Javier E David

CNBC

Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired off a new and ominous warning on Friday about artificial intelligence, suggesting the emerging technology poses an even greater risk to the world than a nuclear conflagration with North Korea.

Musk—a fierce and long time critic of A.I. who once likened it to "summoning the demon" in a horror movie—said in a Twitter post that people should be concerned about the rise of the machines than they are.

If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea. pic.twitter.com/2z0tiid0lc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017

Reacting to the news that autonomous tech had bested competitive players in an electronic sports competition, Musk posted what appeared to be a photo of a poster bearing the chilling words "In the end, the machines will win."

Musk, who is spearheading commercial space travel with his venture SpaceX, is also the founder of OpenAI, a nonprofit that promotes the "safe" development of AI. His stance puts him at odds with much of the tech industry, but echoes remarks of prominent voices like Stephen Hawking—who has also issued dire warnings about machine learning.

Ironically enough, it was OpenAI's own technology that managed to beat two professional eSports players at a major tournament, after only two weeks of practice. The Dota 2 contest is known to be extremely complex, pitting two teams against one another in a virtual battle arena.

Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that's a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017

First Published:Aug 14, 2017 10:03 AM IST