Yann LeCun, Winner of Alan Turing Award, Dismisses Fears of AI Endangering Humanity as “Absurd”
The European Union has passed the AI Regulation bill, sparking a heated debate on the regulation of artificial intelligence. Prominent figures such as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Yoshua Bengio, and Geoffrey Hinton have been calling for government regulation to address concerns about the potential dangers of superintelligent AI leading to the extinction of humanity. However, Yann LeCun, the third Godfather of AI, has dismissed these fears as “preposterously ridiculous.”
Professor LeCun also won the Alan Turing Award in 2018 along with Hinton and Bengio, and together they are considered the godfathers of artificial intelligence. However, LeCun has a different opinion about artificial intelligence than his contemporaries. At a press conference where he talked about his own work in the field of artificial intelligence, he also addressed the concerns surrounding this emerging technology.
Responding to the question, he said: “Is AI taking over the world? No, this is a reflection of human nature on machines,” the BBC reported, adding that keeping AI research “under lock and key” would be a huge mistake.
Yann LeCun talks about the dangers of artificial intelligence
He also addressed comments that AI could pose a risk to humanity, explaining that these fears exist because humans have not reached a stage where they can even clearly define these risks, which is a precursor to solving these problems.
He likened the situation to a hypothetical analogy, saying: “It’s like asking someone in 1930, how are you going to make a turbojet safe? Turbojets weren’t invented in 1930, just like human-level artificial intelligence hasn’t been invented yet. Turbojets were eventually made incredibly reliable and safe. He argued that artificial intelligence can also be made safer.
Fear of AGI
Along with artificial intelligence, there is a fear of artificial general intelligence (AGI), where artificial intelligence reaches superintelligence and becomes sentient. Speaking about AGI, he said some believe scientists “will be able to launch a super-intelligent system that will take over the world in minutes.” He added: “You know it’s absurdly ridiculous.”
Will artificial intelligence destroy jobs?
In closing, he said of fears about whether AI will take away jobs, “It won’t put a lot of people out of work permanently. But work would change because we have no idea what the most visible jobs will be in 20 years.
In fact, LeCun believes that artificial intelligence could usher in “a new renaissance for humanity,” just as the Internet or the printing press did.
