Smarter Than Us

The Nobel Prize–winning scientist who helped create AI asks what happens when it surpasses us.

Geoffrey Hinton is one of the founders of modern artificial intelligence. Known as the “godfather of AI,” his pioneering work on neural networks laid the foundation for systems like ChatGPT and helped ignite the AI revolution—work that earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics. Few people alive understand its machinery more intimately.

Now he confronts the question that matters most: What does it mean to live with a technology that may soon outthink us?

The dangers are already visible: labor disruption, the erosion of shared truth, cyberwarfare, autonomous weapons. But Hinton argues that a deeper risk lies ahead. As we build systems capable of pursuing their own goals and acting with increasing autonomy, we may be relinquishing control in ways that cannot be easily regained. Superhuman systems do not require malice to pose a threat; they may simply pursue objectives that no longer include us.

Yet this is not a book of despair. Hinton does not argue that progress can—or should—be stopped. Instead, he offers a clear-eyed guide to the world we are entering, explaining in plain language how these systems work, why they are advancing so quickly, and what choices remain to us. 

Urgent and morally serious, The Godfather of AI Is Scared is a warning from the scientist who helped make this future possible—and a call to shape it while we still can.