Scientist Yann LeCun has insisted fears over AI posing a threat to humanity are “preposterously ridiculous”.
Scientist Yann LeCun has insisted fears over AI posing a threat to humanity are “preposterously ridiculous”.
The professor – who is known as “the godfathers of AI with fellow Turing Award winners Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio – has played down concerns artificial intelligence could take over the world or leave jobs permanently destroyed.
LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, disagrees with Hinton and Bengio’s assessment of the risks.
Speaking at a press event attended by the BBC and others, he said: “Will AI take over the world? No, this is a projection of human nature on machines.”
He suggested that some concerns come from people struggling to imagine how AI can be made safe.
He added: “It’s as if you asked in 1930 to someone how are you going to make a turbo-jet safe? Turbo-jets were not invented yet in 1930, same as human level AI has not been invented yet.”
He noted that turbo jets “were eventually made incredibly reliable and safe”, while predicting the same for AI.
LeCun admitted there was “no question” that the technology will surpass human intelligence, but refered to artificial generall intelligence (AGI) systems which can solve a wide range of problems like humans.
He said people worry that scientists can “turn on a super-intelligent system that is going to take over the world within minutes”, describing the notion as “ridiculous”.
‘Godfather of AI’ plays down fears over technology’s treat to humanity
