Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, lauded as the godfather of AI, has spoken highly of the Chinese government's mature considerations and cautious attitude towards the relationship between AI and employment.

Hinton shared his insights on the fast development of AI on Wednesday during the Ai4 Las Vegas 2026, a large AI conference that ran from August 4 to 6 in Las Vegas.

"I believe that in China, they are pushing for the idea 'You can't just replace a worker with an AI. You've got to have workers working with AI to do the job'. I think the Chinese are probably more concerned about unemployment than American companies. The danger is that if you get unemployment, the government will lose a lot of its tax base. At the very time when it needs a lot of resources to deal with the unemployed, and that will cause terrible social disruption," he said.

Hinton said that regulations should not hinder the development of AI, but rather guide its direction.

"I also think big companies would always prefer you to think of regulations as just slowing things down. I'm suggesting that development of AI is like the accelerator of a car and regulation is like the brakes that will suppress innovation. I think that's the wrong model. I think the way to think of it is that development is like the accelerator and regulations like the steering wheel. That's a very different model, and I think the point of regulations is not to suppress development, is to make development go in the right direction that helps people," he said.