Elon Musk: AI, not North Korea's Kim Jong-un, will start World War Three

Musk responds to Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning that the leader in AI would "become ruler of the world"

Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned, once again, of the dangers of 'weaponised' artificial intelligence (AI).

That is to say, the integration of AI with drones, robots and other machines that could be used for warfare.

Musk warned that the human race's desire to make the perfect synthetic brain will lead us to stumble accidentally (or maybe deliberately?) into a major world conflict.

Musk goes on to warn (again) that governments will stop at nothing to get the technology they need, and would go to companies "at gunpoint, if necessary". He suggested that countries with a strong background in mathematics and computer science, such as Russia and China, would have the edge.

Musk's comments came in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's suggestions that the development of AI raises both "colossal opportunities" and "threats that are difficult to predict", adding that the country that leads in AI would "become the ruler of the world".

Musk started the OpenAI initiative in an attempt to unite companies under a flag of responsible AI development. But it would only take one rogue actor - whether political or commercial - to make that all count for nothing, especially if there's plenty of money involved.

Elon Musk's comments come in the wake of the North Korean nuclear tests, which have seemingly brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Musk is campaigning with a number of other artificial intelligence experts to get AI in weaponry outlawed by the United Nations, a campaign that former BT CIO Peter Cochrane suspects will be defeated by the very nature of 'intelligence' itself.