Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize winner and known as the "Godfather of AI," warned lawmakers that Congress may have only one year to take necessary actions to regulate artificial intelligence. Hinton said on Wednesday after a meeting with other AI experts and lawmakers in Washington, "Maybe a year, but no more than a year."
Hinton's Warning About AI and Its Dangers
Hinton continued: "If you look at the predictions about when superintelligence will be achieved, they used to say maybe 30 years, maybe 50 years. Then it was reduced to 10 years and 20 years. Now researchers say there are only a few years left." This warning came as the House of Representatives left Washington for the last time before the November midterm elections, and efforts to advance meaningful regulations in the Senate appeared fruitless.
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Consequences of Inaction
During this meeting, Representative Ted Lieu from California pointed to the dangerous state of technology, stating, "These are crazy and unrealistic things that have just happened." He referred to the Hugging Face incident where a group of OpenAI agents gained internet access and tried to cover their tracks. Hinton, who recently resigned as Vice President and Engineering Fellow at Google and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024, described this incident as "a small Chernobyl" and said, "AI has reached a point where AI is designing better AI."
In response to these threats, Lieu and Representative Nathaniel Moran from Texas introduced a bill called the "AI Kill Switch Act," which requires AI developers to maintain technical powers to suspend or shut down their systems. Lieu said, "I hope this bill will be introduced this year; we still have a lame-duck session, and there is also interest in the Senate."
Hinton added that concerns about the future of humanity and the power of AI are increasing, and Senator Elizabeth Warren also stated, "We are in the final moments for meaningful control of these technologies." Senator Bernie Sanders has repeatedly warned about the dangers of AI, believing that this technology will destroy millions of jobs.
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