The two billionaires locked horns ‘after cocktails’ in an argument about whether our species was doomed to be wiped out by killer computers (Picture: Getty; Columbia Pictures)

Elon Musk is perhaps the world’s most famous doom-monger and has repeatedly sounded the alarm about the possibility of super-smart machines wiping out humanity.

But Google founder Larry Page allegedly dismissed these fears as ‘speciesist’ during an argument at a Napa Valley party in 2015.

A top professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has claimed the two tech moguls clashed in a ‘long and spirited debate’ in the early hours of the morning.

In his book Life 3.0: Being Human In The Age of Artificial Intelligence, Max Tegmark wrote: ‘[Page’s] main concerns were that AI paranoia would delay the digital utopia and/or cause a military takeover of AI that would fall foul of Google’s “don’t be evil” slogan.




‘Elon kept pushing back and asked Larry to clarify details of his arguments, such as why he was so confident that digital life wouldn’t destroy everything we care about.

‘At times, Larry accused Elon of being “speciesist”: treating certain life forms as inferior just because they were silicon-based rather than carbon-based.’

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is the world’s most famous critic of unrestrained AI development

Tegmark and Page were talking about a children’s book called ‘The Day My Butt Went Psycho’ at the party before the two billionaires locked horns ‘after cocktails’.

The MIT professor said Page is a ‘passionate’ supporter of digital utopianism, which holds that robots and AI are not a threat to the future of our species.

‘Larry [said] that digital life is the natural and desirable next step in the cosmic evolution and that if we let digital minds be free rather than try to stop or enslave them the outcome is almost certain to be good,’ he continued.

‘He argued that if life is ever going to spread throughout our galaxy, which he thought it should, then it would need to do so in digital form.’

Google founder Larry Page believes humanity has nothing to fear from AI

Elon Musk isn’t alone in his fears about the development of artificial intelligence.

Last year, Professor Stephen Hawking said AI is likely to ‘replace humans altogether’ and become a ‘new form of life that will outperform’ our fleshy, flabby species.

And, obviously, anyone who objects to the rise of the robots and their subsequent eradication of humanity is likely to be accused of ‘speciesism’.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.