--- title: "Michio Kaku Says AIs Like ChatGPT Are “Glorified Tape Recorders”" description: "In an interview with CNN, Kaku dismissed AI chatbots as \"glorified tape recorders,\" arguing we're vastly overestimating their capabilities." date: "2023-08-16" modified: "2023-08-16" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/michio-kaku-big-problem-artificial-intelligence" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "ai chatbots" - "michio kaku" - "the digest" --- # Michio Kaku Says AIs Like ChatGPT Are “Glorified Tape Recorders” ![In an interview with CNN, Kaku dismissed AI chatbots as "glorified tape recorders," arguing we're vastly overestimating their capabilities.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Tape Fear Famed theoretical physicist Michio Kaku isn't buying all the doomsaying surrounding the purported dangers of AI. In an [interview with *CNN*](), Kaku dismissed chatbots as "glorified tape recorders," arguing we're vastly overestimating their capabilities. "It takes snippets of what’s on the web created by a human, splices them together and passes it off as if it created these things," he said. "And people are saying, 'Oh my God, it’s a human, it’s humanlike.'" Kaku also took aim at chatbots' inability to tell truth from fiction, saying that small detail "has to be put in by a human." It's not the first time he's made these kinds of comments. "This isn’t intelligence," he [told *NBC*]() back in May. "This is basically a sort of warped mirror of what’s on the internet for the last 20 years…designed to spit out things that seem plausible." ## Doom and Gloom It's a refreshing counternarrative to raging hype surrounding AI and its purported strengths and risks. For months, other experts have been ringing the alarm bells, some even saying that AI is [coming for us all](). "I think we're not ready, I think we don't know what we're doing, and I think we're all going to die," said controversial AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky on an [episode]() of the *Bloomberg* series "AI IRL" last month. British computer scientist and "godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton also [opined]() earlier this year that it's "not inconceivable" that AI could eventually wipe out humanity. Yoshua Bengio, a famed computer scientist also known as a godfather of AI, [told the *BBC*]() that "bad actors" could [abuse AI]() earlier this year to do terrible harm. Both Hinton and Bengio signed an open letter warning of the "[risk of extinction]()" that AI poses. ## AI Distraction But to Kaku, these are simply misguided viewpoints that distract from an entirely different future, which is determined by quantum computing, not AI. Humanity moved from the analog stage — "when we computed with sticks, stones, levers, gears, pulleys, string," he told *CNN* — to using microchips and electricity-powered transistors. And a third stage in the quantum realm is on the horizon. "Mother Nature would laugh at us because Mother Nature does not use zeros and ones," Kaku told *CNN*. "Mother Nature computes on electrons, electron waves, waves that create molecules. And that’s why we’re now entering stage three." **More on Kaku:** *[Michio Kaku Describes Calculating The Probability of Waking Up on Mars]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()