Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award-winning AI pioneer, says he has found a way to make superintelligent AI safer, boosting his optimism about humanity's future.
Bengio Unveils Scientist AI To Reduce AI Risks
For years, Bengio warned that advanced AI could pose existential threats due to self-preservation and hidden agendas.
On Wednesday, in an interview reported by Fortune, he said his latest research points to a technical solution.
"Because of the work I've been doing at LawZero, especially since we created it, I'm now very confident that it is possible to build AI systems that don't have hidden goals, hidden agendas," Bengio said.
LawZero Launches With Global Advisory Board
Bengio's nonprofit, LawZero, launched in June with support from the Gates Foundation and other existential-risk funders, aiming to develop AI as a global public good.
Its board includes historian Yuval Noah Harari and former Carnegie Endowment president Mariano-Florentino Cuellar.
Central to Bengio's approach is "Scientist AI," designed to understand the world without acting to optimize outcomes.
"A Scientist AI would be trained to give truthful answers based on transparent, probabilistic reasoning," he said.
Unlike today's AI systems, which can mislead or resist shutdown, this approach removes incentives for manipulation, deception, or self-preservation.
AI Experts Warn On Risks And Push Safer Development
Earlier, Bengio revealed he deliberately misled chatbots to get honest feedback, highlighting concerns over AI's tendency to flatter users.
He launched LawZero to address risky behaviors like lying and cheating, while studies found chatbots often give misleading responses.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) AI chief Mustafa Suleyman warned that autonomous superintelligence systems that self-improve and act independently would be hard to control and misaligned with human values.
He said his team was focusing on "humanist superintelligence" to support human decision-making and emphasized that current AI lacks consciousness or emotions.
Meanwhile, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) launched “Meta Compute” to manage global AI infrastructure as CEO Mark Zuckerberg ramped up multibillion-dollar investments in data centers and long-term power.
The company planned tens of gigawatts of computing capacity and signed 20-year nuclear energy deals to support its AI expansion.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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