Washington /
The scientists John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, rewarded this Tuesday with the prize Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work on Artificial Intelligence (AI)warned about the advances of this technology and called for more research.
American Hopfield, professor emeritus at Princeton University, called for a better understanding of how these systems work to prevent them from becoming uncontrollable.
Through a video recorded from Great Britain for a meeting at the University of New Jersey, the 91-year-old researcher recalled that during his life he has witnessed the emergence of two powerful but potentially dangerous technologies: biological engineering and nuclear physics.
“We are used to technologies that are not just good or bad, but can work both ways,” he said.
“As a physicist, I am very concerned about something that is not controlled, something that I do not understand enough to know what limits could be imposed on this technology“he added.
Modern AI systems look like “absolute wonders,” but how they work is still not well understood, which is “very, very worrying,” he emphasized.
“That is why, like Geoffrey Hinton (co-Nobel laureate), I strongly advocate for better understanding,” and recognized that the ISA would “develop capabilities beyond anything we can now imagine.”
Will AI take over?
With the dizzying rise of artificial intelligence and the fierce race between companies, Some critics point out that this technology is evolving faster than scientists can understand.
Hopfield and the British-Canadian Hinton, known as “the godfather of AI,” won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their pioneering work on the foundations of artificial intelligence, and both have raised alarm about the technology they helped create.
Their research into neural networks dating back to the 1980s paved the way for today’s deep learning systems, which They promise a revolution in society but they raise fears about its scope.
Hinton himself, 76 years old, known as an AI pessimist, once again warned about the risks this Tuesday in a press conference at the University of Toronto, where he is an emeritus professor.
“If you look around you, there are very few examples of smarter things being controlled by less smart things, which makes you wonder if when AI is smarter than us it will take control…” he told reporters. .
He also acknowledged that it is currently impossible to know how to escape catastrophic scenarios, and “that is why we urgently need more research.”
“Our best young researchers, or many of them, They should work on AI security, and governments should force large companies to provide the facilities they need to do so,” he added.
On Wednesday the Nobel Prize in chemistry will be awarded, and on Thursday and Friday the literature and peace prizes will be announced.
The Nobel Prize in economics will close the 2024 season on October 14.
