AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio warns against ‘bad actors’ misusing powerful artificial intelligence

In an interview with BBC, published on Wednesday (May 31), one of the so-called “godfathers” of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Professor Yoshua Bengio expressed concern about “bad actors” getting a hold of the technology which is becoming increasingly sophisticated and powerful. This comes as multiple prominent figures in the industry have sounded the alarm over how quickly AI is becoming accessible to the public and called on lawmakers and governments to regulate it.

Bengio feels ‘lost’ over his life’s work

During the interview with the United Kingdom-based media outlet, Bengio said that he felt “lost” over his life’s work. “It is challenging, emotionally speaking, for people who are inside (the AI sector),” said the second of the so-called three “godfathers” of AI, who has sounded the alarm.

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Bengio is also known for his significant contribution to the industry and raised concerns over the speed at which it is developing. He added, “You could say I feel lost. But you have to keep going and you have to engage, discuss, encourage others to think with you.”

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The Canadian professor at the University of Montreal was also one of the two members of the industry who signed two recent statements urging caution about the future risks of AI.

He also admitted that these concerns have taken a personal toll on him as his life’s work which once gave him direction and a sense of identity was no longer clear to him.

Who are these ‘bad actors’?

Speaking about the “bad actors” who could get a hold of the technology, the Canadian professor told BBC that it could be “military, it might be terrorists, it might be somebody very angry, psychotic.” He added, “And so if it’s easy to programme these AI systems to ask them to do something very bad, this could be very dangerous.”

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Similar concerns were raised by another “godfather” of AI, Dr Geoffrey Hinton, who in a separate interview earlier this month confirmed that he quit his role at Google and spoke about the “dangers” of the technology he helped develop. “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” Hinton told the New York Times.

Bengio calls for more regulations

Bengio echoed similar calls that the companies building powerful AI products require oversight by the government and told BBC that they should be audited. “Governments need to track what they're doing, they need to be able to audit them, and that's just the minimum thing we do for any other sector like building aeroplanes or cars or pharmaceuticals,” the Canadian professor told the UK-based media outlet.

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He added, that even people who are close to these advanced systems should have some kind of certification or “ethical training” which computer scientists do not receive.

The interview also comes a day after the world’s top AI researchers and industry leaders, including Hinton and Bengio as well as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, said, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Earlier this year, an open letter signed by some of the same individuals backing the 22-word warning called for a six-month “pause” to AI development,citing the “profound risks to society and humanity” that AI poses.

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