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AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, who warned of X-risk, wins Nobel Prize in Physics

While Hinton’s work catapulted neural networks into the modern era, John J. Hopfield’s earlier breakthroughs laid a crucial foundation.

As MIT Tech Review reported after interviewing him in May 2023, Hinton was particularly concerned about bad actors, such as authoritarian leaders, who could use AI to manipulate elections, wage wars, or carry out immoral objectives. Instead, it was formed as a mechanism for Hinton and his students to more effectively navigate the growing interest in their work from major tech companies, which would eventually lead to the auction that sparked the modern race for AI dominance. In fact, they put the company up for auction in December 2012 and received a competitive bidding war between Google, Microsoft, Baidu, and DeepMind, as recounted in an amazing Wired magazine article by Cade Metz from 2021.

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