Artificial intelligence might be tearing the worlds of government and business lately, but for decades AI research was the realm of obscure researchers who laid the groundwork for the gold rush we’re seeing today. Now that their baby has gotten big, it’s always interesting watching these figures grapple with the world they’ve created. For a perfect example, look no further than a newly-resurfaced talk in which AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton gave a fascinating response when asked a question about superintelligent AI replacing humans. During the December online lecture, which recently resurfaced on Reddit, the so-called “Godfather of AI” was asked if he would be in favor of a superintelligent AI destroying humanity and replacing it with “something objectively better in terms of consciousness.” “I’m actually for it,” the machine learning scholar responded, “but I think it would be wiser for me to say I am against it.” Hinton, as you may recall, left Google last spring over fears of AI falling into the hands of “bad actors” and went so far as to say he regretted his role in developing the powerful neural networks that now undergird everything from ChatGPT to Stable Diffusion. Given that fairly recent turn of events, it’s surprising that he of all people would make such a remark — and when lecture moderator and MIT tech historian Deborah Fitzgerald asked him to “say more,” things did indeed get more and interesting and complicated. “Well, people don’t like being replaced,” Hinton said laughingly. At Fitzgerald’s prodding, he expounded…In Video, Godfather of AI Said He Was in Favor of AI Replacing Humankind