Verified source report
Our tech overlords are planning for conscious AI to conquer the cosmos. What could go wrong? | Eduardo Porter
A new belief set is uniting some of the wealthiest men in the world around a ‘transhuman’ future – actual humanity be damned Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, took to the Internet a few years ago to propose that homo sapiens would be the first species “to design our own descendants”. In his best case scenario, the “merge” between humans and artificial intelligence occurs at some point over the next 50 years. The alternative, where we remain simply human and the machines follow their own path, is more ominous. “If two different species both want the same thing and only one can have it – in this case, to be the dominant species on the planet and beyond – they are going to have conflict,” he wrote. More recently, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who at one point last year was granted the power to reconfigure the US federal government, argued on his social media platform, X, that
What happened
According to The Guardian’s source item, Our tech overlords are planning for conscious AI to conquer the cosmos. What could go wrong? | Eduardo Porter, A new belief set is uniting some of the wealthiest men in the world around a ‘transhuman’ future – actual humanity be damned Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, took to the Internet a few years ago to propose that homo sapiens would be the first species “to design our own descendants”. In his best case scenario, the “merge” between humans and artificial intelligence occurs at some point over the next 50 years. The alternative, where we remain simply human and the machines follow their own path, is more ominous. “If two different species both want the same thing and only one can have it – in this case, to be the dominant species on the planet and beyond – they are going to have conflict,” he wrote. More recently, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who at one point last year was granted the power to reconfigure the US federal government, argued on his social media platform, X, that
Context
The development sits in VINI’s Technology file for readers following technology, science, product policy, markets, infrastructure, and the public consequences of innovation. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-05-31T13:00:49+00:00.
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Source
Primary source: Our tech overlords are planning for conscious AI to conquer the cosmos. What could go wrong? | Eduardo Porter via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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Source links
- Our tech overlords are planning for conscious AI to conquer the cosmos. What could go wrong? | Eduardo PorterThe Guardian - 2026-05-31T13:00:49+00:00
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