My belief is that government’s the only people who are powerful enough to deal with these large companies and even they may not be.
Words found on the source page on Nov 6, 2026.
More from Geoffrey Hinton
PodcastNobel Prize Conversations podcastMay 15, 2025
I think actually for fundamental original research, universities are better than the big companies.PodcastNobel Prize Conversations podcastMay 15, 2025
I think it may take up to 20 years, I’d say probably within the next 20 years they get smarter than us.PodcastNobel Prize Conversations podcastMay 15, 2025
I’m just worried by the fact that there’s very few cases of more intelligent things being controlled by less intelligent things.TalkNobel Prize banquet speechDec 10, 2024
But we now have evidence that if they are created by companies motivated by short-term profits, our safety will not be the top priority. We urgently need research on how to prevent these new beings from wanting to take control. They are no longer science fiction.TalkNobel Prize banquet speechDec 10, 2024
In the near future AI may be used to create terrible new viruses and horrendous lethal weapons that decide by themselves who to kill or maim.TalkNobel Prize banquet speechDec 10, 2024
This new form of AI excels at modeling human intuition rather than human reasoning...TalkNobel Prize banquet speechDec 10, 2024
There is also a longer term existential threat that will arise when we create digital beings that are more intelligent than ourselves. We have no idea whether we can stay in control.InterviewNobel Prize interview, Nobel Week 2024Dec 6, 2024
In particular with respect to the existential threat of these things getting out of control and taking over, I think we’re a kind of bifurcation point in history where in the next few years we need to figure out if there’s a way to deal with that threat.
On the same topics
TalkSpeech at the UN Security CouncilSep 23, 2026
Frontier AI should be licensed like other critical technologies; medicine, aviation, and nuclear energy, to incentivize safe development.TalkSpeech at the UN Security CouncilSep 23, 2026
The race is not a law of nature: it is the product of choices, choices made by the companies themselves.TalkSpeech at the UN Security CouncilSep 23, 2026
We must agree collectively that no one, no company and no country, should develop an AI system that could cause large-scale harm.BlogBanning self-recursive improvement in AI models?Sep 22, 2026
Even if you believe in a deal with China, and I do not, we (and others) now know competitors can catch up more quickly than we had thought, at least if they think they have a chance of winning.BlogBanning self-recursive improvement in AI models?Sep 22, 2026
If the top U.S. labs have to give up on what is supposed to be really important, they will look very “catchable.” The policy creates a big incentive for some other parts of the world to invest a lot more in compute.PressLaunch of the roadmap of the Coalition for Children's Rights and Protection in the Age of AISep 22, 2026
AI must not be placed in the hands of children without first being tested, evaluated, and therefore authorized.
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