AI can now read your mind, researchers report as the 'godfather of AI' quits to warn about his life's work

AI experts warn of dangers to humanity
(Image credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience on Monday that they were able to use artificial intelligence to translate a person's brain patterns into language — essentially, to read their mind. Separately on Monday, Canadian-British researcher Geoffrey Hinton, often called the "godfather of AI" for his pioneering work on neural networks, said he retired from Google last week in part so he could freely join the growing chorus of AI researchers warning about the dangers to humanity posed by their life's work.

Hinton, 75, has been fascinated by neural networks, a mathematical system that can learn skills by analyzing data, since the 1970s. He and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto, Ilya Sutskever and Alex Krishevsky, created a neural network in 2012. Their work formed the foundation for OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and other AI chatbots that learn from analyzing massive amounts of digital text, then reconstitute that knowledge on command into natural language. Sutskever is OpenAI's chief technology officer.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.