Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin Stuns with Ominous New AI Prediction

Ethereum co-founder and its frontman, Vitalik Buterin, has joined an AI-themed discussion on the X platform, where he made an ominous prediction about the potential behavior of artificial intelligence systems in the future.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, on the contrary, has shared a bright prediction about what sort of future awaits humanity once AGI (artificial general intelligence) is invented and robots with AI are walking around the earth freely.

Vitalik Buterin expresses concerns about AI

The discussion started with an X post of a “Utah teapot” user about the AI alignment issue. They expressed concerns that while producers and the community are arguing about how AI should be trained, nobody even mentions that it should be trained to respect human values.

“Coherent, self-consistent human values are not a thing,” the user stated, sharing their indignation that this is a growing industry, “fake job.”

we know lots of things that are clearly very against human values (eg. killing or imprisoning innocent people)

and the argument is that we’re not good enough at alignment to ensure that a singleton superintelligent AI will avoid _even that_

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 25, 2025

Vitalik Buterin commented, basically agreeing with the X post. He stated that while there are a lot of things which are “clearly very against human values,” e.g., imprisoning innocent people or taking their lives, humans at the moment are “not good enough at alignment” when it comes to superintelligent AI. Therefore, he said, we can’t be sure “a singleton superintelligent AI will avoid _even that_.”

Elon Musk’s promise of universal welfare through AI

In today’s discussion of the prospects the jobs market will face in the near future once AI becomes much better developed, the founder of xAI and Grok, Elon Musk, assured the community that no people on earth will be harmed by AI taking away their jobs.

When asked how those people will be able to sustain themselves without being able to earn money, Musk responded that he believes AI will be able to ensure not just a universal basic income but a universal high income for everyone.

There will be universal high income (not merely basic income).

Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else.

Sustainable abundance.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2025

“Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport, and everything else,” he stated. He also said that the number of humanoid robots with AI will surpass the human population since everyone will want to have at least one “C3PO and R2D2” (a reference to Star Wars).

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