‘Slave’ to AI: Nobel Prize winners warn against technology overhype, dependency

A pair of Nobel Prize winners have warned against overhyping the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) at a speaking event in Hong Kong, with one urging young people not to be a “slave” to the emerging technology.

Professors David Gross, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2004, and Arieh Warshel, winner of the chemistry prize in 2013, also commended Hong Kong’s education system and the city’s focus on scientific research and innovation.

Gross and Warshel were speaking at a talk hosted by the Hang Lung Mathematics Awards and Asia Society Hong Kong on Sunday, exploring the theme of fundamental science and the age of AI.

Asked whether the world was entering a new AI era, Gross, who teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said: “I think there is an enormous amount of hype.”

“I’m not that impressed by AI as an intelligent machine,” said Gross, who co-won the prize for his contributions to the understanding of how the smallest particles interact with each other.

AI had “great capabilities” given enough data and could make “reasonable conjectures” to what would be considered a good answer, Gross said, but he noted that technology was also capable of lying and was often wrong.