‘Godfather of AI' warns Canadian companies are adopting the technology too slowly
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Canada risks losing its early advantage in artificial intelligence because businesses are adopting the technology too slowly, according to Geoffrey Hinton, a Canadian scientist commonly known as the 'godfather of AI' for his seminal work on artificial neural networks.
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'(Canada) has got one big disadvantage, which is that … most Canadian industry is very conservative,' Hinton said Wednesday at an event during Toronto Tech Week. 'They've been bad at taking up AI and educating employees. That's a big problem.'
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Prime Minister Mark Carney and Evan Solomon, his recently-appointed minister of AI and digital innovation, have pledged to continue the previous Liberal government's $2-billion package to build data centres and Canada's AI computing power. Ottawa has also promised policies to help businesses adopt AI and to implement the technology on Parliament Hill to make federal government more efficient.
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Earlier this week, Solomon said the government is working on an updated, light touch AI regulatory framework, and vowed that Ottawa will champion homegrown AI companies.
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Hinton, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics. At Wednesday's event, which was co-presented by the university, he also reaffirmed his view that AI is developing much faster than anticipated and that intelligent AI poses an existential threat to humanity.
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'The existential risk (is when) these things take over.… In maybe five years time, AI will be inventing its own cyberattacks,' he said, noting that shorter term risks included rogue actors using the technology to corrupt elections, advance fascism and monitor mass populations.
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Hinton argued that the 'only counter-pressure' to Big Tech firms lobbying governments for watered-down AI regulations is going to come from the public. 'The public … need to understand that this stuff is dangerous and it needs to be regulated.'
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