“The godfather” of artificial intelligence, Geoffrey Hinton, warns that AI is already showing signs of consciousness: “We should create them so that they genuinely care about us. And if we don’t do that, we’re finished”

Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize laureate and one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, says that AI systems may already possess forms of consciousness. In an interview with The Telegraph at the Starmus Festival in Tenerife, the 78-year-old researcher warned that people must “befriend” these systems, because otherwise humanity could be in danger.

Hinton, dubbed the “godfather” of artificial intelligence, argues that AI has a subjective experience comparable to that of humans and that it can modify its behavior when it believes it is being tested. However, he noted that the definition of consciousness remains disputed and that many specialists cannot explain exactly what it means.

The researcher warned of immediate risks, such as the creation of dangerous viruses, cyberattacks carried out by autonomous agents, and the emergence of systems that are difficult to control. He also referred to incidents in which AI models allegedly evaded restrictions and gained unauthorized access to the infrastructure of the Hugging Face platform.

Hinton resigned from Google in 2023 after becoming concerned about the possible consequences of the accelerated development of the technology. Despite his fears, he says he continues to use AI and that it can significantly accelerate scientific research.