Meta's top scientist Professor Yann LeCun said the fears over artificial intelligence posing a threat to humanity are "preposterously ridiculous". He also said those who feel AI is unsafe should not simply build it.
LeCun is considered to be one of the three godfathers of AI.
According to LeCun, there may be a time in the future when computers will become more intelligent than humans. But such a situation will take years. At the same time, he also insisted that there was "no question" that AI would overtake human intelligence. "Researchers are missing some essential concepts to reach that level, which would take years if not decades to arrive," he added.
The Meta scientist further said that when people worry about future machines operating at or beyond human-level capabilities, they are alluding to artificial general intelligence systems capable of solving a broad spectrum of problems like human beings do.
When asked about the common apprehensions about AI, he claimed that the idea of AI taking over the world is a "projection of human nature on machines" and warned that it will be a "huge mistake to keep AI research under lock and key," reported BBC.
Speaking about the hypothetical AI threat being not valid, he said: "It's as if you asked in 1930 to someone how are you going to make a turbo-jet safe? Turbo-jets were not invented yet in 1930, same as human-level AI has not been invented yet. Turbojets were eventually made incredibly reliable and safe. And the same would happen with AI."
"The progress in AGI development would be gradual, potentially reaching a level of intelligence comparable to that of a rat's brain. Such an AI system would still operate within a controlled data centre environment and could be deactivated if necessary," he further said.
Ever since the rise of ChatGPT, fears and speculations of AI causing massive job loss, threatening human jobs, and even taking over the world have been rampant. When asked about jobs, he said AI is not going to put a lot of people out of work permanently. But the job market will change and no one can be certain what will be the most prominent jobs in 20 years.