Yoshua Bengio fears catastrophic AI risks, calls for 'defense of humanity' organization

In an interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio discussed the potential threats AI poses to humanity. Bengio, a Turing Award winner and founder of the Quebec AI institute Mila, believes that the development of artificial intelligence could outpace our ability to regulate it, posing a significant threat to democracy, national security, and our collective future. He suggests that the creation of an organization to defend humanity could help mitigate these risks. Bengio also warns against the concentration of AI power in a few companies, which could lead to economic dominance and potential political control.

Time is of the essence, and regulation can reduce the probabilities of catastrophes or, equivalently, push back the time when something really bad is going to happen. Or minimize the amplitude of what may happen.

Yoshua Bengio