The man known as the “Godfather of AI” issued an urgent warning to lawmakers this week that they only have a year or two left to regulate artificial intelligence before its development spirals out of control.
The prediction comes as pressure mounts for the government to institute guardrails on the industry, spurred by warnings from researchers and industry executives currently working on the technology.
Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist and cognitive psychologist who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics, told members of Congress in a closed-door briefing that they have “maybe a year, but not much more than a year,” according to an NBC News summary of the meeting published Thursday.
“If you look at predictions for when we’ll get superintelligence,” Hinton said, “it used to be maybe 30 years, maybe 50 years. Then it came down to maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years. Now people are saying, a lot of the researchers are saying only a few years.”
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Hinton quit his job at Google in 2023 so he could speak freely about the risks of AI. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) invited Hinton and other experts in the field to Capitol Hill for a bipartisan briefing for lawmakers about the dangers of the rapid pace of development in the industry — though Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) was the only Republican to attend.
“Interesting speakers. I had a bill on the floor, I had to leave, but I enjoyed it,” Kennedy told The Washington Sun. Still, he isn’t optimistic that the briefing will spur any action in the Senate.
“Quite frankly, if the reporting in The Wall Street Journal I read this morning and elsewhere is accurate, Secretary Bessent is pushing the White House to come up with some sort of framework to ensure the safety of the models,” Kennedy said. “That’s the next step I expect to happen. Is anything going to happen over here in the Senate? I don’t see any indication.”
It was an assessment shared by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), who said in an interview on NewsNation Thursday that the odds of Senate action on the issue were slim.
“With regard to destroying mankind, these companies need to do the right thing on their own. We’re not going to get smart enough to regulate them,” Scott said. “We’re not going to get something done up here.”
Some Democratic lawmakers, however, called for immediate action after listening to Hinton at the briefing.
“[Hinton] was very clear: AI technology has reached a point where it’s building itself. It can and will continue to go beyond human control - and therefore - our window to regulate it is disappearing rapidly. We must pause NOW,” Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Arizona) wrote Thursday on X.
Ansari wrote a letter Thursday with dozens of her colleagues demanding that President Donald Trump take action on AI immediately and called on the U.S. to work with international competitors like China to “to avert potentially devastating consequences.”
Trump has largely brushed off concerns about AI spiraling out of human control, saying that his presidency is the only necessary guardrail and calling the public fear a “hoax.”
“I am the Hoax Buster, and I’m right now breaking another Hoax — That AI is going to take over, consume, and destroy the World, and that Robots will be marching into our Cities, and getting rid of us all!” Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social.
Trump has also repeatedly said “whoever wins, AI wins,” to argue against cooperation with China on AI development.
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