Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton Warns: AI Advancements Will Increase Wealth Inequality and Job Displacement

'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton warns that artificial intelligence could soon exceed human control, predicting Elon Musk "will get richer" while many people lose their jobs due to AI advancement.

A year after receiving the Nobel Prize for his contributions to machine learning, Hinton suggested humanity might need a "Chernobyl moment" to fully comprehend the dangers of unregulated AI development. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 was a catastrophic nuclear reactor explosion in Ukraine that released enormous amounts of radiation, resulting in dozens of deaths.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV's Wall Street Week, Hinton stated, "I think the big companies are betting on it causing massive job replacement by AI, because that's where the big money is going to be." The Nobel laureate expressed concern that the global race to develop and implement AI is driven by corporate greed and competitive pressure rather than public safety considerations.

When asked if he would halt AI development completely if he could, Hinton responded, "I don't know...it's not like nuclear weapons which are only good for bad things."

Hinton acknowledged that AI can provide "tremendous good" in sectors like healthcare and education.

"It's a difficult decision because it can do tremendous good too...and in fact, if you think about it increasing productivity in many, many industries that should be good," he explained.

"The reason it's bad is because of the way society's organised. So that Musk will get richer and a lot of people get unemployed and Musk won't care. I'm using Musk as a sort of stand-in. Um that's not on AI, that's on how we organise society," he added.

According to Bloomberg, the four largest AI hyperscalers—Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon—plan to increase capital expenditures from $360 billion this fiscal year to $420 billion next year.

OpenAI alone has announced $1 trillion in infrastructure agreements with partners including Nvidia, Broadcom, and Oracle.

When questioned about whether such enormous investments could be profitable without eliminating jobs, Hinton stated, "I believe that it can't. I believe that to make money you're going to have to replace human labour."

This prediction is already showing early signs of becoming reality. Job openings have decreased by approximately 30 percent since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, particularly affecting entry-level positions. Recently, Amazon announced 14,000 layoffs, primarily in middle management. While CEO Andy Jassy attributed the decision to "culture," a memo he distributed in June predicted a leaner corporate workforce "as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company."