Geoffrey Hinton has been called “the godfather of AI” and is considered one of the most important thought leaders on the emergence of artificial intelligence and its implications for business and society.  Hinton is considered a pioneer in the field: it was Hinton, in 2012, who created the technology that would become the foundation for the AI systems that are emerging as potential game changers for business.

– The future of intelligence

– Managing risks from upcoming, advanced AI systems

– Will Digital Intelligence Replace Biological Intelligence?

– AI and humanity’s future

Hinton is not entirely a proponent of the rapid development of AI: he left his position at Google in 2023 so that he could speak freely about the potential dangers of the technology to humankind. Hinton’s view is that the technology offers tremendous potential benefits to humankind, but we are at an important inflection point where society needs to think hard about how to restrict the use of AI to avoid potential pitfalls.

Hinton received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1978.  After five years as a faculty member at Carnegie-Mellon he became a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and moved to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto where he is now an emeritus professor. He has also held roles as a VP Engineering fellow at Google and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Vector Institute.