Google AI Reorganization: Hinton Bails Out
May 2, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I saw a number of pointers to a New York Times’ story about an AI wizard bailing out of the smooth riding Google AI operation. “‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead” states that the AI expert “worries it will cause serious harm.” I liked this statement because it displays the Times’s penchant for adding opinions to information provided by an expert. I love psycho-journalism!
Dr. Hinton’s journey from A.I. groundbreaker to doomsayer marks a remarkable moment for the technology industry at perhaps its most important inflection point in decades. Industry leaders believe the new A.I. systems could be as important as the introduction of the web browser in the early 1990s and could lead to breakthroughs in areas ranging from drug research to education. But gnawing at many industry insiders is a fear that they are releasing something dangerous into the wild. Generative A.I. can already be a tool for misinformation. Soon, it could be a risk to jobs. Somewhere down the line, tech’s biggest worriers say, it could be a risk to humanity.
Remember the halcyon days of “objective” Google search results? What about the excitement of sending short messages for free and harmlessly capturing followers with a pithy bon mot? Has the warm flush of Facebook’s ability to build communities among users and predators faded? Each of these looked benign. Entertaining curiosities.
Now smart software is viewed with some skepticism. Gee. It only took a quarter century for people to figure out that flowing information is sometimes good and many times a bit like water blasted from a nozzle at great speed.
I found this comment interesting:
Until last year, he [Hinton] said, Google acted as a “proper steward” for the technology, careful not to release something that might cause harm. But now that Microsoft has augmented its Bing search engine with a chatbot — challenging Google’s core business — Google is racing to deploy the same kind of technology. The tech giants are locked in a competition that might be impossible to stop, Dr. Hinton said. His immediate concern is that the internet will be flooded with false photos, videos and text, and the average person will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”
I wonder if the OSINT cheerleaders have considered that what may be a multi-billion dollar industry could be facing a bit of a challenge. Mixing up Ukrainian field survey tags with Russian targeting devices will be small potatoes if Mr. Hinton is correct.
The photograph of the wizard captures a person who is not a 20 something Googler. The expression seems to suggest a growing awareness of a rework of the Information Superhighway and some other furniture of the modern world.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2023
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