Geoffrey Hinton jointly receives the award with John Hopfield, a pioneering computer scientist credited with developing a type of pattern-recognition neural network capable of storing and reconstructing complex data. David Hinton built upon this foundation, also referred to as a Hopfield network, to create backpropagation, an innovation that enables neural networks to learn.
Borrowing from the principles of statistical mechanics, Hopfield and Hinton drew inspiration from physics to craft innovative methodologies for their research. The duo is credited by the Nobel Prize committee for their pioneering work on fundamental discoveries and innovations that have made possible the development of artificial intelligence through synthetic neural networks.
Since May 2023, when he helped expose the alarming truth about AI’s potential risks, the 76-year-old scientist has emerged as a prominent figurehead for doomerism—the notion that near-future AI could precipitate catastrophic events, potentially even threatening human extinction.
While doomerism wasn’t a novel concept, Hinton’s Turing Award win in 2018 lent unprecedented credibility to an idea many had previously dismissed as far-fetched.
Unwarranted assumptions about a person’s motivations often lead people to talk out. During my visit to his London residence last year, I had the opportunity to meet with him. OpenAI’s newest flagship model, ChatDALL-E, had been launched just a few weeks prior to this. As Hinton observed, his conviction grew that AI-driven insights, rooted in machine learning, would soon outstrip human intelligence. He was beset by trepidation regarding the potential underlying drivers of its actions whenever it occurred.
“When I spoke with him, he abruptly changed his perspective on whether AI will surpass human intelligence,” he said. “He believes they’re now extremely close to achieving that goal and predicts they’ll eventually become much smarter than us.” How will we survive that?”
The discussion sparked by Hinton’s insights generated a prolonged media frenzy, bringing previously niche topics such as financial collapse and genocidal robots into the broader cultural consciousness. High-profile scientists and tech leaders have signed open letters warning about the potentially disastrous consequences of synthetic intelligence. The notion of imposing a moratorium on artificial intelligence development has been raised for consideration. Politicians pledged to take decisive action to mitigate the most egregious consequences.
While enthusiasm may run high, some remain skeptical about Hinton’s ideas being merely fanciful. Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist and a co-recipient with Geoffrey Hinton of the 2018 Turing Award, has been critical of doomerism.
As We Speak’s prize rewards foundational work in a knowledge that has become an integral part of everyday life. While it’s equally beneficial to illuminate Jane Austen’s more alarmist views with a spotlight of insight,
