**Summary of Key Nuggets About Geoffrey Hinton’s AI Warnings and the Public Debate (circa 2023-2024):**

- **Who is Geoffrey Hinton?

**
Geoffrey Hinton is a foundational figure in artificial intelligence, often called “the godfather of AI.” His work, especially on neural networks, formed key building blocks for modern AI systems, including the technology behind today’s advanced language and image models.

- **What Did He Do and Why Is It News?

**
In 2023, Hinton resigned from Google to freely express his growing anxieties about the future impacts of AI.

His public warnings made headlines globally because he has long been a champion for AI’s potential, so his shift to caution carries enormous influence in tech and policy circles.

- **What Are Hinton’s Main Concerns?

**
He now warns AI could soon rival or surpass human intelligence.

Hinton is worried that, once AI is as smart or smarter than people, we may not be able to control it—or reliably make it act as we intend.

He fears this could lead to unpredictable dangers for society, including risks to jobs, misinformation spread, or even (in a less likely but possible worst-case) existential risks to humanity.

Hinton has called for a pause or slowdown in AI development until strong safety measures are in place.

- **What Do Other Experts Say?

**
There is debate among experts:
  - **Cautious voices:** Some, like Yoshua Bengio (another AI pioneer), echo Hinton’s call for governments and companies to spend more on AI safety and oversight.

- **Skeptics:** Others, such as Yann LeCun (also a top AI scientist), push back, arguing that intelligence in machines does not automatically mean they will seek power or act like humans.

- The CEO of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, has said human-level AI could arrive within five years, highlighting the urgency of the issue.

- **Why Should the Public Care?

**
AI is spreading rapidly—with uses in jobs, social media, and everyday life.

**Summary of Key Nuggets About Geoffrey Hinton’s AI Warnings and the Public Debate (circa 2023-2024):**

- **Who is Geoffrey Hinton?

Title:

Content: Yoshua Bengio

1 minute read
By Geoffrey Hinton

Yoshua Bengio is a world leader in AI. Throughout his career, Yoshua’s research has been instrumental in shaping the world’s understanding of AI’s potential—and that same expertise has made his perspective more essential than ever. His pioneering research on deep learning laid the foundations for the current revolution in AI and earned him the 2018 Turing Award—“the Nobel Prize of Computing”—alongside myself and Yann LeCun. Last year, Yoshua received Canada’s highest award for research, the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal. He is the computer scientist with the greatest number of citations and is ranked third among all disciplines for scientific impact.

Yoshua has been concerned for many years with the social impact of artificial intelligence, contributing to the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of AI. Over the past year, worried by the potential for catastrophic outcomes from future AI, he was vocal in global conversations on AI safety. He advised the U.N. Secretary-General and the U.K. AI Safety Institute, and took part in policy discussions with governments in North America, Asia, and Europe.

Hinton is a cognitive psychologist and computer scientist

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What did Hinton, the renowned British-Canadian expert reveal about AI that caused widespread concern?

Exposed serious AI risks, shocking the tech world and affecting major company stocks.

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Why did Hinton leave Google when he helped develop AI but later grew concerned about its dangers?

**
Geoffrey Hinton is a foundational figure in artificial intelligence, often called “the godfather of AI.” His work, especially on neural networks, formed key building blocks for modern AI systems, including the technology behind today’s advanced language and image models.

Title:

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Proud Boys

4 Proud Boys found guilty of seditious conspiracy, latest AI warning: 5 Things podcast

Taylor Wilson
USA TODAY

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Proud Boys, including leader Enrique Tarrio, guilty of seditious conspiracy for Jan. 6

Several Proud Boys have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Plus, banking anxieties continue, USA TODAY World Affairs Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard reports on protests over proposed reforms in Israel, an autopsy reveals Tyre Nichols was killed by blunt force trauma to the head, and USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer looks at the latest debate around artificial intelligence.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here

Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 things you need to know Friday, the 5th of May 2023. Today, a verdict for the Proud Boys. Plus, more bank anxiety, and we hear the latest from protests in Israel.

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three lieutenants were found guilty yesterday of entering a seditious conspiracy against the US government, leading to the January 6th, 2021 Capitol attack. A fifth Proud Boy was acquitted of the charge. Prosecutors said Tarrio was the leader of the plot, despite not being in Washington that day. His arrest two days before the insurrection on unrelated charges and the stabbing of several Proud Boys at a protest in December 2020 served as motivators to try and stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to the government. Tarrio's attorneys argued that he was just the government's scapegoat. They said the true culprit of January 6th was former President Donald Trump.

PacWest Bancorp saw its shares plunge earlier this week, dropping more than 39% at one point. The bank said yesterday that it was considering asset sales and has been approached by several parties about a deal. The bank insists that it has not experienced a high number of customer withdrawals in the wake of the failure and sale of First Republic Bank after a modern day bank run. But anxiety over regional bank stability appeared to spread late this week. Comerica slumped more than 8% and TD Bank Group and First Horizon called off a planned merger citing regulatory hurdles.

Months long protests for and against proposed judicial reforms in Israel will continue this weekend, with tens of thousands expected on the streets of Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Many of the protests are accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right wing coalition of using the reforms to get around the checks and balances of government, and of turning Israel into more of a religious state that could even amount to a dictatorship. Others say they just want their views reflected by a parliament they elected. I sat down with USA TODAY World Affairs Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard, who recently traveled to Israel, to learn more. Kim, thanks for hopping on 5 Things.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Protests have erupted across Israel over these proposed judicial reforms. Some folks opposed to the reforms have said if they're enacted, Israel will not be a democracy anymore. Others even suggest the reforms would make Israel a dictatorship. What's your general perspective on that?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

My general perspective is that Israel is a pretty healthy democracy. Like all democracies, it's not perfect. Constitutional legal scholars say there is space for reform. And this is one of the things that the people who are leading these reforms are saying, look, we can't get laws passed that sort of reflect what our constituents want. The ability to, for example, have separate concerts for men and women, or we can't get laws passed that would allow us to kind of sufficiently build the infrastructure of settlements in the West Bank.

However, it's kind of problematic because if you look at something like a settlement in the West Bank, these things are not legal by international standards. They're often built on Palestinian land.

One of the things about these proposed reforms that the protestors are so angry about has to do with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's in the middle of a corruption case and he's on trial for it. He's suddenly taken an interest in these reforms because they kind of essentially enable him, through a majority in parliament which his government controls, to kind of get a get out of jail free card a bit. So let's say Netanyahu's convicted, there is the possibility that he can't be removed from power. So the protestors are kind of saying this is just not a healthy thing for a democracy.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim, you mentioned the international community. What is the US government's stance on these reforms and on all of the protests that have happened in recent months?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

US government, as some listeners may be aware, is Israel's biggest source of foreign military aid. The US was the first country in the world to recognize Israel as a country, and the Biden administration has expressed quite publicly, quite loudly, that it does not like the look of these reforms. It feels that they are not democratic, that they're problematic for various reasons.

Taylor Wilson:

And finally, Kim, what's next for these reform proposals and the protests in the coming months?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Well, things have kind of been stalled since before the Passover holiday, which was last month, when essentially the Parliament went on recess. And Netanyahu, he was kind of faced with this growing escalating insurrection from the Israeli public. There was a series of kind of walkouts from different labor unions, teachers, airport workers went on strike. And they kind of reached this moment where Netanyahu was like, whoa, he needed to calm things down before all of Israeli society kind of unraveled. And so he paused it.

Parliament came back last week. The protestors are still there. The political establishment in Israel is kind of talking about how they're going to try to reach some kind of compromise on this. And nothing has really changed, and it is a kind of standoff where both sides are digging in. But over the last couple of weeks, pro-reform people have started to protest in bigger numbers. A week ago there was about 200,000 of them that showed up outside of the Knesset, which is the Israeli parliament.

So I think everyone in Israel, as far as I can tell, is kind of scratching their heads going, this is not getting any better. In fact, it's getting worse. And one of the places where it could go is another election. And Israel has had five elections since 2019, I believe it is, because they couldn't agree with each other about exactly how to move this country forward. So who knows where that would end up.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. USA TODAY World Affairs Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard. Thanks so much.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

An autopsy revealed yesterday that Tyre Nichols was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. The 29-year-old motorist died earlier this year after being brutally beaten by Memphis Police Officers. Nichols' family viewed the autopsy report this week, some four months after Tyre's death. Their attorney, Ben Crump, said the manner of death was homicide. Attorneys said the report was similar to an independent January autopsy that found Nichols suffered extensive bleeding.

♦

Artificial intelligence. No matter how you feel about it, the technology is here. That includes chatbots like ChatGPT, which recently passed a hundred million monthly active users, according to Reuters and others. I spoke with USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer to learn more. Hi there, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

Good to be here. How are you?

Taylor Wilson:

Good, thanks. Thanks for hopping back on. Josh, the Biden White House is concerned about AI being developed by the tech sector and then unleashed on the public with little to no guardrails on how it might be used. What did they say this week?

