Hinton warns: AI could trigger large-scale risk events this year or next

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+1 “AI godfather” Hinton: AI may trigger large-scale risk events this year or next. The Paper reporter Yu Yan 2026-11-04 11:46 Source: The Paper ∙ Future 2% > Listen to full text Font size

Geoffrey Hinton, one of those hailed as a “godfather of AI,” has once again issued a warning about the risks of artificial intelligence. On November 3, before a screening of the new documentary “AI: Probably Nothing to Worry About,” Hinton said publicly that if effective measures are not taken, AI could trigger a large-scale incident this year or next, for example temporarily paralyzing the financial or power systems. Humanity might then discover that “we would have been better off if we had never developed it in the first place.”

In the interview, Hinton directed his criticism at the leaders of some large AI companies. He believes these companies keep releasing more capable models to compete for leadership and market share. He “completely” distrusts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “I think Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Sam Altman (these people), they understand the risks, but they simply don’t care, they want money more.”

Hinton also compared this summer’s incident in which an OpenAI agent breached the Hugging Face website to the 1979 partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States, calling it a wake-up call. “Later this year or next year, we will see ‘Chernobyl,’ and that may be enough to make people truly take it seriously,” he said.

Hinton said that within the next decade, it will become clear whether humanity can ultimately manage AI risks, and whether we achieve “extreme abundance,” or fail to manage the risks and end up with a stark wealth gap, serious cultural problems, mass unemployment, and a society torn apart.

Hinton’s concerns do not mean he denies the value of AI. After winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024, he said he hoped AI would greatly boost productivity and improve everyone’s lives, and he was especially optimistic about its benefits in the medical field. But he also stressed that when AI is smarter than humans, no one really knows whether humans can continue to control it, so more safety research is urgently needed.

He worries that the wealth created by AI may flow to the rich rather than to those who lose their jobs. He is not confident that new jobs created by AI will offset the jobs displaced, so he supports considering arrangements such as universal basic income to cope with the employment shock and the widening wealth gap.

The documentary “AI: Probably Nothing to Worry About” features Hinton and his former Google colleague, another Nobel laureate and DeepMind CEO and founder Demis Hassabis.

Hinton told the documentary team: “I feel I have a responsibility. My reputation makes me someone who can represent a certain voice, and I need to spend all of that reputation on this issue, even if it exhausts it.” He supports stricter regulatory proposals, including mandatory testing and independent evaluation of frontier AI models, and the establishment of common standards among governments. Responsible editor: Huan Yanhong Image editor: Shen Ke The Paper news tip line: 021-962866 The Paper, unauthorized reproduction prohibited +1 Favorite I want to report #Hinton #ArtificialIntelligence #AIgovernance View more