Geoffrey Hinton, often hailed as the “Godfather of Artificial Intelligence,” has proposed the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI) to address the potential job displacement caused by the rapid development of AI technologies. Hinton recently shared his concerns and solutions in an interview with the BBC.
Geoffrey Hinton told the BBC he was “very concerned that a lot of simple jobs will be taken over by artificial intelligence.”
“I was consulted by people from Downing Street. I advised them that universal basic income was a good idea,” he said.
Universal basic income refers to regular, equal payments to all citizens of a country, regardless of their income, social status, age, or employment, without any reciprocal obligations on their part.
Some U.S. cities and states have experimented with implementing a guaranteed basic income, but these initiatives have typically been limited to specific categories of recipients.
According to Hinton, artificial intelligence will improve productivity and increase revenue. But unless the government intervenes, it will only make the rich richer. And it will put the poor out of work.
Hinton advocates a more cautious approach to artificial intelligence development and says AI could become an “extinction threat” for humans in five to twenty years.
It’s also worth noting that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is running his own experiment on universal basic income, the results of which he expects to publish soon. He has also recently proposed the idea of “universal core computing.” Instead of receiving cash, everyone could get a share of a future large language model like GPT-7.
Let us remember that before this, Geoffrey Hinton announced that he was leaving Google. He cited his concern that AI would cause a lot of harm as the reason for his departure.
For more details, read the full article on Business Insider.