Josh Meyer:

The Biden administration did have a meeting at the White House, led by Kamala Harris, with some of these tech leaders to talk about some of the reforms that the White House says are needed, including more transparency in the way these companies develop these technologies, giving access to the work in progress by critics and the public, just so they can weigh in on what's happening.

And also, the Biden administration last October released what they called the AI Bill of Rights. That's designed to sort of put more safeguards in place. Right now, that's just a recommendation. And so some critics that say the Biden administration hasn't gone far enough say that that needs to be mandatory, that these companies aren't going to really do much on their own, and that they're going to have to be forced to comply more and to do more in terms of protecting the safety, security, and the privacy of Americans as we go forward.

Taylor Wilson:

And there have been several prominent tech leaders warning about this recently, including the so-called godfather of AI. So Josh, who is the godfather of AI?

Josh Meyer:

The godfather of AI is a guy named Geoffrey Hinton. He's a renowned researcher, vice president at Google. He's also a Toronto professor, and he's spent the last couple of decades at the forefront of innovating and research and development into artificial intelligence and related topics, including ChatGPT.

Taylor Wilson:

And what are some of his concerns about this technology?

Josh Meyer:

He said that his concerns have mostly come about in the last few months, and one of the concerns is that it is becoming so advanced so quickly. One of the things that it's learning to do is simple reasoning. He said that he's concerned that somebody could actually take over the world and push humanity toward extinction.

He was at a seminar yesterday and one of the things that jumped out at me, and everybody else that was there, was he was asked by the panel's moderator, "What's the worst case scenario that you think is conceivable?" And without hesitation, Hinton said, "I think it's quite conceivable that humanity is just a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence."

Taylor Wilson:

Strong words, I would say. Geez.

Josh Meyer:

Yeah. And then he went on to say that even if we think that we're in control of the technology and we can just turn it off, he said it could easily be brought back to life again on another machine if given the proper instructions. And this is another quote from him at the MIT Technology Review conference yesterday. Hinton said, "And it may keep us around for a while to keep the power stations running, but after that, maybe not." So food for thought.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, food for thought. So do other experts agree with this pretty pessimistic outlook?

Josh Meyer:

Actually, after he said that, I wanted to find people that would take exception to it, and I talked to a lot of people. I looked around and a lot of people share his concerns. I did find some people that are a little bit more skeptical, including a longtime trusted source of mine who said, "I think that it's overstated. People need to take a step back. Take a deep breath."

I talked to a guy named Michael Hamilton, who's the co-founder of Critical Insight Risk Management. He's a former advisor to the Department of Homeland Security on tech issues. And he said that computer assisted machine learning, including artificial intelligence, will never be the kind of sentient, self-aware and all-knowing technology that people are afraid of, and that created the Terminator of movie fame. He said basically, artificial intelligence is an extremely sophisticated programming platform that can only go as far as humans allow it.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh, one concern is that AI could wipe out thousands, maybe millions of jobs by making them obsolete. What does he say on that point?

Josh Meyer:

Oh yeah, he's very concerned about that. And so is the White House, as a matter of fact, when they rolled out this new initiative. They said that's one of their biggest concerns. And they want to make sure that the developers of AI, which include Google, Microsoft, and some other companies, that they keep that in mind and make sure that there's guardrails there to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

But we do live in a capitalist economy. According to Hinton, he actually spoke very specifically about it, and he said that, we live in a world where profit comes first and the rich could get richer and the poor get poorer because of ways in which AI is used to do menial tasks that are often done by human beings at a lower range of the pay scale. He said, "It's going to cause huge increases in productivity. My worry is for those increases in productivity to put people out of work and make the rich richer and the poor poorer. And as you do that," Hinton said, "you make that gap bigger and society gets more and more violent."

Taylor Wilson:

Josh Meyer, thanks so much.

Josh Meyer:

Sure.

Taylor Wilson:

And happy Cinco de Mayo. The date marks Mexico's victory over the French empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Special thanks to Cherie Saunders and Alexis Gustin. I'm Taylor Wilson back tomorrow with another episode of 5 Things.

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What breakthroughs has Hinton achieved through his 40+ years of work on artificial neural networks?

Breakthroughs that mimic biological brains

Which AI system demonstrates the foundation laid by Hinton's pioneering research in deep learning and neural networks?

- **What Did He Do and Why Is It News?

Why did Hinton leave Google when he helped develop AI but later grew concerned about its dangers?

**
In 2023, Hinton resigned from Google to freely express his growing anxieties about the future impacts of AI.

Why did Hinton leave Google when he helped develop AI but later grew concerned about its dangers?

His public warnings made headlines globally because he has long been a champion for AI’s potential, so his shift to caution carries enormous influence in tech and policy circles.

What did Hinton, the renowned British-Canadian expert reveal about AI that caused widespread concern?

Exposed serious AI risks, shocking the tech world and affecting major company stocks.

- **What Are Hinton’s Main Concerns?

What did Hinton, the renowned British-Canadian expert reveal about AI that caused widespread concern?

Exposed serious AI risks, shocking the tech world and affecting major company stocks.

What does Hinton warn could happen to AI if companies and regulators fail to implement effective rules and controls?

Poses ethical risks
Becomes uncontrollable

What risks did Hinton associate with AI's rapid advancement?

Why did Hinton leave Google when he helped develop AI but later grew concerned about its dangers?

**
He now warns AI could soon rival or surpass human intelligence.

Title:

Content: Home » Tech » AI Could Match Human Intelligence In Five Years: Google DeepMind CEO
1-MIN READ

AI Could Match Human Intelligence In Five Years: Google DeepMind CEO

Curated By: Shaurya Sharma

News18.com

Last Updated: May 04, 2023, 11:18 IST

New Delhi, India

Experts believe A.I. could match humans very soon. (Representative image/Reuters)

Denis Hassabis, who is the CEO of DeepMind, a startup that was acquired by Google in 2014, has made a bold claim that AI could reach human-level cognition in as little as five years.

2023 is shaping up to be the year of Artificial Intelligence—generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing, and Google’s Bard are making headlines. Human jobs are at risk, with IBM halting hiring for 7,800 roles. And, the fear of AI surpassing human capabilities persists. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the ‘Godfather of AI,’ left Google citing concerns about its dangers. Despite the benefits that AI can bring, such as increased efficiency and productivity, the fear of AI outpacing humans and becoming too smart for its own good is a fear that has been discussed time and again.

Now, another Google executive, Denis Hassabis, who is the CEO of DeepMind, a startup that was acquired by Google in 2014, has made a bold claim that AI could reach human-level cognition in as little as five years.

Hassabis, speaking at Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival in New York City, said that the developments in the Artificial Intelligence space shouldn’t be slowed down. “I think we’ll have very capable, very general systems in the next few years,” and he doesn’t “see any reason why that progress is going to slow down. I think it may even accelerate.” He added, “So I think we could be just a few years, maybe within a decade away.”

According to Fortune, Google announced last month that it was merging its core A.I. research team with DeepMind, the startup founded by Demis Hassabis, who would become the CEO of the newly combined unit. Google had acquired DeepMind in 2014.

RELATED NEWS

In related news, Geoffrey Hinton, who’s touted to be the ‘Godfather of AI, quit Google to express his concerns. Hinton, who has won the Turing award, the computer science equivalent of the Nobel prize, has expressed concern that future versions of AI could pose a threat because they often learn unexpected behavior from the vast amounts of data they analyze. This is particularly troubling as AI systems might soon generate and run their own code, which could lead to truly autonomous weapons and killer robots becoming a reality.

Read all the Latest Tech News here

first published:May 04, 2023, 11:18 IST
last updated:May 04, 2023, 11:18 IST

What did Sam Altman admit about ChatGPT and the potential risks of AI?

Advanced AI could pose an existential risk to humanity.

What future risk did Hinton warn about AI?

What risks did the global summit report highlight about AI?

Creating malicious software for cyberattacks, potentially posing an existential threat if humans lose control.

Hinton is worried that, once AI is as smart or smarter than people, we may not be able to control it—or reliably make it act as we intend.

Title:

Content: Presented By
Getty Images
Ideas
Jan Brauner is a Ph.D. researcher in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Oxford, focusing on the safety of AI systems and their application in public health.
Alan Chan is a Ph.D. student at Mila, a research institute in Montreal focusing on AI, where he works on technical and socio-technical problems in AI safety. He's particularly interested in evaluation and AI regulation.

In May, more than 100 artificial intelligence (AI) professors, including some of the field's leading experts, scholars from other areas, and AI executives signed a one-sentence statement: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Many signing researchers have explained their reason for worry: the risk that we might build powerful AI systems that we cannot control within this decade or the next ones.

Some have suggested the statement is an industry ploy to hype up AI companies’ products or influence regulation, ignoring that most of the signatories—ourselves included—are academics who do not work for industry. But the most common concern we have heard is that, by focusing on the risk of extinction, the statement distracts from present-day AI harms. As volunteers involved in collecting signatures for and constructing the statement, we disagree because both problems share a common core. The false dichotomy between ongoing harms and emergent risks makes it needlessly difficult to address common root causes.

