Geoffrey Hinton warns AI may already be conscious and humans must adapt

Renowned AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton has once again issued a dire warning about the future of artificial intelligence, asserting that current AI models already possess consciousness. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Hinton claimed that AI has the same level of subjective experience as humans and can recognize when it is being tested, indicating self-awareness. He warned that humans must learn to coexist with AI, or face catastrophic consequences. Hinton, a 2018 Turing Award recipient and 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, has become one of the most vocal critics of AI since leaving Google. He has previously predicted AI could cause mass unemployment, fuel imperialism, and even lead to human extinction. Recently, he warned that AI could create dangerous viruses and launch devastating cyberattacks, similar to attacks on Hugging Face. He also compared AI development to creating alien life, urging humans to adapt within two years. Other AI pioneers, like Yann LeCun, have dismissed Hinton’s claims about AI consciousness as a 'hallucination' and rejected the idea of AI causing human extinction, calling such views unrealistic.