Several technology CEOs have expressed caution for the rapid growth of AI and a need to slow down. Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang is not one of the CEOs pushing for a slowdown, with President Donald Trump recently pushing him forward on data centers and AI-related growth.

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban looks for an answer to whether AI or climate change is worse for humanity.

AI vs. Climate Change

Cuban has been supportive of data centers if done right, but that doesn’t stop him from being skeptical following the recent warnings from tech CEOs to slow down progress.

On social media, Cuban asked Grok, a chatbot owned by SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), whether AI or climate change is "more likely to create a human extinction event or series of events in the next 25 years."

While asking AI about the downfall of AI may seem a bit eerie, Cuban did get some answers and data for the exercise.

"AI is more likely than climate change. AI extinction probability next 25 years: ~3%," Grok replied.

The AI chatbot told Cuban there is a 3% chance that AI will lead to human extinction over the next 25 years.

Grok put the timeline of this being possible in the mid-2030s to 2040s, with the rise of "misaligned superintelligence."

For climate change, Grok assigned a 0.001% chance of human extinction for the next 25 years.

"No plausible path to extinction that soon."

Grok said that when it comes to climate change, humans are more likely to be able to adapt "via technology and migration."

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What’s Next for Humanity

The chatbot estimates that over the last 10 years, between 500,000 and 2,000,000 total climate-linked deaths have happened. That total could grow to tens of millions over the next 20 years based on heat, malaria and undernutrition.

A user who asked Grok specifically to list the top 10 human extinction risks for the next 25 years got these estimates, with AI leading the way:

  1. Unaligned AI: 3%
  2. Engineered pandemic: 0.5%
  3. Nuclear war: 0.05%
  4. Unforeseen tech: 0.2%
  5. Nanotech: 0.05%
  6. Extreme climate: 0.001%
  7. Natural pandemic: 0.01%
  8. Supervolcano: 0.001%
  9. Asteroid impact: 0.0001%
  10. Stellar events: <0.00001%

Those rankings come from Grok, while the percentages may not line up in order.

While it is only 3%, the risk of human extinction from AI is the highest-ranked event and significantly higher than anything related to climate change.

Cuban’s question and Grok’s answers may help justify the position of those CEOs who want to see slower progress and regulation before AI continues growing at its current rapid pace.  

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