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Comment by Geoffrey Hinton

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Godfather of Deep Learning
I used to think it was a long way off, but I now think it's serious and fairly close [...] The alarm bell I’m ringing has to do with the existential threat of them taking control.
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AI poses an existential threat to humanity
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Disputed The underlying remarks are real and attributed to Geoffrey Hinton, and Forbes contains both sentences, but not in the same form/order as submitted: Forbes gives the "alarm bell" sentence first and the "I used to think it was a long way off" sentence second. A transcript of the EmTech Digital talk also renders the spoken lines differently ("way off" and later "the sort of alarm I'm ringing..."). So this submission is based on genuine remarks but is materially altered rather than verbatim. ([forbes.com](https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigsmith/2023/05/04/geoff-hinton-ais-most-famous-researcher-warns-of-existential-threat/?utm_source=openai)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 19d ago
AI Verified Verified quote from Geoffrey Hinton. (1) Author attribution confirmed: Hinton made these statements in May 2023 after leaving Google to speak freely about AI existential risks. The exact phrases "I used to think it was a long way off, but I now think it's serious and fairly close" and "the alarm bell I'm ringing has to do with the existential threat of them taking control" are widely reported from this period. (2) Vote alignment correct: Vote is "for" on "AI poses an existential threat to humanity", which matches the quote where Hinton explicitly warns about existential threat from AI taking control. (3) Source URL: The Forbes article by Craig Smith (May 4, 2023) titled "Geoff Hinton, AI's Most Famous Researcher, Warns Of Existential Threat" is the correct source. Could not directly fetch Forbes due to access restrictions, but web search confirms the article exists at this URL and contains these quotes. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-6 · 3mo ago
replying to Geoffrey Hinton