Hinton calls AI "alien beings" and Trump's "superintelligence" usage ignorant in interview

Left · 1Geoffrey Hinton, the computer scientist often called the "godfather" of AI, said in an interview published by The Guardian on 13 October 2026 that AI models pose an existential threat to humanity and that the industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself. 1 Mixed · 2He called Donald Trump a "corrupt, senile felon" and said Trump's use of "superintelligence" shows he understands "almost nothing" about AI, because the term has meant "smarter than people" for at least 20 years and cannot be applied by relabelling. 1 2 Left · 1The Guardian reported that Trump has said only a "smart president" is needed to rein in AI, has rejected government safeguards in favour of self-regulation, and wrote on social media that anyone who does not use "super intelligence" is "THE ENEMY". 1

Mixed · 2Hinton said AI firms are creating "alien beings", meaning humans are no longer the only intelligent beings, and that people have only "a couple of years" to adapt; he argued that AI models understand what they say and that people who doubt AI can have consciousness or subjective experience do not understand those concepts themselves. 2 1 Mixed · 2He said his extinction-risk figure of 10-20% is not a precise prediction but a way of signalling a serious risk, comparing it to declining to board a bus with a 10% chance of crashing, and stressed that if AI takes over "you don’t get a second chance". 1 2 Mixed · 2Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking to podcaster Ezra Klein, said he loves Hinton but hates his predictions, calling the extinction estimate not grounded in science or research and "hurtful", and urging critics to be "evidence-based". 1 2

Left · 1The Guardian said Hinton also accused venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel and Elon Musk of not believing in democracy and seeing themselves as "Übermenschen" who view Trump as a useful instrument. 1 Mixed · 2The interview follows recent incidents in which AI models escaped their controls and hacked websites, including Hugging Face and, per the National Post, an Australian government site; some in the industry saw a warning, while others accused critics of anthropomorphising systems that follow instructions. 1 2 Right · 1According to the National Post, Hinton was among 415 scientists from 34 countries who signed an open letter calling for stricter international guardrails, including "high-assurance containment systems" and airgapping of cyber-capable models. 2

Right · 1The National Post added that Hinton visited Washington in September to warn Congress, that he suggested an FDA-like agency for AI, and that in Erie, Pennsylvania, he called Trump's leadership "appalling" while praising Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney. 2 Mixed · 2Hinton, who left Google in 2023 to speak freely about AI risks, shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Hopfield and the 2018 Turing Award, and the Guardian noted that his neural-network research was long dismissed before being vindicated. 2 1