Yoshua Bengio: AI’s risks must be acknowledged

James Copnall, presenter of the BBC’s Newsday, speaks to Yoshua Bengio, the world-renowned computer scientist often described as one of the godfathers of artificial intelligence, or AI.

Bengio is a professor at the University of Montreal in Canada, founder of the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute - and recipient of an A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing”.

AI allows computers to operate in a way that can seem human, by using programmes that learn vast amounts of data and follow complex instructions. Big tech firms and governments have invested billions of dollars in the development of artificial intelligence, thanks to its potential to increase efficiency, cut costs and support innovation.

Bengio believes there are risks in AI models that attempt to mimic human behaviour with all its flaws. For example, recent experiments have shown how some AI models are developing the capacity to deceive and even blackmail humans, in a quest for their self-preservation.

Instead, he says AI must be safe, scientific and working to understand humans without copying them.

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Presenter: James Copnall
Producers: Lucy Sheppard, Ben Cooper
Editor: Nick Holland

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(Image: Yoshua Bengio. Credit: Craig Barritt/Getty)