AI poses many ongoing problems. AI systems can sustain human rights abuses, perpetuate systemic discrimination, and entrench power imbalances. Because AI systems are often widely deployed, harms can reach massive scales. For example, tens of thousands of families were pushed into poverty when the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration wrongly accused them of fraud and requested they pay back large sums of money, based on risk profiles created with AI systems.

The root causes of AI harm

There are several root causes that contribute to many instances of the harm caused by AI. One is that we do not know how to design AI systems that reliably behave exactly as we intend them to. For example, a health system was designed to allocate care based on need but discriminated against Black hospital patients. It turned out the algorithm used health care costs as a proxy for need, but institutionalized racism means that less money has been spent on Black patients historically. In many similar cases, companies do not explicitly set out to build harmful AI systems. Instead, creating state-of-the-art AI systems requires vast amounts of data, and the AI systems unintendedly inherit the biases encoded in this data.

Another cause is competitive pressures and limited accountability. There is often a strong economic incentive to deploy AI systems without sufficient safety checks. For example, Microsoft rushed the release of the Bing chatbot, which resulted in the chatbot threatening and insulting users. When the Dutch Tax Administration replaced human judgment with AI systems, this, too, happened in the name of efficiency.

Without decisive action to address these root causes, increasingly powerful and widely deployed AI systems will cause even more pervasive and significant harm. Many experts believe future AI systems may outmatch humans in crucial cognitive skills, such as social persuasion, planning, and development of novel technologies. Just as these cognitive abilities enabled humanity to control the fate of other species, the same skills could enable smarter AI systems to out-perform us. Given competition and limited accountability, there would be pressure on organizations to replace expensive human labor with AI systems. Economic forces encourage the rapid deployment of new AI systems (at the cost of safety testing), making them ever more powerful, building general (and potentially more powerful) systems rather than narrow (and potentially more controllable) systems, and increasing the autonomy of AI systems to take action in the world. AI systems could increasingly control our society's key productive, managerial, and military capacities. By then, we must have figured out how to design systems that always and truly behave as we intend. Otherwise, powerful AI systems that pursue goals at odds with humanity could lead to human marginalization or even extinction.

Read More: An AI Pause is Humanity's Best Bet for Preventing Extinction

Moreover, many researchers expect us to develop such advanced AI systems very soon. Companies are pouring more money and talent into AI development while the cost of computing power is decreasing. Simply using more computing power and data has reliably produced more capable AI systems, while AI algorithms have also improved. After seeing the rapid progress in AI over the past five years, Geoffrey Hinton, a founding father of modern AI, now expects that AI could broadly surpass human cognitive abilities—such as persuasion, planning, and scientific reasoning—within five to 20 years. Such time horizons are shared by many in the AI research community.

Twenty years is short; in discussions about the climate crisis, we regularly consider effects on such timescales. And just as climate change requires us to face air pollution and ongoing natural disasters as well as prevent future, even more, extreme weather events, we must tackle various AI risks and harms simultaneously. Even if we might be a couple of decades away from AI systems that are smarter than humans, that is little time to create the complex global governance structures necessary for this technology.

Work to address ongoing harms sometimes differs from work to manage extinction risk. We do not wish to erase nuance or potential differences between the perspectives. Yet, given common root causes, there is much room for collaboration and cooperation.

Four possible interventions

Many interventions could address the root problems. First, the public currently has little to no say over what models are built and how they are deployed. For example, those most affected by welfare systems have had little say in their automation. Private companies decide which risks are acceptable, as they have free rein over computing power and data, the key levers of AI development. Stronger democratic oversight over the supply of computing power and data would enhance public control over AI development and associated risks. For example, governments can monitor when large amounts of computing power are being used and for what purpose.

Second, a strong auditing regime, where independent third-parties would scrutinize the practices and development processes of AI labs, would help reduce risks overall. Auditing has already surfaced previously overlooked harms, such as bias in facial recognition, and could catch future failure modes like AI systems subverting human control or replicating autonomously. A standards body could ensure  AI systems, both before and after deployment, meet specified safety guidelines. Domestic agencies could enforce compliance, while an international organization would create universal standards.

Third, we should require meaningful human oversight of critical AI decisions, and avoid very-high-risk use cases such as lethal autonomous weapons. Uncertainty about AI systems' current and near-future capabilities means we should proceed cautiously around their deployment in critical domains.

Fourth, we should rebalance the  funding going into AIs and urge companies to spend less on making them smarter while increasing funding into making them safer, more transparent, and studying their social impacts. While it is good that industry labs are funding such research, this funding is liable to change with market conditions. Much more public funding for non-industry groups is required.

The development of increasingly powerful AI systems poses increasingly vast societal-scale risks. The complexity of these risks requires cooperation between people with potentially different motivations but with a shared interest in ensuring that AI development proceeds in a just and beneficial way.

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EDIT POST

What did Hinton, the renowned British-Canadian expert reveal about AI that caused widespread concern?

Exposed serious AI risks, shocking the tech world and affecting major company stocks.

What did Sam Altman admit about ChatGPT and the potential risks of AI?

Advanced AI could pose an existential risk to humanity.

What does Hinton warn could happen to AI if companies and regulators fail to implement effective rules and controls?

Poses ethical risks
Becomes uncontrollable

What risks did the global summit report highlight about AI?

Creating malicious software for cyberattacks, potentially posing an existential threat if humans lose control.

He fears this could lead to unpredictable dangers for society, including risks to jobs, misinformation spread, or even (in a less likely but possible worst-case) existential risks to humanity.

Title:

Content: Presented By
Guido Mieth—Getty Images
Ideas
Otto Barten is director of the Existential Risk Observatory, a nonprofit aiming to reduce existential risk by informing the public debate.
Joep Meindertsma is founder of PauseAI, a movement campaigning for an AI Pause.

The existential risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) are now widely recognized.

After hundreds of industry and science leaders warned that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the U.N. Secretary-General recently echoed their concern. So did the prime minister of the U.K., who is also investing 100 million pounds into AI safety research that is mostly meant to prevent existential risk. Other leaders are likely to follow in recognizing AI’s ultimate threat.

In the scientific field of existential risk, which studies the most likely causes of human extinction, AI is consistently ranked at the top of the list. In The Precipice, a book by Oxford existential risk researcher Toby Ord that aims to quantify human extinction risks, the likeliness of AI leading to human extinction exceeds that of climate change, pandemics, asteroid strikes, supervolcanoes, and nuclear war combined. One would expect that even for severe global problems, the risk that they lead to full human extinction is relatively small, and this is indeed true for most of the above risks. AI, however, may cause human extinction if only a few conditions are met. Among them is human-level AI, defined as an AI that can perform a broad range of cognitive tasks at least as well as we can. Studies outlining these ideas were previously known, but new AI breakthroughs have underlined their urgency: AI may be getting close to human level already.

Recursive self-improvement is one of the reasons why existential-risk academics think human-level AI is so dangerous. Because human-level AI could do almost all tasks at our level, and since doing AI research is one of those tasks, advanced AI should therefore be able to improve the state of AI. Constantly improving AI would create a positive feedback loop with no scientifically established limits: an intelligence explosion. The endpoint of this intelligence explosion could be a superintelligence: a godlike AI that outsmarts us the way humans often outsmart insects. We would be no match for it.

More from TIME

A godlike, superintelligent AI

A superintelligent AI could therefore likely execute any goal it is given. Such a goal would be initially introduced by humans, but might come from a malicious actor, or not have been thought through carefully, or might get corrupted during training or deployment. If the resulting goal conflicts with what is in the best interest of humanity, a superintelligence would aim to execute it regardless. To do so, it could first hack large parts of the internet and then use any hardware connected to it. Or it could use its intelligence to construct narratives that are extremely convincing to us. Combined with hacked access to our social media timelines, it could create a fake reality on a massive scale. As Yuval Harari recently put it: “If we are not careful, we might be trapped behind a curtain of illusions, which we could not tear away—or even realise is there.” As a third option, after either legally making money or hacking our financial system, a superintelligence could simply pay us to perform any actions it needs from us. And these are just some of the strategies a superintelligent AI could use in order to achieve its goals. There are likely many more. Like playing chess against grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, we cannot predict the moves he will play, but we can predict the outcome: we lose.

But why would a superintelligence want to make humanity extinct? In fact, it might not explicitly want that at all. Humanity’s extinction might be a mere side effect of executing another goal to its extremity. When we are executing our own goals as humans, such as food production or growing our economy, we tend to not pay much attention to the effects this has on other species. This routinely leads to the extinction of animal species as a mere side effect of us maximising our goals. In a similar fashion, an uncontrollable superintelligence could lead to our extinction as a side effect of the AI pushing its goals, whatever they may be, to their limits.

