Nobel laureates urge strong AI regulation

Co-laureate of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics Canadian-British computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton says AI needs strong regulation. Photo / AFP

Physics Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton and chemistry laureate Demis Hassabis have insisted on a need for strong regulation of artificial intelligence, which played a key role in their awards.

“AI is a very important technology to regulate but I think it’s very important that we get the regulations right and I think that’s the hard thing at the moment is it’s such a fast moving technology,” Hassabis told a news conference in Stockholm.

Hassabis, who jointly won with Americans David Baker and John Jumper for revealing the secrets of proteins through AI, said such evolutionary speed posed a giant challenge.

But the underlying issue, he said, is “about what do we want to use these systems for, how do we want to deploy them and making sure that all of humanity benefits from what these systems can do”.

British-Canadian Hinton, considered the “Godfather of AI,” conceded that “I wish I’d thought about safety earlier,” in allusion to his fears about the potential for AI to ramp up the arms race.

Hinton, who made headlines when he quit Google last year and warned of the dangers machines could one day outsmart people, was awarded his Nobel along with American John Hopfield for work on artificial neural networks.

“Governments are unwilling to regulate themselves when it comes to lethal autonomous weapons and there is an arms race going on between all the major arms suppliers like the United States, China, Russia, Britain, Israel.

Hassabis said he was recommending governments come up with “fast and nimble regulations.”

He said he had been advising governments and civil society to build on regulations in domains such as healthcare and transport “and see how the technology develops and then quickly adapt to the way that’s going”.

He told AFP he had had discussions with Elon Musk about the “existential threat” posed by inappropriate use of AI and indicated the tech billionaire was concerned at the potential for AI to wrest control from humans.

He added that he was confident Musk would “communicate that to Trump and his administration” when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.

But he warned that he was not sure if all of Trump’s team would necessarily be sufficiently attuned to the risks entailed, adding that he believed Musk himself is not a “particularly moral” person.