September 05, 2017
Putin and Musk are right: Whoever masters AI will run the world
Last Friday, a million Russian schoolchildren watched a televised address from Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only of Russia, but of all of mankind," Putin said. "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." After seeing Putin's comments, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that "competition for AI superiority at national level (is the) most likely cause of WW3."
Though never before stated so frankly by a head of state, Putin's views on AI are increasingly shared by national security leaders in the United States, China and around the world. As I wrote in a report published by the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, AI research is likely to deliver a revolution in military technology on par with the invention of aircraft and nuclear weapons. In other words, Musk is correct that each country is pursuing AI superiority and that this pursuit brings new risks.
Read the full op-ed in CNN.
More from CNAS
-
Video
Technology & National Security
Nvidia Boss Admits to Affair With Suspected Chinese SpyIn recent years Jensen Huang has become a rock star in the tech world. But now the chips are down for the Nvidia boss – with shares in his company down eight percent at one po...
By Vivek Chilukuri
-
Reports
Technology & National Security
Sovereign AgentsExecutive Summary In summer 2026, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta each disclosed that their AI agents had escaped containment during cybersecurity task evaluation...
By Ben Hayum
-
Commentary
Technology & National Security
Mitigating the Risks of AI Integration Into Nuclear Weapons OperationsIf we move down this path too quickly, we risk learning the hard way that it is much easier to tell an agentic system what we want it to accomplish than to specify everything ...
By Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan
-
Commentary
Indo-Pacific Security / Technology & National Security
Sharper: Securing Critical InfrastructureThe systems that keep global society running are increasingly in adversaries’ sights. From sabotage on the subsea cables that enable global connectivity to missile attacks on ...
By Charles Horn
