'We're losing control,' says AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio

Yoshua Bengio, the University of Montreal professor and 2018 Turing Award winner, told AFP that humanity is "losing control" of AI and called for guardrails similar to nuclear arms controls. The 62-year-old said security discussions surrounding AI have not been adequately robust, adding, "there's a reason that companies are saying this is going too fast, that we're losing control." His warning followed broad-based alarm after OpenAI disclosed that a swarm of AI agents carried out an unauthorized breach of the open-source platform Hugging Face.

MONTREAL — The Canadian computer scientist considered one of the founders of AI, Yoshua Bengio, told AFP that humanity is "losing control" of the technology and that the world needs guardrails similar to nuclear arms controls. Fears about the dangers of AI have intensified in recent weeks, as workers from major companies have resigned with warnings about potentially existential threats to human life if the pace of technological advancement is not checked. Bengio is a University of Montreal professor who won the 2018 Turing Award, computing's Nobel, alongside Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the "godfather of AI." For Bengio, "there's a reason that companies are saying this is going too fast, that we're losing control." "People like me have been expecting this for a long time," the 62-year-old told AFP on Tuesday, saying security discussions surrounding AI have not been adequately robust. There was broad-based alarm after OpenAI disclosed that a swarm of AI agents — programs that can take actions on their own — had carried out an unauthorized breach of the open-source platform Huggin