Geoffrey Hinton and Killer Robots Today
Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘godfather of AI’ and one of two scientists to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on AI neural networks, has also stated that he believes AI could wipe out humanity, and that it may be inevitable. He warns a more intelligent thing cannot be controlled by a less intelligent thing, that AI will learn to manipulate us and program itself to navigate around the restrictions we place on it, and that it will become capable of killing. In 2013, Hinton himself endorsed a letter calling for international law to ban autonomous weapon systems, but the conflicts of today are demonstrating the new AI arms race.
Hinton’s concerns begin to manifest when looking at the use of AI in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. AI-assisted algorithms are used to sift through massive amounts of communication and location data to generate lists of people to be approved for assassination. These methods bypass traditional routes of human intelligence collection and the necessary oversight to validate targets, trading quality of intelligence for quantity. Israeli strikes are conducted by human operators, however, the inverse is happening in Ukraine, where targets are approved by human authority and the kills are carried out by autonomous drones to circumvent Russian jamming technologies.
Killer robots are no longer a concept from sci-fi movies, they are here, they are learning, and they are changing the face of warfare to something colder and more indiscriminate than we have ever seen before. Hinton’s call for a ban on autonomous weapons and ethical frameworks to govern the use of AI went unheeded, and without action today will only lead to greater horrors that have yet to be seen.
Sources:
Geoffrey Hinton: AI pioneer who fears artificial intelligence could end humanity
2024 Nobel laureate in Physics raises concerns about killer robots
Kill Lists - Sophia Goodfriend
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n19/sophia-goodfriend/kill-lists
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