AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio to focus on safer uses of AI, argues regulation necessary
BNN Bloomberg
Artificial intelligence pioneer Yoshua Bengio says he will be redirecting his research to ensure he is working on applications of the technology that are safe for society.
"I have been thinking a lot about this and I am going to do what I think is best to go in the right direction," the 2018 winner of the A.M. Turing Award and director of the Mila AI institute in Quebec said Thursday evening.
"I think I am going to reorient my research so that either I am working on applications that are not dangerous or very safe like...healthcare or the environment or working on safety, to prepare and prevent what could happen."
Bengio’s remarks came at the conclusion of a Munk debate hosted at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, where he and Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor Max Tegmark sparred with other technology experts about whether AI poses an existential threat.
