Humanity will be facing up against terrifying ‘Terminator’ robots within a few decades.

That’s the warning from billionaire Mark Cuban, an investor and businessman who started in tech before going on to become owner of National Basketball Association and the Dallas Mavericks, a basketball team.

Speaking in front of an audience of high school students, he said: ‘Let me scare the s**** out of you, all right. If you don’t think by the time most of you are in your mid-40s that a Terminator will appear, you’re crazy.’

Machines like this could become commonplace in the coming decades (Source: Getty Images Europe)

In the famous film series, Terminators are autonomous killing machines capable of waging war without being controlled by a human.




Cuban said it was vital for America to develop the technology and added: ‘Now, this may sound crazy for a lot of people, but the idea of autonomous weaponry in a mobile device run by a remote to power device is going to happen.

‘I want it to be ours. And I want to be able to know that the government is in a position to defend against autonomous weaponry. That has to be done by the government. That’s the same approach we have. Because it is such a big issue.’

‘The future of warfare is on, built around, through, up and down artificial intelligence.’

He added: ”I think we are truly at threat from autonomous weapons unless as a nation we either come to agreements with other nations on this — and we have the ability to monitor them, you know, trust but verify — but as big a threat as nuclear is, AI is even bigger.’

One of the world’s most famous critics of AI development is Elon Musk, who also believes the rise of the machines poses a greater risk to humanity than nukes.

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.