The “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton said public pressure, not lawmakers alone, will ultimately force meaningful regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), comparing the dynamic to how climate change was eventually addressed.
Hinton made the comments on the podcast “Smart Girl Dumb Questions” with host Nayeema Raza, released Tuesday.
Comparing AI Regulation to Drugs
Hinton said he left a recent closed-door briefing with 19 U.S. senators “maybe a little bit more optimistic,” though he noted the group was largely self-selected, with 17 Democrats attending. He said physicist Max Tegmark raised the idea that AI should be regulated the way drugs are, requiring companies to prove safety to a government body, similar to the FDA, before release. Hinton agreed that “seems like the very least we should have for AI.”
Asked whether such oversight could realistically move fast enough, Hinton pointed to the climate-change precedent, saying meaningful political pressure only built once the public understood the stakes. He said the same shift is “beginning” with AI.
On Regret and Risk
Hinton also reflected on his role in inventing the technology, saying he does not regret his research itself, since the risks “seemed way way in the future” at the time. He said his one regret was being slow to recognize how dangerous AI systems were becoming, noting he didn’t begin warning publicly until 2023, years after some peers had already raised alarms.
Hinton’s comments follow a similar warning he gave Congress last month, when he said lawmakers may have only “maybe a year, but not much more” to put safeguards in place before AI becomes difficult to control. Other tech figures have echoed that urgency; Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates has separately argued that AI’s cyber and biological risks are too severe to leave to industry self-regulation.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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