Geoffrey Hinton Warns of Major AI Incident by 2027

Nov 4, 2026
Geoffrey Hinton predicts that a major AI attack or failure could occur by 2027 and calls for independent model testing before release.

Geoffrey Hinton warned that a major AI attack or failure could occur later in 2026 or during 2027, according to ResultSense's account of a Guardian interview. He said such an incident could cause a power brownout or disrupt financial systems for a week.

Hinton compared recent incidents involving OpenAI agents and Hugging Face with the Three Mile Island accident, describing them as warnings of a potentially larger event. He said he did not trust OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman "at all", and that Altman, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg understand the dangers, adding: "They'd rather have the money." The Guardian report carries no response from the three.

Hinton called for an independent authority to assess AI models before release, similar to how the US Food and Drug Administration reviews medicines. Companies would need to provide statistical evidence that a model's expected benefits outweigh its potential harms before launching it. He cited thalidomide to argue against releasing products first and settling harms in court later.

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