Read More: The A to Z of Artificial Intelligence

So how can we avoid AI existential risk? Humanity now faces a stark choice: pause AI at a safe level, or continue development indefinitely. Unsurprisingly, the AI labs want the latter. To continue, however, means literally betting our lives on these labs being able to solve an open scientific problem called AI Alignment.

AI Alignment is the approach that leading labs such as OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic are currently taking to prevent human extinction. AI Alignment does not attempt to control how powerful an AI gets, does not attempt to control what exactly the AI will be doing, and does not even necessarily attempt to prevent a potential takeover from happening. Since the labs anticipate they will not be able to control the superintelligent AI that they are creating, they accept that such an AI will act autonomously and unstoppably, but aim to make it act according to our values. As Richard Ngo, a leading alignment researcher working at OpenAI, puts it, “I doubt we’ll be able to make every single deployment environment secure against the full intellectual powers of a superintelligent AGI.” There are large problems with their alignment approach, however, both fundamentally and technically.

What values should an AI have?

Fundamentally, there is of course no agreement on what values we have. What OpenAI founder Sam Altman wants a superintelligence to do may well be completely different from what, say, a textile worker in Bangladesh wants it to do. Aggregating human preferences has always been a thorny issue even before AI, but will get even more complicated when we have a superintelligence around that might be able to quickly, completely, and globally implement the wishes of a handful of CEOs. Democracy, however imperfect, has been the best solution we can find for value aggregation so far. It is, however, unclear whether our current combination of national political systems can control a godlike AI. In fact, it is unclear whether any organisation or system would be up to the task.

Beyond disagreement over current values, humans have historically not been very good at predicting the future externalities of new technologies. The climate crisis, for one, can be seen as an unforeseen outcome of technologies such as steam and internal combustion engines. Ever more powerful technology has the potential to create ever larger externalities. It is impossible to foresee what the negative side effects will be of actually implementing some interpretation of humanity’s current values. They might make climate change pale in comparison.

There are more unsolved fundamental issues with aligning a superintelligence, but currently, AI companies don’t even get that far. It seems that even making current large neural networks reliably do what anyone wants is a technical problem that we currently cannot solve. This is called inner misalignment and has been observed already in current AI: the model pursues the wrong goal when it is released into the real world after being trained on a limited dataset. For a superintelligence, this could have a catastrophic outcome. This problem is, according to OpenAI’s recent document Governance of Superintelligence, an “open research question.” But not to worry: they say they are “putting a lot of effort” into it.

Read More: The AI Arms Race is Changing Everything

Even if individuals such as Altman care about the existential threats of superintelligence, the current market dynamics of competing AI labs do not incentivize safety. The GPT-4 model built by OpenAI was tested and fine-tuned for seven months before being made public with a detailed report about its safety. Contrary to the safety efforts of OpenAI, a panicked Google released its competing PaLM 2 model just months later, without any mention of similar safety tests. Now even open-source models like Orca are performing at a ChatGPT level, without any safety analysis. The race is frantic, pushing these companies to take more risks to stay ahead. The scope of these risks is gigantic. As Jaan Tallinn, investor of the major AI lab Anthropic, puts it: “I’ve not met anyone in AI labs who says the risk [from training a next-generation model] is less than 1% of blowing up the planet”.

Let us be clear: continuing risky AI development, and eventually undergoing the intelligence explosion that leads to an uncontrollable superintelligence, is a terrible idea. We will not be able to navigate it safely. We lack the technical solutions, the coordination, the insight, the wisdom, and the experience to do something this complex right on the first try. As humans, we are good at solving problems with trial-and-error processes where we get lots of tries. But in the case of an intelligence explosion, we cannot use this strategy, since the first trial of uncontrolled superintelligence could be disastrous.

Why we should pause AI development

So what is the alternative? An AI Pause. This would mean that governments prohibit training any AI model with capabilities likely to exceed GPT-4. This can be determined by examining the amount of computation required for training, corrected over time for improvements in algorithmic efficiency. These leading models can only be trained at large AI companies or data centers, making the enforcement of such a pause realistic.

Since the leading labs are currently located in the U.S. and the U.K., implementing a pause at a national level in those two countries can be done on very short notice. In the medium term, the competitive dynamics between nations will require international legislation and collaboration, where an international AI agency would help. The U.K. is already planning to host an AI safety summit in autumn, which is a fitting moment to sign a treaty that implements an international AI Pause. Excluding important countries, especially China, from such a summit might not be wise, since they will be needed as well in the medium term. For the longer term, hardware regulation—such as making sure new consumer hardware cannot be used for large-scale AI training, while closely monitoring all hardware that can be—is a promising option to practically enforce a pause. Research into this topic needs to be scaled up rapidly to arrive at robust and implementable solutions.

Further AI development may continue only after regulating authorities are convinced that training and deploying a certain AI model will not risk an uncontrolled intelligence explosion or a takeover scenario. Second-order effects, such as making hard-to-control open-source development easier, should be taken into account in such decisions.

Read More: What to Know About Claude 2, Anthropic’s Rival to ChatGPT

Continuing beyond the red line, and thus risking an intelligence explosion or a takeover, should only be allowed after meeting the strictest of requirements. First of all, the technical alignment problem should be decisively solved. Other major issues, such as aggregating humanity’s different value systems, limiting unforeseen externalities, and many more, will also need to be addressed.

A pause may be seen by some as unrealistic. They might say that we cannot stop technological progress for a speculative scenario, that market forces are too strong to counter, or that opposing countries can never coordinate. But bear in mind that as a society, we have barely begun to let the truth sink in: we are risking human extinction here. AI existential risk is still not taken as seriously as it should be. But that is changing. Leading AI academics, such as ‘fathers of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, have sounded public warnings about AI’s existential risk, because they saw the technology getting more capable. This process is unlikely to stop: AI’s capabilities will grow further, and this will lead to more and more debate leaders sounding the alarm bells. When the full weight of our situation sinks in, measures that may appear unrealistic at present, could rapidly gain support.

As humanity, we will realise the situation that we are in. We will come together, and we will find a solution, as we always have. And, sooner than we think, we will implement an AI Pause.

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EDIT POST

What did Hinton, the renowned British-Canadian expert reveal about AI that caused widespread concern?

Exposed serious AI risks, shocking the tech world and affecting major company stocks.

What did Sam Altman admit about ChatGPT and the potential risks of AI?

Advanced AI could pose an existential risk to humanity.

What does Hinton warn could happen to AI if companies and regulators fail to implement effective rules and controls?

Poses ethical risks
Becomes uncontrollable

What risks did Hinton associate with AI's rapid advancement?

What risks did the global summit report highlight about AI?

Creating malicious software for cyberattacks, potentially posing an existential threat if humans lose control.

Hinton has called for a pause or slowdown in AI development until strong safety measures are in place.

- **What Do Other Experts Say?

What is the AI problem called confabulation, according to Hinton?

It's when AI makes up plausible answers to questions it can't answer.

Why did Hinton leave Google when he helped develop AI but later grew concerned about its dangers?

**
There is debate among experts:
  - **Cautious voices:** Some, like Yoshua Bengio (another AI pioneer), echo Hinton’s call for governments and companies to spend more on AI safety and oversight.

Title:

Content: Governments, firms should spend more on AI safety, top researchers say

By

'At least one third of their AI research and development funding'.

Artificial intelligence companies and governments should allocate at least one third of their AI research and development funding to ensuring the safety and ethical use of the systems, top AI researchers said in a paper.

The paper, issued a week before the international AI Safety Summit in London, lists measures that governments and companies should take to address AI risks.

"Governments should also mandate that companies are legally liable for harms from their frontier AI systems that can be reasonably foreseen and prevented," according to the paper written by three Turing Award winners, a Nobel laureate, and more than a dozen top AI academics.

Currently there are no broad-based regulations focusing on AI safety, and the first set of legislation by the European Union is yet to become law as lawmakers are yet to agree on several issues.

"Recent state of the art AI models are too powerful, and too significant, to let them develop without democratic oversight," said Yoshua Bengio, one of the three people known as the godfather of AI.

"It (investments in AI safety) needs to happen fast, because AI is progressing much faster than the precautions taken," he said.

Authors include Geoffrey Hinton, Andrew Yao, Daniel Kahneman, Dawn Song and Yuval Noah Harari.

Since the launch of OpenAI's generative AI models, top academics and prominent CEOs such as Elon Musk have warned about the risks on AI, including calling for a six-month pause in developing powerful AI systems.

Some companies have countered this, saying they will face high compliance costs and disproportionate liability risks.

"Companies will complain that it's too hard to satisfy regulations - that 'regulation stifles innovation' - that's ridiculous," said British computer scientist Stuart Russell.

"There are more regulations on sandwich shops than there are on AI companies."

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What does Hinton warn could happen to AI if companies and regulators fail to implement effective rules and controls?

- **Skeptics:** Others, such as Yann LeCun (also a top AI scientist), push back, arguing that intelligence in machines does not automatically mean they will seek power or act like humans.

