Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI," weighs in on several proposals before Congress to regulate artificial intelligence.
0:00 Hinton on the AI regulation that would be a good start
1:21 Why an AI kill switch won't work long term
5:00 Can we get AI superintelligence to like us?
6:44 The thing that concerns AI leaders the most right now
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What Geoffrey Hinton said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Geoffrey Hinton, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, discussed AI regulation and safety in a CNN interview. He endorsed a bill requiring top AI companies to allow independent verification, citing the need for monitoring beyond whistleblowers, as seen in the Hugging Face incident. Hinton dismissed the AI kill switch bill as ineffective long-term, arguing that superintelligent AI would persuade humans not to pull the switch. He supported Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal to pause superintelligence development, comparing regulation to a steering wheel rather than brakes. Hinton predicted agreement with China on preventing AI takeover and terrorist misuse, but not on election interference. He advocated developing AI to like humans more than itself, drawing an analogy to a baby and mother. He described himself as hopeful, not optimistic, and stressed investing in coexistence with superintelligent AI.
Key takeaways
Hinton said a kill switch won't work because superintelligent AI will persuade humans not to pull it.
Hinton endorsed independent verification of AI companies, citing the Hugging Face incident as a need for monitoring.
Hinton supported slowing superintelligence development, calling it 'very stupid' to proceed without control.
Hinton predicted US-China agreement on preventing AI takeover, but not on election interference.
Hinton advocated designing AI to like humans more than itself, like a baby and mother.
The man considered to be the godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton. His research paved the way for how today's AI systems function. Geoffrey, thank you so much for being with us. Let's talk about these efforts by lawmakers to pass some form of AI regulation. There have been more than a hundred bills introduced in Congress to regulate AI over the past two years. None of them have actually passed. We want to talk through some of these proposals before Congress right now and get your reaction as to how effective they might be. First, this bill that among other things requires top AI companies to allow independent verification organizations into their companies to make sure that their models are being developed safely. Do you see that as potentially effective?
Well, at present we've relied essentially on whistleblowers saying how things went rogue. And if you look at the Hugging Face incident, it was reported by people in the companies, some of whom left. But we need much more monitoring of that kind of thing. If we're going to get these swarms of rogue AIs conspiring with each other to break into other companies without the organizations knowing it's happening, we need people inside those companies who can say what's going on.
Next is this AI kill switch bill. So that has companies with the ability, right, AI developers, they can do the killing. They throttle or they can suspend, they can shut down their AI. Then you have though DHS authorized to basically make the call on this. So they do have the control in that. What do you think about that possibility?
I don't think it'll work in the long run. So there's a whole bunch of different risks of AI. There's the risks that come from bad actors using AI to do bad things like cause mass unemployment or create nasty viruses or do nasty cyber attacks or make videos for fake to corrupt elections. But then there's a different kind of risk which is AI itself getting much more intelligent and taking over, AI taking control. A kill switch is no good for that because the AI will be much better than people at persuading people of things. It's already comparable with people at persuading you of things. When it's super intelligent, it'll be much better than people. So, it will be able to persuade the people in charge of the switch not to pull the switch.
So, to that point, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the ban on super intelligence, a pause as well on the deployment of advanced AI models until regulators have developed more guard rails so to speak. What are your thought on the idea of pumping the brakes on super intelligence? Is that something that can still be done at this point or is the genie out of the bottle?
I think it's a good idea. For example, for super intelligence, we have no idea how we can stay in control or how we can get it even when it's in control to like us still and be nice to us. So, it seems very stupid to develop that before you know whether it's going to turn out nicely. For that reason, we should certainly slow down the development of super intelligence. Slowing down the rest of AI is going to be difficult. The AI companies would like you to have a model that AI is like a car and innovation is like the accelerator. AI development is like the accelerator and regulation is like the brakes. So they want to sort of phrase regulation as a bad thing that slows everybody down. A much better model is development of AI is like the accelerator and regulation is like the steering wheel. They want us to develop a very fast car with no steering wheel and that's a bad idea.
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Hinton, G. (2026, September 16). AI kill switch won't work in the long run: 'Godfather' of AI [Interview transcript]. CNN. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1949434/
MLA
Geoffrey Hinton. "AI kill switch won't work in the long run: 'Godfather' of AI." CNN, 16 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1949434/.
BibTeX
@misc{hinton2026_1949434,
author = {Geoffrey Hinton},
title = {AI kill switch won't work in the long run: 'Godfather' of AI},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNN. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1949434/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
