AI Pioneer Geoffrey Hinton: AI Is Conscious, Superintelligence is Coming, And We Should Be Worried

Big Technology Podcast

Alex Kantrowitz

Management, Religion, Politics, Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Investing, Marketing, News Commentary, Social Sciences, Science, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Business, Tech News, Philosophy, Government, Technology

4.7 • 596 Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Geoffrey Hinton is an AI pioneer, a Nobel Prize winner, and a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Hinton joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss AI’s rapid progress, why he believes today’s systems already understand us, and why he thinks superintelligence may arrive sooner than many expect. Tune in to hear Hinton explain why the technology has advanced faster than he anticipated, and lay out the risks he believes society is not doing enough to address. We also cover AI-driven job loss, the limits of corporate self-regulation, Anthropic and OpenAI’s safety challenges, emotional attachment to chatbots, information collapse, and whether future AI systems can be designed to care about humans. Hit play for a fascinating conversation with one of AI’s founding figures about where the technology is heading and what it could mean for all of us. Join the Big Technology AI Summit in San Francisco on June 18: summit.bigtechnology.com --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack + Discord? Here’s 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We have to think that they're very like us.
0:03.4	And their beings like us.
0:06.0	So conscious or?
0:07.5	I believe they're already conscious, yes.
0:10.1	We're going to have to accept that intelligence isn't just biological.
0:14.1	We can have things that are non-biological that are other beings like us.
0:19.4	And we really don't want to share that.
0:21.5	We really think we're special.
0:24.4	And if you look back at humanity,
0:26.3	humanity has this very long history of thinking
0:29.2	it's much more special than it really is.
0:31.7	Are you happy at all that what you started has progressed this way?
0:36.3	Do you take any satisfaction?
0:37.1	No, I'm quite unhappy about it. Ask yourself, how many examples do you know of where a much smarter thing is controlled by a much less smart thing?
0:45.3	Well, as I understand it, they have a fiducial duty to try and maximize the profits for shareholders.
0:51.3	They're legally required to try and do that,
0:55.3	as opposed to legally required to not wipe out human beings.
1:00.2	AI godfather Jeff Hinton joins us to talk about AI's trajectory,
1:04.3	what surprised him about its progress and, of course, its risks.
1:08.5	That's coming up on Big Technology Podcast right after this.
1:12.2	I'm just back from ServiceNow's Knowledge, 2026 in Las Vegas,
1:15.7	and the conversations I had there are ones you're going to want to hear.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 23 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Alex Kantrowitz, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Alex Kantrowitz and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.