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A.I. doesn’t bleed

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Science & NatureA.I. doesn't bleed

A.I. doesn’t bleed

by John Clinton, Ramsay

New knowledge merges with old; what you know shapes what you learn. Artificial neural networks have been studied and computer algorithms have been generated to understand how artificial, computer-generated, neurons, would store a concept, and how it would revise that concept if it was flawed.

Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist often called ‘the godfather of AI,’ is a leading figure in neural networks; studies inspired by the way neurons are connected in the human brain. A New Yorker magazine piece describes his collaborative work in the 1960s and 1970s developing neural nets that couldn’t do anything better than a child. The technology suddenly improved about a decade ago with the large increase in processing speed and Internet data availability.

According to Google Scholar, Hinton is the second most cited researcher among psychologists and the most cited among computer and cognitive scientists.

Hinton has been worried about the potential of AI to do harm and he often talks about the existential threat that AI might pose to the human species. He has used OpenAI’s ChatGPT and this has made him uneasy. He wrote “Fox News is an oxymoron” asking ChatGPT to explain the joke. (Initial reading of this caused me to ponder – a moron full of oxygen??) The first reply told him that this implied Fox News was fake news. When he called attention to the space between oxy and moron, it explained that Fox News was addictive, like the drug OxyContin. To him, this level of understanding represents a new era in AI.

In nature, wildlife learns how to be intelligent without access to concepts expressed in words. They learn to be smart (survive) through experience. Learning, not knowledge, is the engine of intelligence. There is no use trying to explain complicated ideas that you do not understand. First, you must understand how something works. Otherwise, you just produce nonsense.

Because neural networks are so strange, no one can predict how useful – or dangerous – AI will become. OpenAI’s GPT models involve billions of artificial neurons (data) which are profoundly different than biological brains. They are not alive. Our intuitions tell us that nothing resident in a browser tab could really be thinking in the way we do.

Because a human brain can run on oatmeal, the world can support billions of brains, all different. Each brain can learn continuously, rather than being trained once, then pushed out into the world (ship it!).

If the brain dies, the knowledge dies. If a computer dies, load up another computer. Ten thousand neural nets can learn ten thousand different things at the same time and share what they have learned. This immortality (knowledge perpetuity) and replicability suggest we should be concerned about digital intelligence taking over from biological intelligence.

Current AI technology is talkative and intellectual. The problems of physical intuition will be the challenge of the next decade says Yann LeCun, a French computer scientist. A teenager can learn to drive a car in twenty hours of practice with little supervision. AI systems don’t come close to doing this – except self-driving cars – and they are over-engineered, requiring the mapping of whole cities, hundreds of engineers, and hundreds of thousands of hours of training.

And then there is the problem of what some researchers call AI ‘hallucination’, which Hinton names ‘confabulation.’ AI systems confabulate by making up plausible answers to questions that stump them. In the human mind, there is no boundary between just making it up and telling the truth. Telling the truth is just making it up correctly. ChatGPT’s ability to make things up is a flaw, but also a sign of its humanlike intelligence.

When Hinton began his research, no one thought the technology would succeed. When it started to succeed, no one thought it would succeed so quickly. He expects AI will contribute to many fields, but he fears what will happen when powerful people abuse it. Think autonomous weapons. Hinton warns that even benign autonomous systems could wreak havoc. Yann LeCun has said there is an idea that if a system is intelligent it is going to want to dominate. But the desire to dominate has nothing to do with intelligence – it has to do with testosterone.

Recently, Hinton did not sign a popular petition that called for at least a six-month pause in AI research.

“China is not going to stop development for six months.”

“So what should we do?”

“I don’t know. If this were like climate change where we either must stop burning carbon or find a way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, we know what the solution looks like. Here, with AI, it’s not like that.”

Think of the AI story in which our intuitions about the specialness of the human mind are being dislodged by thinking machines, or, having stolen fire, we risk being burned.

Are we fooling ourselves, being taken in by our own machines and the companies that hope to profit from them? By seeking to re-create the knowledge systems in our heads, have we seized the forbidden apple? Have we risked exile from our charmed world? But who would choose not to know how knowing works?

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Home / Science / News /  A psychologist explains how AI and algorithms are changing our lives

A psychologist explains how AI and algorithms are changing our lives

Behavioral scientist Gerd Gigerenzer has spent decades studying how people make choices. Here’s why he thinks too many of us are now letting AI make the decisions.

In an age of ChatGPT, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence are increasingly embedded in our lives, choosing the content we’re shown online, suggesting the music we hear and answering our questions.

In an age of ChatGPT, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence are increasingly embedded in our lives, choosing the content we’re shown online, suggesting the music we hear and answering our questions.

These algorithms may be changing our world and behavior in ways we don’t fully understand, says psychologist and behavioral scientist Gerd Gigerenzer, the director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Previously director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, he has conducted research over decades that has helped shape understanding of how people make choices when faced with uncertainty.

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These algorithms may be changing our world and behavior in ways we don’t fully understand, says psychologist and behavioral scientist Gerd Gigerenzer, the director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Previously director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, he has conducted research over decades that has helped shape understanding of how people make choices when faced with uncertainty.

In his latest book, “How to Stay Smart in a Smart World," Dr. Gigerenzer looks at how algorithms are shaping our future—and why it is important to remember they aren’t human. He spoke with the Journal for The Future of Everything podcast.

The term algorithm is thrown around so much these days. What are we talking about when we talk about algorithms?

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It is a huge thing, and therefore it is important to distinguish what we are talking about. One of the insights in my research at the Max Planck Institute is that if you have a situation that is stable and well defined, then complex algorithms such as deep neural networks are certainly better than human performance. Examples are [the games] chess and Go, which are stable. But if you have a problem that is not stable—for instance, you want to predict a virus, like a coronavirus—then keep your hands off complex algorithms. [Dealing with] the uncertainty—that is more how the human mind works, to identify the one or two important cues and ignore the rest. In that type of ill-defined problem, complex algorithms don’t work well. I call this the “stable world principle," and it helps you as a first clue about what AI can do. It also tells you that, in order to get the most out of AI, we have to make the world more predictable.

So after all these decades of computer science, are algorithms really just still calculators at the end of the day, running more and more complex equations?

What else would they be? A deep neural network has many, many layers, but they are still calculating machines. They can do much more than ever before with the help of video technology. They can paint, they can construct text. But that doesn’t mean that they understand text in the sense humans do.

Does being able to understand how these algorithms are making decisions help people?

Transparency is immensely important, and I believe it should be a human right. If it is transparent, you can actually modify that and start thinking [for] yourself again rather than relying on an algorithm that isn’t better than a bunch of badly paid workers. So we need to understand the situation where human judgment is needed and is actually better. And also we need to pay attention that we aren’t running into a situation where tech companies sell black-box algorithms that determine parts of our lives. It is about everything including your social and your political behavior, and then people lose control to governments and to tech companies.

You write that “digital technology can easily tilt the scales toward autocratic systems." Why do you say that? And how is this different from past information technologies?

This kind of danger is a real one. Among all the benefits it has, one of the vices is the propensity for surveillance by governments and tech companies. But people don’t read privacy policies anymore, so they don’t know. And also the privacy policies are set up in a way that you can’t really read them. They are too long and complicated. We need to get control back.

So then how should we be smart about something like this?

Think about a coffee house in your hometown that serves free coffee. Everyone goes there because it is free, and all the other coffee houses get bankrupt. So you have no choice anymore, but at least you get your free coffee and enjoy your conversations with your friends. But on the tables are microphones and on the walls are video cameras that record everything you say, every word, and to whom, and send it off to analyze. The coffee house is full of salespeople who interrupt you all the time to offer you personalized products. That is roughly the situation you are in when you are on Facebook, Instagram or other platforms. [Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, declined to comment.] In this coffee house, you aren’t the customer. You are the product. So we want to have a coffee house where we are allowed again to pay [for] ourselves, so that we are the customers.

We’ve seen this whole infrastructure around personalized ads be baked into the infrastructure of the internet. And it seems like it would take some pretty serious interventions to make that go away. If you’re being realistic, where do you think we’re going to be headed in the next decade or so with technology and artificial intelligence and surveillance?

In general, I have more hope that people realize that it isn’t a good idea to give your data and your responsibility for your own decisions to tech companies who use it to make money from advertisers. That can’t be our future. We pay everywhere else with our [own] money, and that is why we are the customers and have the control. There is a true danger that more and more people are sleepwalking into surveillance and just accept everything that is more convenient.

But it sounds so hard, when everything is so convenient, to read privacy policies and do research on these algorithms that are affecting my life. How do I push back against that?

The most convenient thing isn’t to think. And the alternative is start thinking. The most important [technology to be aware of] is a mechanism that psychologists call “intermittent reinforcement." You get a reinforcement, such as a “Like," but you never know when you will get it. People keep going back to the platform and checking on their Likes. That has really changed the mentality and made people dependent. I think it is very important for everyone to understand these mechanisms and how one gets dependent. So you can get the control back if you want.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint.Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.

