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Geoffrey Hinton told The Guardian that "either later this year or next year we'll see Chornobyl" from AI, naming a blackout or a financial outage as the likely form, and said people might have been better off without the technology.

He backs a plan from Finland's president, endorsed by 32 other countries including Germany, Canada, Singapore and Australia, for mandatory frontier-model testing and independent evaluation, and wants an FDA-style authority to clear models before release.

The quotes here come from accounts of the interview.
Hinton predicts an AI "Chornobyl" within about a year and backs mandatory model testing
Geoffrey Hinton told The Guardian that "either later this year or next year we'll see Chornobyl" from AI, naming a blackout or a financial outage as the likely form, and said people might have been better off without the technology. He backs a plan from Finland's president, endorsed by 32 other countries including Germany, Canada, Singapore and Australia, for mandatory frontier-model testing and independent evaluation, and wants an FDA-style authority to clear models before release. The quotes here come from secondary accounts of the interview. SourcesCB
Sources
- CHinton warns of an AI "Chornobyl" (ResultSense, search result)resultsense.com
- BGeoffrey Hinton interview (The Guardian, refused our fetch)theguardian.com
This story ran in the Morning Brief of November 4th 2026.