Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, recently shared his thoughts about the threats artificial intelligence could one day pose.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, recently shared his thoughts about the threats artificial intelligence could one day pose.

His words of warning were given during an interview at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit.

Musk said, “I don’t think anyone realizes how quickly artificial intelligence is advancing. Particularly if the machine is involved in recursive self-improvement ... and its utility function is something that’s detrimental to humanity, then it will have a very bad effect.”

One chilling potential scenario he gave involved an AI entity charged with getting rid of spam.

In the tale told by Musk, that machine could conclude that getting rid of humans is the best solution to the problem.

He’s voiced similar concerns in the past.

Not long ago he told a CNBC reporter that if artificial intelligence developments aren’t kept in check, real life Terminator-like scenarios aren’t out of the question.

Should something along those lines happen, fleeing to Mars wouldn’t even be of much help to humans.

According to Musk, there’s a good chance the AI beings of Earth would just follow everybody there.