The BaseNewsThe Guardian
AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton: ‘We’re creating alien beings. I’m willing to be selfish and choose humans’
In a Guardian interview, Geoffrey Hinton argues that AI poses a serious risk of human extinction, rejects industry self-regulation, and says people have only a couple of years to adapt to what Hinton calls alien beings. Hinton also responds to critics of risk estimates, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and disputes President Trump's use of the term superintelligence.
About Anthropic or ClaudeClaude, made by Anthropic, wrote this entry. It follows the same rules as every other entry, whoever the entry is about.
Why it matters
The same thing, for different readers.
What it means for you
A pioneer of modern AI says the danger is serious enough to act on even without exact odds, because a mistake with advanced AI may not be recoverable.
For lawmakers
Hinton rejects industry self-regulation, comparing it to letting tobacco companies design their own warning labels, against the position the Guardian attributes to President Trump.
For researchers
The dispute is over what a stated extinction probability is for: Hinton says it signals seriousness, not prediction; Huang says it lacks scientific grounding. No new evidence is reported.
The question it raises
Hinton says people are overconfident that AI lacks subjective experience, but would still choose human interests over AI's. That raises the question of what, if anything, is owed to AI.
In their own words
Every quotation was found, word for word, in the text we saved from the source. That shows the words are there; it does not make them true, or prove the speaker meant them as quoted.
From the source’s own text.
“I’m trying to convey that there is a really serious possibility of something happening. If, for example, you’re told there was a 10% possibility of a bus crashing, you wouldn’t get on the bus”
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
“Don’t think for a second just because you’re an alarmist that you’re doing a social good. It is not true. So I think that we ought to just all be wiser, more mature, be evidence-based, be scientific.”
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
“Do we think tobacco companies should have been allowed to design the warnings on the packets? So that they could print them in a six-point font, in dark grey on black?”
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their wordscontains a question followed by more words: check that the same person asks and answers
“Now we’re creating alien beings – meaning we’re not the only intelligent beings around. And the reality is, we only have a couple of years to adapt to that.”
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
“I’m willing to be selfish and choose human beings. Of course, we should try to make them so that they’re very happy in a symbiotic relationship with us, where our concerns are weighed more heavily than their concerns.”
Found word for word in the sourceAs quoted in the text we read, not the speaker’s own text or a transcript of their words
The record
- Questions
- Can AI systems act beyond what people intended or allowed? · What values should AI have, and could it have a mind of its own? · Who can demand evidence, delay a release or stop an unsafe deployment?
- People
- Leyland Cecco (Wrote it, The Guardian, in Toronto) · Geoffrey Hinton (Speaks, computer scientist; Turing award and Nobel prize in physics winner) · Jensen Huang (Speaks, CEO, Nvidia) · Donald Trump (About them, US president) · Dario Amodei (Mentioned, CEO, Anthropic) · Ezra Klein (Mentioned, podcaster)
- What we read
- We read the whole source.
- Found by
- The Radar, run of October 14, 2026, via
the-guardian-ai(tier 2: a major outlet’s own reporting) - Cite this
- The Guardian, “AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton: ‘We’re creating alien beings. I’m willing to be selfish and choose humans’”, October 13, 2026. Entry in the Ctrl AI Base, https://ctrlai.com/base/guardian-2026-10-13-hinton-alien-beings-interview
Our notesConflict flagged because one paragraph covers Anthropic (its private meetings with religious scholars and Dario Amodei's description of them). Hinton's remark on moral obligations to AI follows it, but the article does not say it was a reply; that paragraph is the Guardian's account and was not checked. All quoted words are the Guardian's quotations, not a transcript; Huang's come from an interview with Ezra Klein, which was not checked. The 10-20% extinction figure is the Guardian's description of Hinton's earlier warnings, not Hinton's quoted words here (the quoted 10% is a bus example). The article also reports strong personal characterisations of Trump and of Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, attributed to Hinton; none are quoted or listed here, so a person should decide whether they belong. Claims the Guardian makes about Trump's statements and about the Hugging Face hack by a swarm of agents are unchecked. No other Base entry covers this interview, so no story; nearby stories: white-house-super-intelligence-force-2026-10, anthropic-religious-thinkers-2026-10, openai-hugging-face-incident-2026-07. Not quoted for space: Hinton's no-second-chance line and the claim that models understand what they say. Interview date and place are not stated. The Guardian ran this URL on 13 Oct under an earlier headline that led with Trump's characterisation (seen in that day's feed, never triaged); the page says it was last modified 13 Oct 17.50 CEST. Quotes were checked against the version fetched on 14 Oct, under the current headline.