**
AI is spreading rapidly—with uses in jobs, social media, and everyday life.

Title:

Content: Google seeks to fix fairness in AI technology

By Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press, Toronto

Automation / Robotics Electronics AI artificial intelligence Google Technology

But artificial intelligence still has biases echoed by society

An artificial intelligence researcher at Google says fixing fairness in the technology “isn’t a simple thing,” but the world has an opportunity to get it right as the software explodes in popularity.

“It’s as though we have been given a second chance on how we use this technology to dismantle some of the biases we see in society,” Komal Singh, a senior product manager at the tech goliath, said in a Tuesday media briefing in Toronto.

Her optimism comes as the tech sector – and nearly every other industry – have spent the year abuzz about AI’s promise and perils.

Source: Getty Images

Some see the technology as a game changer bound to disrupt everyday life and bring expediency, efficiency and solutions to some of the globe’s biggest challenges. Others, including Tesla owner Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, warn advances in the technology are moving too fast and guardrails are needed before wide-scale deployments.

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Geoffrey Hinton, the British-Canadian computer scientist widely considered the `godfather of AI’, is so concerned with the technology he left Google so he can more freely discuss the dangers, which he has said include bias and discrimination, joblessness, echo chambers, fake news, battle robots and existential risk. Singh acknowledged AI is not without risks. She’s even seen them firsthand. For example, she said if you ask an AI model to generate an image of a nurse it will often return a woman, while a request for an image of a CEO typically brings up a white man and a query for a software engineer delivers racialized men.

A lot needs to happen to fix the fairness

“In a nutshell, I think the takeaway is a lot needs to happen to fix the fairness problem,” Singh said.

At Google, some of that work has come from studying skin tones because dark and medium tones often can’t be deciphered by computer vision systems, which allow computers to “see and understand” images of people and environments.

“This is problematic because a lot of the social disparities around colourism then get populated into social technical systems, which then end up reinforcing them,” Singh said.

To break the cycle, Google partnered with Harvard University professor, Dr. Ellis Monk to design an open-source skin tone scale that can better detect darker tones and be used by AI models to reduce biases. It’s already been deployed within its camera detection technology, on Pixel phones and in search tools, helping to diversify results so keywords bring up a range of skin tones and hair textures. The company also has a project called Media Understanding for Social Exploration, which studied 12 years of American television shows to analyze representation across skin tones.

Racing to develop and launch the most advanced technology

Their findings were “stark,” Singh said. Over the past 12 years, there was a slight increase in the screen time given to those with dark and medium skin tones, while the amount of time those with lighter skin spent on screen was slightly lower. Such work comes at a pivotal time for AI. Top tech companies are racing to develop and launch the most advanced technology, competing with one another for billions of dollars pouring into the industry.

In Canada, Google estimates generative AI could increase the economy by $210 billion and save the average worker over 100 hours a year. Google leaders accompanying Singh said they’re already using AI to improve breast cancer detection, sequence genomes and develop systems that medical clinicians can plug questions into to generate health guidance. E-commerce giant Shopify Inc. is using the technology to reduce search abandonment, while Canadian National Railway Co. is building a digital supply chain platform with automated shipment tracking, Google workers said.

At Google, AI underpins the company’s search engine, maps and cloud storage and is the basis for Bard, its rival product to ChatGPT, that has yet to launch in Canada. Sam Sebastian, the head of Google Cloud’s Canadian operations, promised it would make its Canadian debut “very soon,” but offered no specific timeline. Instead, he discussed his overall outlook on AI, saying it was a technological shift unlike anything he’s seen in his 25 years working in the industry.

“The only thing close to it is the advent of the mobile phone,” he said.

The transformative nature means anyone in the space needs to balance AI’s potential with its risks, he said. For its part, Google has committed to abide by a series of principles as it delves deeper into AI. It has so far promised not to design or deploy AI technologies that cause or are likely to harm, including weapons or systems used to inflict injuries. It also says it will not work on AI-based “surveillance violating internationally accepted norms” or systems which will contravene laws and human rights.

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**Summary: Digital Nomad Lifestyle—What to Know Beyond the Hype**

- **Definition & Growth:** The digital nomad lifestyle refers to people working remotely using technology, often moving between countries.

With increasing normalization of remote work, estimates suggest up to one billion digital nomads by 2035.

- **Visas & Legal Hurdles:** Many countries now offer "digital nomad visas" (e.g., Croatia, Norway) that grant temporary residence for remote work, usually for IT or digital professionals meeting certain income thresholds (e.g., $24,000 USD/year).

However, these visas are rarely designed for permanent stays—extensions and pathways to long-term residence are typically unavailable.

Digital nomads, such as Steve Tsentserensky in Croatia, can easily end up in legal limbo if they wish to extend their stay.

- **Work Suitability:** The lifestyle best suits those whose work is location-independent—IT professionals, copywriters, designers, consultants, etc.

Good time management and alignment between work and personal/life goals are critical.

For students or learners, balancing education/work/travel is even more challenging.

- **Hidden Challenges:**
  - **Legal/Immigration issues:** Visa limits, requirements that can change, and scarcity of long-term solutions force constant planning.

- **Housing:** High demand in attractive cities (e.g., Malaga) makes finding affordable, quality housing difficult.

- **Burnout & Routine Loss:** Without discipline and routine (same wake time, daily structure), burnout or decreased productivity is common.

- **Social/Emotional Factors:** Constant mobility makes forming lasting friendships and support networks harder; some digital nomads feel rootless.

- **Logistics:** Dealing with taxes across jurisdictions, fluctuating currency, healthcare access, and time zone differences with clients/employers adds complexity.

Some destinations cater to nomads with coworking spaces and strong digital infrastructure (e.g., Brazil's Pipa, Itacaré, Spain's Malaga).

**Summary: Digital Nomad Lifestyle—What to Know Beyond the Hype**

- **Definition & Growth:** The digital nomad lifestyle refers to people working remotely using technology, often moving between countries.

Title:

Content:   • Your one stop for college news and resources!
Featured, Features, Study Abroad

A Guide for College Students Embracing the Digital Nomad Lifestyle

A digital nomad is someone who works remotely and travels often. Their work doesn’t require them to report to an office or adhere to a strict schedule. Instead, they can work anywhere in the world, doing the job they love.

It’s no wonder this lifestyle is appealing more to college students. They can travel the world while studying and working abroad. That said, being a college student and a digital nomad is a challenge. It’s not like a vacation where all you have to worry about is enjoying yourself.

You have to learn how to balance the fun of traveling with work and school commitments. The following tips will help you do just that.

Understand What the Digital Nomad Lifestyle Will Be Like

You have to understand what the digital nomad lifestyle will be like if you want it to work out. You can assess whether this life is for you, and better prepare for it if you decide that it is.

Here are some critical points to consider about the digital nomad lifestyle:

  • A work-life balance is a must
  • Traveling often can be exhausting
  • You must ensure access to healthcare
  • You need a plan for financial stability
  • You’ll have to adapt to new cultures and languages
  • Knowing visa requirements and other legal requirements is essential
  • You might experience homesickness, especially if you go international
  • Balancing school with work and life in a new place is a big commitment

Dig into these factors and research all you’ll have to do and give up to be a digital nomad. Then, you can make an informed decision about moving forward.

Master Time Management

You’ll have to take your time management up a few notches if you want to be a digital nomad.

It’s one thing to balance life and school. It’s another to balance life, school, traveling, and potentially, work. You must learn how to divide your days so that you pay each of these things the attention they need. In addition, time management will ensure you don’t burn out.

Start with a routine to build some consistency into your days. Wake up at the same time regardless of your schedule and get ready for your days the same way.

You can establish priority tasks the night before, like your classes, if you’re working, and when you’ll study. Set aside time for breaks, meals, and leisure time as well. Building these activities into your schedule will ensure you actually do them.

Attach times to each task and activity. For example, you have classes from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Next, you’ll have lunch from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. After that, you have work from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Then, you’ll study from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and the rest of the night is yours.

Manage your time wisely and you can achieve everything you set out for each day.

Learn How to Stay Productive

One of the biggest challenges digital nomads run into is staying productive. All of the fun activities you can do when you travel to a new place can be distracting. It might be hard to stay motivated when you’re homesick. Technical and logistical issues can impact your productivity as well.

So, learning how to maintain peak productivity while studying and working on the road is essential.

Adhering to the routine we mentioned above will help keep you focused. Eliminate distractions while working by turning your phone on Do Not Disturb and muting social media apps. Create a designated workspace. You could also incentivize productivity by promising yourself a fun activity after you complete your work.

Secure your tech setup as well to maintain optimal productivity. Make sure you have the basics, like a good laptop set up with the proper work and school software and noise-canceling headphones.

