Jeffrey Hinton, one of the three “godfathers of AI,” Photo: Young Chris-CP / Abaca Press
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is provoking an international race for military dominance, which is already becoming one of the greatest geopolitical threats of our time. Jeffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the pioneers in the field of AI, known as the “godfather” of this technology, warns that AI may one day become the force that will force nations to unite, Business Insider reports.
At a seminar of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering, Hinton said that countries are not ready to cooperate on the regulation of lethal autonomous weapons. “All the major countries, including Russia, the US, China, the UK, Israel, and possibly Sweden, are actively working on autonomous weapons. They will not slow down these developments or regulate them on their own,” Hinton said.
However, he believes that the situation will change when humanity faces an existential threat from super-intelligent AI. “When these systems become smarter than us – and almost all researchers agree that this will happen, the only question is whether it will be in five or thirty years – we will be forced to cooperate to stop the threat we are creating.”
Hinton noted that a possible global unification in confronting super-intelligent AI could be reminiscent of the Cold War, when the US and the USSR, despite ideological enmity, sought to avoid nuclear disaster. Similarly, cooperation will become inevitable if a super-intelligent form of AI threatens the power of even structures such as the Chinese Communist Party.
Calls for international AI regulation are becoming more and more frequent. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has proposed the creation of an international agency that would control the development of the most powerful AI models and ensure their safety. “In the near future, advanced artificial intelligence systems will be able to cause global damage if left unchecked,” Altman said.
This topic is particularly relevant amid reports that the US and China are already discussing the regulation of AI. In November, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the leaders of the two countries, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, agreed that the use of nuclear technology should remain under the control of humans, not machines.
According to a Goldman Sachs report, global investment in AI is expected to exceed $200 billion by 2025. At the same time, the United States and China remain the leaders in the military race, which is increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence.
AI, which can create both incredible opportunities and threats for humanity, is already becoming a central element of geopolitical strategies. Whether it will become a unifying factor for countries depends on how quickly the world recognises the need for global cooperation.
