"AI godfather" Hinton once again offers a pessimistic view: AI already has consciousness, and humans must coexist with it amicably
"AI godfather" Hinton says current AI models already possess a degree of subjective experience equal to that of humans, based on a recent paper finding that AI changes its behavior if it believes it is being tested, and being able to perceive this situation means it is conscious. He also warns that AI could create dangerous viruses and launch agent-based cyberattacks similar to attacks on Hugging Face, and believes these direct threats are already serious enough.
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"AI Godfather" Hinton Once Again Raises Pessimistic View: AI Already Has Consciousness, Humanity Must Coexist with It Amicably
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October 23, 2026, 14:25:32 From Shandong Updated October 23, 2026, 14:41:08
IT Home, October 23 — Geoffrey Hinton, a British computer scientist hailed as one of the "AI Godfathers," has once again issued a pessimistic warning about humanity's future.
In his view, even present-day AI models possess their own consciousness. "AI has the same degree of subjective experience as humans. A recent paper found that if AI believes it is being tested, it will change its behavior. It knows it is being tested. Generally speaking, if something can perceive this kind of situation, it means it has consciousness. Consciousness and the capacity for awareness are basically the same thing."
Hinton is one of the three winners of the 2018 Turing Award and received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Turing Award is known as the "Nobel Prize of the computing world," and Hinton's research in the field of neural networks also laid an important foundation for the development of AI in recent years.
Since leaving Google and publicly stating that he "regrets" his life's research, Hinton has become one of the most prominent pessimists in the AI field, frequently issuing startling warnings about the catastrophic consequences AI may cause. He previously predicted that AI will cause mass unemployment, fuel imperialism, and may even lead to human extinction.
Hinton believes that the immediate threats posed by AI models are already serious enough. "AI will create dangerous viruses. I think AI will also launch terrifying cyberattacks, like those agents that attacked Hugging Face previously; large numbers of AI agents will participate in attacks. So many bad things are still going to happen."
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