The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, Dec. 11, edition that at a celebratory banquet in Sweden's capital on Tuesday, Geoffrey Hinton delivered a concise message following his recognition as Canada's newest Nobel laureate. The Globe's Ivan Semeniuk writes that Mr. Hinton emphasized that while artificial intelligence presents significant benefits to productivity, it also entails considerable risks.
This duality is made possible by neural networks -- a technology that Dr. Hinton, an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto, played a pivotal role in developing, which ultimately contributed to him being named a co-winner of this year's Nobel Prize in physics.
Thanks to neural networks, computers are now able to perform complex tasks that were once thought to be beyond their capabilities. Dr. Hinton pointed out that this advancement is not due to machines improving their ability to mimic human reasoning, but rather because they are learning to replicate human intuition. He highlighted the harms AI is causing under authoritarian governments and by cybercriminals, warning that AI could evolve into digital beings "more intelligent than humans." He criticized companies prioritizing profit over safety.
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