrets his life’s work. He told MIT Technology Review: “I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us. I think they’re very close to it now and they will be much more intelligent than us in the future. How do we survive that?”

He worries that extremely powerful AI will be misused by bad actors, especially in elections and war scenarios, to cause harm to humans. He’s also concerned that once AI is able to string together different tasks and actions (like we’re seeing with AutoGPT), intelligent machines could take harmful actions on their own.

This isn’t necessarily an attack on Google specifically. Hinton said that he has plenty of good things to say about the company. But he wants “to talk about AI safety issues without having to worry about how it interacts with Google’s business.”

“No Moats”

“We have no moat, and neither does OpenAI,” claims a leaked Google memo revealing that the company is concerned about losing the AI competition to open-source technology. The memo, led by a senior software engineer, states that while Google and OpenAI have been focused on each other, open-source projects have been solving major AI problems faster and more efficiently.

The memo’s author says that Google's large AI models are no longer seen as an advantage, with open-source models being faster, more customizable, and more private. What do these new developments and rapid shifts mean?

The exciting future of AI

We talk about a lot of heavy AI topics on this podcast—and it’s easy to get concerned about the future or overwhelmed. But Paul recently published a LinkedIn post that’s getting much attention because it talks about what he’s most excited about AI.

Paul wrote, “Someone recently asked me what excited me most about AI. I struggled to find an answer. I realized I spend so much time thinking about AI risks and fears (and answering questions about risks and fears), that I forget to appreciate all the potential for AI to do good. So, I wanted to highlight some things that give me hope for the future…” We won’t spoil it in this blog post, so tune in to the podcast to hear Paul’s thoughts.

Listen to this week’s episode on your favorite podcast player and be sure to explore the links below for more thoughts and perspectives on these important topics.

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