AI godfather Yoshua Bengio fears misuse of AI in military hands

Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio has said that he fears the misuse of the AI technology in military hands. While speaking to BBC, Bengio, also voiced his concern over the speed at which the technology is being developed.

Bengio also expressed his concerns about ‘bad actors’ getting hold of AI, especially as it becomes more sophisticated and powerful.

“It might be military, it might be terrorists, it might be somebody very angry, psychotic,” Bengio told BBC.

“And so if it’s easy to program these AI systems to ask them to do something very bad, this could be very dangerous. If they’re smarter than us, then it’s hard for us to stop these systems or to prevent damage,” he added. “If they’re smarter than us, then it’s hard for us to stop these systems or to prevent damage.”

He also told that his concerns have started to take a toll on his mental health and it felt like his life’s work was no longer clear in its sense of direction.

"You could say I feel lost. But you have to keep going and you have to engage, discuss, encourage others to think with you," Bengio said.

Professor Yoshua Bengio, along with Yann LeCun and Geoffrey Hinton are considered the three pioneering members in the field of AI. Geoffrey Hinton, who retired from Google recently has said that he regrets his life’s work. 

Many other AI experts have also raised alarms and said that the rapid development of AI can poses a ‘risk of extinction’ for humanity. 

However, Yann LeCun, who is also the AI chief at Meta, said the apocalyptic warnings were overblown. He also disagreed with Elon Musk that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to the world.

The regulation of AI has also been a hot topic these days, with many prominent leaders have been calling for a pause.  Back in March, Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GTP-4.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," said the letter issued by the Future of Life Institute.

The European Union has also expressed its concerns over the development of AI. Last week, EU’s industry chief Thierry Breton said that the United States and European Union should push the artificial intelligence industry to adopt a voluntary code of conduct within months to provide safeguards while new laws are developed.

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