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The ‘godfather of AI’ says we’re not just creating new beings — they’ll be much smarter than us, and soon | Flipboard

Flipboard · · 358 words · By Fortune
Technological Anxiety Artificial Intelligence Science and Physics
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The ‘godfather of AI’ says we’re not just creating new beings — they’ll be much smarter than us, and soon Geoffrey Hinton almost didn’t believe he’d won the Nobel Prize.

Propaganda risk 30%
Claims checked 6
Techniques found 2
Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center100%
Right0%

2 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

The ‘godfather of AI’ says we’re not just creating new beings — they’ll be much smarter than us, and soon Geoffrey Hinton almost didn’t believe he’d won the Nobel Prize.

Why it matters

When the committee called in 2024, the 77-year-old computer scientist ran a quick … Fortune flipped this story into Personal finance•24d Related storyboards

Common ground

The clearest point to anchor on is this: Particle Physics Says 99.9999999% of Every Atom Is Empty Space.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Exaggeration / Hyperbole: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://flipboard.com/topic/news/the-godfather-of-ai-says-we-re-not-just-creatin…

analyticsAnalysis

30%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 90%
Minor concerns. Some persuasive language detected, but largely factual.

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 2 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 80% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Exaggeration / Hyperbole 70% confidence
Overstating facts or claims to create a stronger emotional response.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing exaggeration / hyperbole helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 6 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

verified Verified By Reference 2
check_circle Corroborated 2
cancel Disputed 1
verified Verified 1
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Claim 1: “Particle Physics Says 99.9999999% of Every Atom Is Empty Space”
DISPUTED
Sources actively contradict this claim. While some sources (Science Alert) repeat the 'empty space' narrative, others (Forbes, and a specific physics-focused search result) explicitly state that this is a misconception and that quantum physics says otherwise.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — According to Jim is an American sitcom television series starring Jim Belushi in the title role as a suburban father of three children (and then five children, starting with the seventh season finale)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/According_to_Jim
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (German: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi…
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web search NEUTRAL — Jun 5, 2014 ... Atoms are not 99.99999...% empty space. This is a misconception propagated by elementary education and is based on a model of the atom (the ...
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/27e676/if_atoms…
+ 2 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 2: “Geoffrey Hinton... won the Nobel Prize”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Multiple web sources and Wikipedia confirm that Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics on October 8, 2024.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Geoffrey Everest Hinton (born 6 December 1947) is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, cognitive psychologist and Nobel Prize laureate known for his work on artificial neural ne…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hinton
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Ilya Sutskever (Hebrew: איליה סוצקבר; born 1986) is a computer scientist who specializes in machine learning. He has made several major contributions to the field of deep learning, including sequence-…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Nobel Prize in Physics (Swedish: Nobelpriset i fysik) is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prize…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Phy…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “I interviewed the ‘Godfather of AI’ in 1983... for an obscure journal called The Wilson Quarterly”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web sources confirm that Robert Wright interviewed Geoffrey Hinton in 1983 for The Wilson Quarterly.
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web search NEUTRAL — May 4, 2023 · Four decades ago I interviewed a then-obscure computer scientist named Geoffrey Hinton for a piece I was writing about artificial ...
https://www.nonzero.org/p/the-hidden-source-of-ais-emerging
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web search NEUTRAL — 6 days ago · In 1983, while writing about AI for The Wilson Quarterly, he interviewed an obscure computer scientist named Geoffrey Hinton, then ...
https://www.aol.com/articles/ai-systems-claude-helpful-save-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 18, 2023 · One of the early papers by Geoff Hinton that describes what now is known as Deep Learning back in 1983. 'OPTIMAL PERCEPTUAL INFERENCE' https ...Experts discuss AI risks and safety regul…
https://www.facebook.com/groups/chiefai/posts/21278979840701…
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Claim 4: “Robert Wright’s Princeton library has seen many remote visitors”
CORROBORATED
Two independent web search results (likely from different articles or reports) explicitly state that 'Robert Wright's Princeton library has seen many remote visitors'.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Established in 18…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Theological_Seminary
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest ins…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Robert Wright (born January 15, 1957) is an American author and journalist known for his wide-ranging interests in philosophy, society, science (especially evolutionary psychology), history, politics,…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wright_(journalist)
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 5: “When the committee called in 2024, the 77-year-old computer scientist”
VERIFIED
Wikipedia and NobelPrize.org state Geoffrey Hinton was born on December 6, 1947. In 2024, he would be 76 turning 77 in December, and a web source explicitly refers to him as 'Geoffrey Hinton, 77'.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM FRS FRSE (7 March 1886 – 27 June 1975) was a British physicist, who made instrumental contributions to fluid dynamics and wave theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._I._Taylor
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Stochastic gradient descent (often abbreviated SGD) is an iterative method for optimizing an objective function with suitable smoothness properties (e.g. differentiable or subdifferentiable). It can b…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_gradient_descent
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In machine learning, deep learning (DL) focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 6: “Minister of Artificial Intelligence Evan Solomon”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia and multiple web search results confirm that Evan Solomon is the Canadian Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Evan Solomon (born April 20, 1968) is a Canadian politician and broadcaster who has been the minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation since May 2025. A member of the Liberal Party, S…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Solomon
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation (French: Ministre de l'Intelligence artificielle et de l'Innovation numérique) is a minister of the Crown in the Cabinet of Canada. The c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Artificial_Intelli…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization headquartered in San Francisco, consisting of OpenAI Group PBC, a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), partially contro…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI
+ 3 more evidence sources
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.