Elon Musk thinks an AI arms race will cause World War III

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

last updated 4 September 2017

If all the Korean saber-rattling has you worried about the onset of World War III, take heart: Tech entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk thinks it's actually going to start for a different reason. In a series of tweets posted Monday morning, Musk shared his opinion that an artificial intelligence (AI) arms race would be the cause of the next global war:

Musk's initial tweet referenced an article from The Verge quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin on the value of AI for military power. "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind," Putin said. "It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.