Microsoft’s AI CEO Mustafa Suleiman has given a stern warning amid the search for artificial superintelligence. He believes that once AI reaches the state of artificial general intelligence (AGI), it may become extremely difficult for humans to control it. Suleman’s comments come at a time when companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI are working to reach AI superintelligence.

In an episode of the Silicon Valley Girl podcast, Suleiman gave her thoughts on a future where AI could be smarter than humans. He believed that such a scenario “doesn’t seem like a positive vision of the future.”

Mustafa Suleiman stressed that at such a stage humans may completely lose control over AI, without any safeguards in its development to ensure that even after AGI, the technology revolves only around human interests. “It would be very difficult to incorporate something like this or to align it with our values,” the Microsoft AI chief said.

These comments come as some industry leaders have predicted that superintelligent AI could arrive within years, causing both excitement and concern across the sector.

Mustafa Suleiman termed AGI as ‘anti-target’

Suleiman, who co-founded DeepMind before joining Microsoft, has characterized the idea of ​​creating artificial superintelligence as an “anti-goal” – something that should be actively avoided rather than pursued. He explained, “These things don’t cause any harm. They don’t feel pain. They’re just simulating high-quality conversation.”

According to Mustafa Suleiman, Microsoft is taking a different approach by “trying to create a humanistic superintelligence”. This will ensure that AI will remain focused on supporting human interests even as it potentially becomes smarter.

Suleiman has made similar comments on AI before. Microsoft AI chief recently mentioned that if someone is not afraid of AI, he does not understand it.

Other tech industry leaders have differing opinions. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has described artificial general intelligence—AI that can reason like humans—as the company’s core mission. Altman said OpenAI is already looking beyond AGI to superintelligence. “Superintelligent devices could accelerate scientific discovery and innovation on a scale far beyond what we are able to do on our own, and in turn lead to massive increases in abundance and prosperity,” Altman said in January. He also said in September that he would be “very surprised if superintelligence does not emerge by 2030.”

Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, which is now worth about $130 billion.

While the industry may be divided over the future of AI, there have been movies in the past that depicted a time when machines take over the world, such as The Matrix.