AI’s Roller Coaster: Yoshua Bengio on the Thrills and Risks of Artificial Intelligence

The Turing Award-winner Yoshua Bengio has some deep thoughts about the thrills and risks of artificial intelligence. This guy has seen it all — from the early “What is this AI thing, anyway?” days to the current “AI is everywhere and OMG, what have we done?” era.

What’s All This About, Anyway?

Young Bengio was fully charged with the mysteries of human intelligence. And in a few decades, he became a big deal in deep learning. (Think of it as teaching machines to think like us but without the need for coffee breaks.)

Later on, he had an “AI epiphany” moment with ChatGPT. Imagine him scrolling through lines of code, sipping his coffee, and suddenly dropping his mug in slow motion as he realizes: “Sh**t, this AI thing is HUGE!”

Bengio, as you’ve guessed, is one of the “AI Godfathers“. But has gone from super thrilled about his brainchild, to cautious.

THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD OF AI

After the sweet honeymoon with AI, Bengio can’t decide if his brainchild is Thor or Loki. On one hand, it’s saving the world, answering questions, and making our lives better in many ways. On the other, it might be used for nefarious ends, or it might end up…