A computer scientist often dubbed “the godfather of artificial intelligence” has quit his job at Google to speak out about the dangers of the technology.

Geoffrey Hinton, who created a foundation technology for AI systems, told The New York Times that advancements made in the field posed “profound risks to society and humanity.”

“Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now,” he said. “Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.”

Hinton said that competition between tech giants was pushing companies to release new AI technologies at dangerous speeds, risking jobs and spreading misinformation.

“It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things.”

In 2022, Google and OpenAI – the start-up behind the AI chatbot ChatGPT – began building systems using much larger amounts of data than before.

Hinton said he believes that these systems were eclipsing human intelligence in some ways because of the amount of data they were analyzing.

“Maybe what is going on in these systems is actually a lot better than what is going on in the brain.”

While AI has been used to support human workers, the rapid expansion of chatbots could put jobs at risk. AI “takes away the drudge work” but “might take away more than that,” Hinton said.

The scientist also warned about the potential spread of misinformation, saying that the average person will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”

Jeff Dean, lead scientist for Google AI, thanked Hinton in a statement.

“As one of the first companies to publish AI Principles, we remain committed to a responsible approach to AI,” the statement read.

“We’re continually learning to understand emerging risks while also innovating boldly.”

In March, tech billionaire Elon Musk and experts, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, penned an open letter calling for a pause in the development of AI systems.

Signed by more than 1,000 people it was prompted by the release of GPT-4, a much more powerful version.

Hinton did not sign the petition then, but said that scientists should not “scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it.”