Scientists fear that artificial intelligence bots could spark Armageddon, like the Terminator movies.
Silicon Valley experts predict that a nightmare scenario in which machines cause a global nuclear war may happen before the end of this century.
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It mirrors the plot of the sci-fi movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which computer Skynet becomes “self aware” and almost wipes out humanity using killer robots.
More than a third of tech whizzes quizzed by Stanford University in California agreed “decisions made by AI could cause a catastrophe at least as bad as an all-out nuclear war in this century”.
Nearly three quarters also agreed “AI could soon lead to revolutionary societal change”, and a similar number said AI firms have too much influence.
The Artificial Intelligence Index Report polled 480 experts last month, and less than half said that AI should not be regulated.
Pollsters spoke to specialists in natural language processing, an AI branch focusing on giving bots the capacity to understand written and spoken words.
Web security firm Atlas VPN reckons the survey is “one of the most complete perspectives on how AI experts feel”.
It comes after Sam Altman, boss of Microsoft-backed OpenAI, wrote in a blog post: “The risks could be extraordinary.”
British scientist Geoffrey Hinton, 75, considered the “Godfather of AI”, said it was “not inconceivable” the tech could end humanity.
And Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk called for an AI “pause” to create “a set of safety protocols”.