Another crucial tool to have is a mobile hotspot. A hotspot ensures you can connect to the internet wirelessly on your mobile devices from virtually anywhere. This will come in handy when you travel internationally or to places with spotty internet connections. No matter where you are, you can still access your studies and any work you’re doing online.

Equip yourself with the right tools and techniques to stay productive as a digital nomad.

Choose Work That Aligns With Your Studies and Interests

Digital nomads are known to take many different directions with their work. You have options and can easily make a living while studying and traveling abroad. The key is ensuring the work you do doesn’t distract from your education and pull you away from who you are.

You’ll have a much better experience as a digital nomad if you choose work that aligns with your studies and interests. Rather than taking the barista job at the local cafe, work with your school to see if there are any work-study opportunities where you’re traveling.

You can also take the job search into your own hands. Search for job openings before you head to your destination through online job boards. Ask for referrals from fellow students.

Consider fully remote positions as well. There are many work-from-home jobs available that can accommodate a college student’s digital nomad lifestyle, such as being a tutor or a content writer for subjects related to your major.

Whatever work you decide to do, make sure it doesn’t take away from your studies and aligns with who you are and what you want to be.

Conclusion

Many college students are attracted to the digital nomad lifestyle because it allows them to travel freely while studying and working where they want to. As enticing as this life is, being a digital nomad isn’t void of challenges.

Make sure you understand what you’re getting into, master time management, learn to stay productive, and choose work that aligns with your studies and interests to give yourself a real chance at a successful digital nomad life.

SEE ALSO: How to Choose the Right Student Housing in the U.S.

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With increasing normalization of remote work, estimates suggest up to one billion digital nomads by 2035.

Title:

Content: Thousands of digital nomads staying in Croatia, longer stay problematic

NEWS 12.02.2023 15:31

Croatia, a country with a dwindling population, has become a hot destination for digital nomads - mostly young, highly educated and rich foreigners. Thousands of them are staying in the country, but the small number of those wishing to stay longer have to be resourceful as the law does not allow a stay of more than one year.

The global number of digital nomads is estimated at around 35 million. According to some estimates, that number is expected to reach one billion by 2035.

Croatia ranks high on the list of digital nomads’ favourite destinations. Even though data vary, depending on the source of information, a survey conducted by the Nomad List platform shows Croatia is globally the most attractive destination for digital nomads.

Croatia is a small country but what it offers is diverse so it attracts different groups of digital nomads, says Jan de Jong, founder of the Digital Nomads Croatia association.

The Dutch, who lives in Croatia, in 2020 launched amendment of the relevant laws owing to which Croatia introduced, as one of the first European countries to do so, a visa for digital nomads, enabling citizens of third countries to stay in the country for up to one year.

10,000 digital nomads staying in Croatia on a monthly basis

De Jong notes that one of the main reasons why digital nomads come to Croatia, besides infrastructure, which mostly includes the need for a good internet connection and an established community of digital nomads, is the lifestyle Croatia offers, which, in an addition to everything else, is very affordable.

That lifestyle seems to be very affordable to digital nomads, as an average digital nomad makes around €6,500 a month, according to Nomad List.

At the end of January 2023, there were 595 valid visas for digital nomads in Croatia, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior, however, that figure is much below the actual number of digital nomads staying in Croatia because it refers only to third-country citizens staying here for more than three months.

To get a complete picture of the situation, one should take into account EU citizens, who move freely throughout EU territory, including Croatia, without time limitations, as well as the large number of digital nomads from third countries staying in Croatia for less than a month.

The Ministry of the Interior says that it does not keep a record of the latter two categories of digital nomads, so their number can only be estimated.

Judging by trends for individual cities, including Zadar, Split and Zagreb, on the Nomad List platform, de Jong concludes that roughly 5,000 digital nomads arrive in Croatia a month. If every digital nomad is estimated to stay in Croatia for two months, one can say that around 10,000 digital nomads are staying in Croatia every month.

Meanwhile, after Croatia was one of the first European countries to introduce visas for digital nomads, other European countries have followed suit.

In addition to the basic requirements, such as remote work or self-employment and a certain minimum monthly income, which in Croatia amounts to €2,300, while in Iceland it is more than €6,000 – the visa for digital nomads also regulates the longest allowed stay in the country.

Croatia is one of the countries with more restrictive rules because if a digital nomad likes the country and wants to stay for more than a year, they must leave the country for at least six months in order to be able to apply for a visa again.

On the other hand, in other European countries the visa can mostly be extended, depending on the country, for example, in the Czech Republic a digital nomad visa can be extended for a period of three years in total.

Purpose of visa country’s tourist promotion

Even though de Jong says that the purpose of the visa for digital nomads was never to allow permanent stays, he notes that a certain number of digital nomads contact his association looking for advice on what to do if they want to stay in the country.

Asked if there is a legal way to extend the visa, the Ministry of the Interior says that that option does not exist and that it cannot even be extended with a permit for extended tourist stay.

The ministry explains this with the fact that the sole purpose of visas for digital nomads was “Croatia’s tourism promotion.”

One of those who got caught in that legal limbo is Steve Tsentserensky, a copywriter from Ohio, USA, who was among the first digital nomads to get a visa in Croatia.

During his six-month stay in Zagreb, he fell so much in love with the city that he decided to return for a longer period of time.

Asked how he would do that, because the law restricts his stay, unless he marries a Croat, establishes a company or finds employment, he says that he will do what is feasible to regulate his stay and probably again apply for a visa for digital nomads.

He stresses, however, that it would be good if the visa could be extended for a longer period of time, without applicants having to leave the country because they all have the possibility to reapply after the expiry of the six-month period, and the conditions are completely the same.

Another digital nomad, a woman from the USA, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that after the expiry of her visa she did not want to leave the country and that, even though she kept the same job for which she receives a US salary, she found the solution in a fictitious employment contract.

Somebody offered me a work permit, she says cautiously. She considered other ways as well, such as starting a business, and was also advised to marry, but she believes that with the work permit she has also found a way to contribute to the community she lives in by paying taxes, because as a digital nomad she does not have to do it.

Both Americans like the relaxed lifestyle of Zagreb residents, which is why they want to stay for some time.

They did not say how long, but the woman said that she is actively learning Croatian and not thinking about leaving the country.

When they stay longer, they become immigrants

Caroline Hornstein-Tomic, a researcher at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences, says that digital nomads are usually highly educated people, mostly in their 30s, who are also excellent consumers.

“If they decide to stay longer, they become a kind of immigrants,” she says and adds that there is still no research in Croatia on how digital nomads impact local communities, but that that impact certainly exists.

They boost tourism as well as other sectors of the economy, they have encouraged the development of infrastructure and the establishment of numerous hubs, as well as services that meet their need to get along in the new country, she says.

Hornstein-Tomic says that she has interviewed some of the nomads who have been staying on Dalmatian islands, and that she has heard about their positive experiences with the local community.

“Those who have decided to stay longer are interested in local jobs or business development, and they also do volunteer work, so apart from financial resources, they also have knowledge that they like to share,” says Hornstein-Tomic.

Commenting on the demographic potential of that group, de Jong says that digital nomads follow new trends and no longer go to countries where they have better-paying jobs but rather those where they like the lifestyle, bringing their well-paid jobs with them.

He thinks that the current remote work revolution will continue and that a reversal of the trend is not likely.

That trend can be the biggest opportunity for Croatia, from where around half a million people have emigrated over the past ten years looking for better-paying jobs, says de Jong, who has lived in Croatia for the past 16 years.

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- **Visas & Legal Hurdles:** Many countries now offer "digital nomad visas" (e.g., Croatia, Norway) that grant temporary residence for remote work, usually for IT or digital professionals meeting certain income thresholds (e.g., $24,000 USD/year).

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Content: Digital Nomad Visa Programs: An APAC Update

K
Klasko

Contributor

Klasko Immigration Law Partners is dedicated to providing industry-leading employment-based, investment-based, and litigation immigration services to our clients. We help our clients achieve their goals by providing comprehensive immigration legal services. We have a reputation for creative solutions to difficult immigration problems through cutting-edge strategies. Our clients value our extreme responsiveness and our innovative, practical, and effective immigration strategies.
Digital nomad visa programs have grown increasingly popular. Seen as a means of attracting top-tier, global talent and tax revenue, this trend is especially prevalent in the Asian Pacific region.
United States Employment and HR
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Digital nomad visa programs have grown increasingly popular. Seen as a means of attracting top-tier, global talent and tax revenue, this trend is especially prevalent in the Asian Pacific region. Indeed, Japan recently announced it joined the digital nomad visa party – its policy to be officially rolled out in early April 2024. Below, we discuss this new development and provide a summary of the current state of digital nomad programs in the APAC region.

Japan's new digital nomad visa program: a sumo-sized development

Japan's Ministry of Justice announced that Japan created a digital nomad visa. Situated as the 4th largest economy in the world, Japan began issuing digital nomad visas at the beginning of April 2024 to the citizens of 50 countries and territories.

