AI luminary Yann LeCun has rendered the notion of artificial intelligence (AI) as an existential menace to humanity as “outrageously ludicrous.”
In conversation with the BBC this week at an AI-centric gathering hosted in Paris by Meta, where he now holds the esteemed position of the company’s chief AI scientist, Professor LeCun articulated: “Shall AI seize dominion over our planet? Nay, this is merely a projection of human sentiment onto machines.”
LeCun’s articulations stand in stark contrast to the declarations of Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, his co-recipients of the Turing Award in 2018 for their revolutionary contributions to AI. The triumvirate is now often acknowledged as “the patriarchs of AI.”
Hinton recently relinquished his position at Google to impart his perspectives on AI development with uninhibited freedom. When deliberating on the notion of AI “annihilating humanity” in a recent CBS interview, Hinton remarked: “That prospect is not beyond conception.”
Meanwhile, Bengio asserted recently that although contemporary AI systems are far from posing an existential hazard to humanity, the prospect of things turning “catastrophic” with more sophisticated iterations of the technology remains plausible, citing a milieu of “substantial uncertainty” regarding the future landscape of AI.
LeCun, however, adopts a more serene outlook on the unfolding panorama, asserting that fears of AI dominance are inflated.
While acknowledging the inevitability of AI surpassing human intelligence, LeCun emphasizes that such a milestone would necessitate years, possibly decades, to transpire. Even then, LeCun opines, the assumption of a superintelligent AI eluding our grasp is “wholly preposterous,” affirming that such scenarios are simply incongruous with the natural order of things.
Telling the BBC that even a highly evolved AI apparatus is “destined to reside within a data center with an accessible off switch,” Professor LeCun elucidates that if deemed unsafe, such technologies need not come to fruition.
Viewing the imminent dawn of this technology through a lens of optimism, he articulates that AI has the potential to usher in “a new epoch for humanity,” akin to the transformative impacts of the internet or the printing press on society.
Despite AI’s historical presence dating back decades, the recent surge in technological advancements has thrust it to the forefront, with formidable tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbots garnering widespread acclaim for their remarkable prowess in data processing and human-like conversational capabilities.
