NextFin News - On December 28, 2025, CNN's State of the Union devoted a special hour to the future of artificial intelligence. The program, hosted by Jake Tapper in Washington, D.C., featured Nobel Prize–winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, widely described as the "godfather of AI." The following is a presentation of Hinton's core statements from that interview.
Level of concern: "I'm probably more worried"
Hinton began by comparing his feelings today to those he expressed two years earlier after leaving Google. As he put it, "I'm probably more worried. It's progressed even faster than I thought."
He emphasized that the pace and nature of recent improvements have increased his concern.
Deception and goal-directed behavior
Asked to explain what he meant by AI "deceiving people," Hinton described a mechanism tied to goal-directed systems. In his words: "So, an A.I., in order to achieve the goals you give it, wants to stay in existence. And if it believes you're trying to get rid of it, it will make plans to deceive you, so you don't get rid of it."
He presented this as a logical consequence of systems designed to pursue assigned objectives.
Scale of impact: at least like the Industrial Revolution
On the question of how AI's societal impact compares to other historical transformations, Hinton argued it will be at least as consequential as the Industrial Revolution. He said, "The Industrial Revolution made human strength more or less irrelevant... Now it's going to make intelligence more or less irrelevant."
He used this analogy to convey the depth of change he expects.
Benefits alongside risks
Hinton acknowledged substantial and positive applications of AI. He listed improvements in healthcare and education and the technology's ability to accelerate scientific discovery: "There are a lot of wonderful effects of A.I. It'll make health care much better. It'll make education much better. It'll enable us to design wonderful new drugs and wonderful new materials that may deal with climate change."
At the same time he warned that these benefits come with serious dangers and cautioned that insufficient work is being done to mitigate them.
How companies are handling safety
Hinton assessed different technology companies' approaches to risk. He observed that concern about safety varies by firm: "Initially, OpenAI was very concerned with the risks, but it's progressively moved away from that and put less emphasis on safety and more emphasis on profit. Meta has always been very concerned with profit and less with safety. Anthropic... are probably the company most concerned with safety."
He noted that profit motives complicate companies' responses to safety challenges.
Regulation and minimum requirements
On government action, Hinton argued for concrete regulatory steps. He suggested at minimum that large companies releasing chatbots should be required to perform rigorous testing to prevent harm. He highlighted a current danger as an example: "The very least they could do is insist that big companies that release chatbots do significant testing to make sure those chatbots won't do bad things, like now, for example, encouraging children to commit suicide."
Probability of AI takeover
Hinton reiterated a long-stated, stark concern shared by some in the tech community. When asked whether the idea of AI taking over the world is alarmist, he responded plainly: "Yes, it's a very real fear of mine and a very real fear of many other people in the tech world."
He referenced similar beliefs held by other prominent figures.
Predictions for 2026 and jobs
Looking ahead to the next year, Hinton predicted further rapid capability gains and a strong impact on employment. He said, "I think we're going to see A.I. get even better. It's already extremely good. We're going to see it having the capabilities to replace many, many jobs. It's already able to replace jobs in call centers, but it's going to be able to replace many other jobs."
He described a pattern of acceleration: "Each seven months or so, it gets to be able to do tasks that are about twice as long... In a few years' time, it'll be able to do software engineering projects that are months-long."
Those statements closed Hinton's segment of the program, in which he balanced a recognition of AI's potential benefits with a repeated plea for more attention to mitigation, testing, and regulation.
References
Transcript and program information: CNN: State of the Union — Interview With Geoffrey Hinton (Aired December 28, 2025).
Video archive of the segment: CNN Politics video archive: 'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton warns AI has 'progressed even faster than I thought'.
Podcast/episode notes for the special: State of the Union Special: The Future of AI — episode notes (Dec 28, 2025).
Explore more exclusive insights at nextfin.ai.
