For the past several years, Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the Université de Montréal whose work helped lay the foundations of modern deep learning, has been one of the AI industry’s most alarmed voices, warning that superintelligent systems could pose an existential threat to humanity—particularly because of their potential for self-preservation and deception.
In a new interview with Fortune, however, the deep-learning pioneer says his latest research points to a technical solution for AI’s biggest safety risks. As a result, his optimism has risen “by a big margin” over the past year, he said.
