Nobel Prize Winner Warns Against Rapid Progress of AI; Geoffrey Hinton Calls for Caution during Award Banquet in Stockholm

By Yasuhiro Kobayashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

16:42 JST, December 11, 2024

STOCKHOLM — This year’s Nobel Prizes were dominated by research related to AI. Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto, Canada, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, expressed concern about the rapid progress of artificial intelligence (AI) at the award ceremony on Tuesday.

Hinton said that swift and forceful action by governments and international organizations was needed to address the problems AI may cause.

Hinton took the stage at the dinner that followed the awards ceremony and said that AI was already being misused by dictatorial regimes for mass surveillance and cyber-attacks. In the near future, it could be used to create horrible viruses and deadly weapons, he pointed out.

Professor Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, stressed that the spread of AI would increase inequality and disparity and that we must think about how we could share affluence in our society.

The award ceremony for this year’s Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, economic sciences, physiology/medicine and literature was held in the Swedish capital on Tuesday.