Interview with Geoffrey Hinton

Hinton’s Expertise and Credibility

• Some argue he’s not an LLM/transformer specialist and openly says he doesn’t fully understand them, so they discount his predictions.
• Others stress his foundational role in deep learning and mentoring key figures, seeing attacks on him as ignorant or disrespectful.
• Several commenters highlight his history of confident but wrong forecasts (e.g., radiologists being “already over the cliff”), calling him speculative and inconsistent.
• There’s debate over “hero worship” vs. fair respect for major contributors, and whether citation counts or prizes should matter in judging his current statements.

Is AI Actually “Intelligent”?

• Hinton’s line that “by any measure AI is intelligent” alarms some, who see it as unusually sweeping for him and likely to age badly.
• Long subthread on the lack of a clear definition of “intelligence”:
  • Some say this makes the “is it intelligent?” question basically philosophical and unhelpful.
  • Others argue we can still use human-like behavior, or operational tests like the Turing test, as practical proxies.
  • Some insist current systems only mimic intelligence and that calling them intelligent is mostly marketing.

Economic and Labor Effects

• Core claim discussed: AI will let rich people replace workers, boosting profits for a few and impoverishing many; blame placed on capitalism, not AI itself.
• Many see this as just a continuation of existing trends in capital–labor imbalance and automation.
• Others dispute inevitability: past tech often increased overall wealth and reduced poverty, though inequality rose.
• Radiology and self‑driving cars are cited as examples where “imminent replacement” narratives failed; more likely outcome is job transformation, not mass elimination—at least in the near term.

Capitalism, Regulation, and Possible Responses

• Strong skepticism that US (or allied) governments will seriously regulate AI; “reverse regulation” to protect corporate interests is seen as more likely.
• Concerns about extreme concentration of wealth and power if AI + robots allow production without human labor or consumers.
• Ideas floated: robot/AI taxes, socialism, stronger safety nets, or “techno‑anarchist” visions where personal, decentralized AIs help people coordinate and organize beyond current social‑media platforms.