(Toronto) Several Canadian pioneers in artificial intelligence (AI) have signed a new document urging governments to better manage the risks associated with the technology as its capabilities continue to advance.
Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton are among 24 signatories to a letter warning that AI has already surpassed some human capabilities because these systems can act faster, absorb more knowledge and communicate more quickly than humans.
They warn that further advances in AI could exacerbate global inequality, facilitate automated warfare, orchestrate mass manipulation, and widespread surveillance of populations.
To keep pace with AI innovations and mitigate risks, the signatories urge governments and businesses to dedicate a third of their AI research and development funding to the safe and ethical use of the systems.
They also want the creators of AI systems to adopt safety measures that can counter the dangerous capabilities of their products and for the companies that make these technologies to be held accountable for the harm they cause.
MM. Bengio and Hinton, dubbed the godfathers of AI since winning the A. M. Turing Prize with Yann LeCun in 2018, have, over the past year, shown themselves increasingly concerned about the technology they have been the pionneers.
