Tech elites warn ‘reality itself’ may not survive the AI revolution

When Elon Musk warns that money may soon lose its meaning and Dario Amodei speaks of an AI-driven class war, you might think the media would take notice. These aren’t fringe voices. Musk ranks among the world’s most recognizable tech leaders, and Amodei is the CEO of Anthropic, a leading artificial intelligence company developing advanced models that compete with OpenAI.

Together, they are two of the most influential figures shaping the AI revolution. And they’re warning that artificial intelligence will redefine everything — from work and value to meaning and even our grasp of reality.

But the public isn’t listening. Worse, many hear the warnings and choose to ignore them.

Warnings from inside the machine

At the 2025 Davos conference, hosted by the World Economic Forum, Amodei made a prediction that should have dominated headlines. Within a few years, he said, AI systems will outperform nearly all humans at almost every task — and eventually surpass us in everything.

“When that happens,” Amodei said, “we will need to have a conversation about how we organize our economy. How do humans find meaning?”

Either we begin serious conversations about protecting liberty and individual autonomy in an AI-driven world, or we allow a small group of global elites to shape the future for us.

The pace of change is alarming, but the scale may be even more so. Amodei warns that if 30% of human labor becomes fully automated, it could ignite a class war between the displaced and the privileged. Entire segments of the population could become economically “useless” in a system no longer designed for them.

Elon Musk, never one to shy away from bold predictions, recently said that AI-powered humanoid robots will eliminate all labor scarcity. “You can produce any product, provide any service. There’s really no limit to the economy at that point,” Musk said.

“Will money even be meaningful?” Musk mused. “I don’t know. It might not be.”

Old assumptions collapse

These tech leaders are not warning about some minor disruption. They’re predicting the collapse of the core systems that shape human life: labor, value, currency, and purpose. And they’re not alone.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has warned that AI could reshape personal identity, especially if children begin forming bonds with AI companions. Filmmaker James Cameron says reality already feels more frightening than “The Terminator” because AI now powers corporate systems that track our data, beliefs, and movements. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has raised alarms about large language models manipulating public opinion, setting trends, and shaping discourse without our awareness.

Geoffrey Hinton — one of the “Godfathers of AI” and a former Google executive — resigned in 2023 to speak more freely about the dangers of the technology he helped create. He warned that AI may soon outsmart humans, spread misinformation on a massive scale, and even threaten humanity’s survival. “It’s hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using [AI] for bad things,” he said.

These aren’t fringe voices. These are the people building the systems that will define the next century. And they’re warning us — loudly.

We must start the conversation

Despite repeated warnings, most politicians, media outlets, and the public remain disturbingly indifferent. As machines advance to outperform humans intellectually and physically, much of the attention remains fixed on AI-generated art and customer service chatbots — not the profound societal upheaval industry leaders say is coming.

The recklessness lies not only in developing this technology, but in ignoring the very people building it when they warn that it could upend society and redefine the human experience.

This moment calls for more than fascination or fear. It requires a collective awakening and urgent debate. How should society prepare for a future in which AI systems replace vast segments of the workforce? What happens when the economy deems millions of people economically “useless”? And how do we prevent unelected technocrats from seizing the power to decide those outcomes?

The path forward provides no room for neutrality. Either we begin serious conversations about protecting liberty and individual autonomy in an AI-driven world, or we allow a small group of global elites to shape the future for us.

The creators of AI are sounding the alarm. We’d better start listening.