TORONTO – If mistakes artificial intelligence make have you doubting it can’t ever rival humans, one of the technology’s pioneers says you should think again.
Geoffrey Hinton says AI keeps getting better at reasoning and has surpassed the skill level many experts expected it to be at by 2025.
Yet every time the technology messes up, he says people have an itch to conclude that AI didn’t understand what was being asked of it.
The way he sees it is that AI can solve simple, immediate problems, but stumbles on anything more complicated like humans do.
While improving the technology so it is not tripped up by anything complicated will be a challenge, he says it’s more of a stumbling block than a hurdle that can’t be overcome.
Hinton’s remarks were made at the University of Toronto, where he was speaking at one of the 300 events that make up the inaugural Toronto Tech Week.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2025.