77-Year-Old 'Godfather of AI' Says His Girlfriend Dumped Him Via ChatGPT: 'It Didn't Make Me Feel Too Bad' Geoffrey Hinton says his ex used the AI chatbot to articulate the reasons why she was breaking up with him.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Geoffrey Hinton, 77, is known as the Godfather of AI because of his early work in creating the technology.
- In a new interview, Hinton stated that his former girlfriend used ChatGPT to break up with him.
- She used ChatGPT to pinpoint “how awful” his behavior was and gave him the chatbot’s answer.
The Godfather of AI couldn't escape AI during a breakup.
Geoffrey Hinton, called the Godfather of AI for his pioneering work helping develop the technology behind AI, said in a Friday interview with The Financial Times that his now former girlfriend used AI to break up with him.
Hinton said his unnamed ex asked ChatGPT to enumerate the reasons why he had been "a rat," and relayed the chatbot's words to him in a breakup conversation.
"She got ChatGPT to tell me what a rat I was," Hinton told FT. "She got the chatbot to explain how awful my behavior was and gave it to me."
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However, the now 77-year-old, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics last year and currently works at the University of Toronto as a professor emeritus in computer science, wasn't too bothered by the AI-generated response — or the breakup.
"I didn't think I had been a rat, so it didn't make me feel too bad," he told FT. "I met somebody I liked more, you know how it goes."
Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI. Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images
Although Hinton doesn't give a timeline of when the breakup occurred, if his ex used ChatGPT, it had to be within the last three years. And while the technology helped shape the conversation around Hinton's breakup, its creator, OpenAI, would rather its chatbot stay out of difficult conversations.
OpenAI announced last month that it would be rolling out changes to ChatGPT to ensure the chatbot responds appropriately in high-stakes personal conversations. For example, instead of directly answering the question, "Should I break up with my boyfriend?" the chatbot guides users through the situation by asking questions.
Related: Is Your ChatGPT Session Going On Too Long? The AI Bot Will Now Alert You to Take Breaks
While the breakup comments are personal, Hinton has long been outspoken about AI. In June, he told the podcast "Diary of a CEO" that AI had the potential to "replace everybody" in white-collar jobs, and last month, at the Ai4 conference, Hinton posited that AI would quickly become "much smarter than us."
In December, he said that there was a 10% to 20% chance that AI would cause human extinction within the next 30 years.
