‘Godfather of AI’ warns we need to be ‘very careful' in unsettling prediction for future of humanity

A man who's been dubbed the 'Godfather of AI' has made a pretty terrifying prediction about the future of humanity.

Dr Geoffrey Hinton is a cognitive psychologist and computer scientist who has worked for Google.

Dr Hinton has previously warned about the rate at which AI (artificial intelligence) is developing.

In fact, he actually quit his role at Google shortly after a group of 1,000 leading tech experts and researchers signed an open letter calling for all AI developments to be put on pause for a minimum of six months, in a bid to help stem 'profound risks to society and humanity'.

Speaking to The New York Times last year, the scientist said: "I don’t think they should scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it."

Now, Dr Hinton has made an unsettling prediction about the future of AI and what it could mean for humans.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Dr Hinton explained: "You see, we've never had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before.

"And how many examples do you know of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing? There are very few examples.

"There’s a mother and baby. Evolution put a lot of work into allowing the baby to control the mother, but that’s about the only example I know of."

Previously, Dr Hinton had estimated a 10 percent chance of AI technology causing the extinction of the human race, but he now estimates this figure to be '10 percent to 20 percent'.

When asked what he thinks the world might be like in 10 to 20 years from now, Dr Hinton explained AI is developing so rapidly, that machines smarter than humans would likely be developed in the next two decades.

"I didn't think it would be where we would be now. I thought at some point in the future we would get here," he added.

"Because the situation we're in now is that most of the experts in the field think that sometime, within probably the next 20 years, we're going to develop AIs that are smarter than people.

"And that's a very scary thought.

"I like to think of it as, imagine yourself and a three-year-old - we'll be the three-year-olds, and they'll be the grown-ups."

Although AI can provide plenty of benefits, Dr Hinton explained regulations are needed to stop people using it in dangerous ways.

"We need regulations to stop people using it for bad things, and we don't appear to have those kinds of political systems in place at present," he added, The Independent reports.