The man often referred to as the “Godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, has advised the UK government to Adopt Universal Basic Income (UBI).
Geoffrey Hinton, an internationally recognized authority on artificial intelligence (AI) and self-described “Godfather of AI,” recently advised Downing Street government officials in the United Kingdom to contemplate implementing a universal basic income (UBI) to address the imminent risk of unemployment.
Hinton spent most of recent years developing high-level AI features for neural networks, the technology that underpins most contemporary generative AI systems (Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT). His previous employer was Google.
According to Hinton, the AI revolution will primarily benefit the wealthy. Unsophisticated individuals, manual laborers, and those employed in occupations amenable to automation will lose their means of subsistence, he told the BBC recently in an interview. “That will be disastrous for society.”
Hinton stated, “Downing Street officials consulted me, and I recommended universal basic income to them.”
Hinton and other prominent figures in the field of AI believe that UBI will be necessary to counteract the effects that automation will have on the human economy.
Before achieving prominence as a CEO in the technology sector, Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, was a student of Hinton and assisted in developing the neural network. Altman is renowned for his tenure as a co-founder of OpenAI and his ardent endorsement of UBI.
Worldcoin, an additional enterprise of Altman, is dedicated to achieving Universal Basic Income (UBI) through a cryptocurrency instrument distributed at no cost to individuals who register for the service and undergo a retinal scan for identity verification.
In addition to averting job losses via the introduction of UBI, both Hinton and Altman have articulated the concern that artificial intelligence (AI) might present an existential peril to the human race.
According to reports, Hinton resigned from his position at Google to express his concerns with more remarkable candor regarding artificial intelligence’s potential ramifications on our species’ future. Furthermore, Altman asserts that he and Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI to ensure that the development of advanced AI systems was conducted with utmost care and for the betterment of humanity.
Recent BBC interviewee Hinton speculated that the threat might become imminent within the next few years.
“My guess is in between five and 20 years from now there’s a probability of half that we’ll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over.”