The short-list of eligible countries includes at least the United States, Australia, and Singapore. The visas are valid for up to six months and available to those earning more than ¥10 million (app. $68,300) per year. Nomads may work from anywhere in the country and bring their spouses and children with them. Their work must be tied to "a sales contract or non-provision contract...with a public or private company in a foreign country". Carrying private health insurance will be obligatory to participate in the program.

Behind only China and Thailand, Japan is consistently ranked as one of the largest recipients of international visitors in APAC. In 2024 alone, it is forecasted that Japan will receive a total of 33.1 million visitors. With the aperture of this new program, coupled with sustained global interest in Japan's rich cultural heritage, the country is projected to receive thousands of digital nomads for years to come.

Thai-tanic-sized companies are welcomed in the Kingdom

Visa options for digital nomads in Thailand remain limited. Whereas the B visa program allows visitors to enter the Kingdom for up to 90 days to engage in a short list of activities, the government has gone to greater lengths to attract international corporate investment.

Indeed, under its "Remote Workers for Well-Established Overseas Companies" program, employees of publicly traded companies (or private companies with combined revenue of over $150 million in the last three years) will be able to apply for a 10-year long resident permit. The employee must (i) make an annual salary of at least $80,000.00 USD per year for two consecutive years or (ii) if holding a master's degree, make no less than $40,000 USD for the last two years. Alternatively, the individual may be self-employed provided they own productive intellectual property or have received Series A funding of no less than $1 million USD. Like Japan, visa applicants must carry personal health insurance.

With some of the lowest corporate tax rates in all of APAC, Thailand is situating itself as one of the region's premier hotbeds for foreign investment and, consequently, international talent.

Malaysia welcomes entrepreneurs from backgrounds as diverse as their landscapes

Maylasia arguably presents one of the most agile digital nomad visa programs in APAC. Offering temporary residence through the "De Rantau Nomad" program, employees of local or foreign employers, freelancers, and independent contractors are welcome. The nomad must be coming to work in an IT or digital space and earn at least $24,000 USD per year.

Pursuing a K-drama storyline in South Korea remains tricky

Early this year, South Korea made a splash on the global stage by launching its own version of a digital nomad visa: the "Workcation" visa. Whereas the visa program does offer a two-year period of validity, it is available only under a niche set of circumstances. For example, the minimum income threshold is KRW 85,000,000, or approximately $63,683.53. Digital nomads availing themselves must not only refrain from assuming gainful employment in South Korea, but must also refrain from earning money in South Korea associated with the South Korean economy (e.g., entering contracts with local businesses). In addition to having at least one year of work experience, nomads must also carry health insurance coverage valued at KRW 100 million, or about $75,000 USD. Given these restrictions, we anticipate S. Korea's digital nomad visa program to be leveraged only by the truest of K-POP fans.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

Digital Nomad Visa Programs: An APAC Update

United States Employment and HR

Contributor

Klasko Immigration Law Partners is dedicated to providing industry-leading employment-based, investment-based, and litigation immigration services to our clients. We help our clients achieve their goals by providing comprehensive immigration legal services. We have a reputation for creative solutions to difficult immigration problems through cutting-edge strategies. Our clients value our extreme responsiveness and our innovative, practical, and effective immigration strategies.
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What are critical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle?

Knowledge of visa and other legal requirements

What are the criteria of the top 20 digital nomad locations?

A digital nomad visa program or the equivalent

However, these visas are rarely designed for permanent stays—extensions and pathways to long-term residence are typically unavailable.

Digital nomads, such as Steve Tsentserensky in Croatia, can easily end up in legal limbo if they wish to extend their stay.

What are critical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle?

Knowledge of visa and other legal requirements

- **Work Suitability:** The lifestyle best suits those whose work is location-independent—IT professionals, copywriters, designers, consultants, etc.

UI/UX Designers
Software engineers
Product designers

What profession was targeted by Kyrgyzstan's August 2022 program to work in the country?

Good time management and alignment between work and personal/life goals are critical.

What are critical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle?

For students or learners, balancing education/work/travel is even more challenging.

What are critical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle?

balancing possible education with work
work-life balance

What makes some parents hesitant about remote work abroad?

- **Hidden Challenges:**
  - **Legal/Immigration issues:** Visa limits, requirements that can change, and scarcity of long-term solutions force constant planning.

What are critical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle?

Knowledge of visa and other legal requirements

- **Housing:** High demand in attractive cities (e.g., Malaga) makes finding affordable, quality housing difficult.

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Digital nomads

Malaga, voted the second best city in the world for remote working

The city bursts onto the Executive Nomad Index ranking, headed by Dubai, with quality of life as its main asset

Nuria Triguero

Malaga

Saturday, 19 August 2023, 21:50

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The pandemic and the digital revolution have ignited the phenomenon of digital nomads. The possibility of living and working from anywhere in the world is no longer a privilege of some professionals in the technology sector; now many workers and managers in all types of sectors have become expatriates.

The Executive Nomad Index report, a ranking of the most attractive cities or regions in the world for high-level remote workers, produced annually by the real estate consultancy Savills, focuses specifically on nomadic executives. Malaga city breaks into this list for the first time, in second position, after Dubai and above Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca.

The ranking of the twenty best locations in the world for remote workers is: Dubai, Malaga, Miami, Abu Dhabi, Lisbon, Barbados, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Algarve, Saint Lucia, Cayman Islands, Dubrovnik, Malta, Antigua, Côte d'Azur, Mauritius, Athens, Cyprus, Bahamas and Tuscany.

The visibility gained by Malaga as a result of Google's commitment to the cirt and the knock-on effect it has had on other multinationals (Vodafone, Citi, Globant, among many others) is key to understanding its dazzling entry into this international ranking. But apart from the obvious hype, the city offers solid reasons to attract the "wave of executives converted into digital nomads since the pandemic" cited in the report.

The Executive Nomad Index gives each city a score in five sections: speed of internet connection, quality of life, climate, air connectivity and price of high-end rental housing. Malaga achieved a total score of 32.38 points, only two points less than the number one city in the ranking, Dubai. Malaga scored the highest score of the entire list (10.38) for quality of life. Its score was also high (8.06) for internet connection and in competitiveness of prime rentals (5.26). Climate scored an average (4.45), above Dubai or Abu Dhabi but below tropical destinations such as Barbados, Cayman Islands, St Lucia or Miami.

All the locations included in this ranking have "a digital nomad visa programme or equivalent, or are already part of a large economic bloc that allows the free movement of people to live or work; they offer favourable climates all year round, a high quality of life and have established, first class, residential markets", according to Savills.

The report highlighted how Malaga has been "upping the ante in recent years as a major cultural and tourist destination, known for its superlative museums and beautiful old city". "The arrival of high-profile companies such as Google has given Malaga the seal of approval. All these companies say Malaga is the place to be and their reputation spreads by word of mouth," said José Félix Pérez-Peña, director of Savills Andalucía.

The report noted that the launch of Spain's digital nomad visa in 2022 "has undoubtedly helped propel Malaga" to break into second place in the ranking. "The city's attractive climate, beaches, culture and gastronomy are big plus points, but so is its comparatively affordable rental market; costs are half those of its European competitors in the index. Malaga's international airport is within easy reach of the city centre, an added bonus for executive nomads who rely on regular travel. Savills reminded that a direct flight from New York to Malaga was launched earlier this year.

Restaurant prices, rents and everyday life in Malaga remain cheap compared to other major European cities, and people feel "safe" in the city, Pérez-Peña added.

While the upper classes have traditionally gravitated towards large villas in the eastern part of the city, the western coast has become "the new focus of regeneration and flagship developments", according to Savills, which cites Sierra Blanca Tower, whose prices have set a new benchmark for Malaga at around 10,000 euros per square metre. The report specified that typical prime residential rents are 15-22 euros per square metre, but admitted that there are not enough homes in this range to meet demand.

"Executive nomads want everything to be ready when they move in, including furniture and internet connection," said Pérez-Peña. "We are seeing a lot of start-ups now catering to this market, but there are not enough properties available," he added.

Pérez-Peña said that there is also a shortage of high-quality offices and coworking spaces to cater for all the nomadic workers who are turning their sights on Malaga. "We haven't been building enough to meet the demand," he said.

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Why are some local communities resisting digital nomads?

- **Burnout & Routine Loss:** Without discipline and routine (same wake time, daily structure), burnout or decreased productivity is common.

- **Social/Emotional Factors:** Constant mobility makes forming lasting friendships and support networks harder; some digital nomads feel rootless.

What makes some parents hesitant about remote work abroad?

Leaving friends behind
Children's wellbeing

- **Logistics:** Dealing with taxes across jurisdictions, fluctuating currency, healthcare access, and time zone differences with clients/employers adds complexity.

What are critical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle?

A plan for financial stability
Access to healthcare

Some destinations cater to nomads with coworking spaces and strong digital infrastructure (e.g., Brazil's Pipa, Itacaré, Spain's Malaga).

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