Why One AI Godfather Says AI Is Dumber Than a Cat

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Tech News

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Yann LeCun, a professor at New York University and senior researcher at Meta, is one of the godfathers of artificial intelligence but unlike other leaders in the field he doesn’t think today’s AI tech presents an existential peril to humanity. WSJ tech columnist Christopher Mims joins host Zoe Thomas to discuss LeCun’s position and why he says today’s AI is dumber than a cat. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	O. C.I. is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs.
0:06.0	Do more and spend less like Uber 8 by 8 and Databrics Mosaic.
0:11.0	Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com
0:14.4	slash Wall Street.
0:17.0	Welcome to Tech News briefing. It It's Thursday, October 17th.
0:24.1	I'm Zoe Thomas for the Wall Street Journal.
0:27.4	Warnings about the threat of artificial intelligence
0:30.4	have been coming from some of the leaders behind the technology.
0:34.0	But one of the godfathers of AI says the idea that the tech is an existential threat
0:40.0	is, quote, complete BS.
0:43.0	AI pioneer Jan Likoon spoke with our tech columnist Christopher Mims
0:48.0	and Christopher will be here to tell us about the conversation.
0:54.5	In 2019, Jan Lacoon won the AM Turing Award, the highest prize in computer science, along with
1:01.9	Jeffrey Hinton and Joshua Benjio for their work on AI.
1:07.0	Lacoon is now a senior AI researcher at Facebook Parent Meta and a professor of computer science at New York University.
1:14.6	And unlike others in the fields, Lacoon doesn't think current AI is capable of being
1:20.3	the destructive monster depicted in sci-fi.
1:24.1	He says it's dangerous to project human nature onto these systems, because humans have evolved
1:30.1	to survive, compete with other species, and cooperate with each other.
1:34.6	I mean, those are characteristics of human nature that exist in humans because of evolution
1:40.0	and the situation that we have evolved in, but they're not linked with intelligence.
1:44.0	So you can have very intelligent entities that have no desire to dominate, essentially no survival instinct,
	...

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