Paul Tudor Jones warns that AI is an 'existential' threat, needs government regulation
Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones said Tuesday that he has grown increasingly worried about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, warning that the risks go beyond disruption to the stock market and economy. The hedge fund manager told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin he views AI as an "existential" threat after attending a conference where experts on the topic discussed both the benefits and drawbacks of the emerging technology. "The one that disturbed me the most, is that AI clearly poses an imminent threat — security threat, imminent — in our lifetimes to humanity. And that was the one that really, really got me going," Jones said on " Squawk Box ." The hedge fund manager said he agrees with the idea that there is a 10% chance that AI will kill half the world's population in the next 20 years. He also said a recent podcast discussion between Elon Musk and Joe Rogan also colored his view. Countering the threat of AI requires more spending on security from corporations and new government regulation, Jones said. "President Trump has to get in the game," he said. Jones isn't alone in warning of the potential dangers of AI or to push for government intervention. Earlier this year, the emergence of the DeepSeek AI model out of China, for example, led to a sell-off in tech stocks and calls to treat AI as a geopolitical issue. Jones is the founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment, and rose to prominence for winning trades at the time of the 1987 stock market crash. He is also a philanthropist and the co-founder of Just Capital and the Robin Hood Foundation. "I'm not a tech expert," Jones said Tuesday. "I'm not. But I've spent my whole life managing risk ... I'm as good as there is on macro risk management. And we just have to realize, to their credit, all these folks in AI are telling us that we're creating something that's really dangerous — it's going to be really great too — but we're helpless to do anything about it."
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