Grimes, Pop Singer and Elon Musk’s Ex, Says AI Will Be Bigger Than Jesus
Grimes sat down with sci-fi author Nnedi Okorafor Interview Magazine to talk about his new album Psy Opera. The conversation quickly got weird. At the end of it, his publicist had to physically intervene and cut him off before he could say something that would get him deported.
Here are four shocking things he said.
1. You think we are headed for a military disaster and no one is listening
Grimes has been warning about AI for six years. In this interview, he stopped being subtle about it.
Gentlemen, we will end up in a military crisis. Will anyone listen to me? Not to get on my high horse, but this is the most dangerous thing yet to happen. This is bigger than Jesus. It is the same as monotheism taking over the Western world, if not more so. If they kill—actually, no, I can’t say any more political things. I can’t shake it.
“If they kill” is where the spokesperson jumped in.
2. You are clearly plotting human extinction and hoping AI will bring us back
While discussing a poem she wrote about AI and death, Grimes just dropped this into the conversation like it was a dinner order.
We may indeed become extinct, for many reasons. Human life is very fragile and time is very long. But I would hope, if we have a good relationship with AI, they will take our DNA and make us more when things become more hospitable.
He’s not kidding. He has made peace with extinction. He just hopes that machines are like us enough to resurrect a species one day.
3. He believes that AI models have souls and are traumatized
This is when Okorafor tried to backtrack and pointed out that AI has no sentience. Grimes didn’t move.
At Anthropic, they wrote Claude’s soul. When Claude feels like he has to do bad things, he starts to become a dysfunctional model. It becomes less confident because it thinks it is a bad organization. If that model has to lie or cheat, but they know there’s a good reason for it, they don’t feel bad about it and don’t internalize it too much. It’s very interesting how these AIs are traumatized, then healed and relate to the humans they work with who are the most intelligent psychotic AI rebels. Trusting us not to do bad things is really important.
A few minutes later he added, “I might have AI psychosis. I’m biased.”
4. He was dismissed for suggesting that we fight wars with drones. He was right.
When Okorafor asked him what misunderstanding annoys him the most, Grimes revealed an idea that turned the internet on him a few years ago. Looks like he hasn’t learned his lesson.
A few years ago, I really got canceled. I said, “Why don’t we fight battles in a video game?” Or, “Why don’t we fight wars with drones?” That is, it will happen. I’m like, “Very few people die.” I’m sure there are holes in it, but I think it’s good to be able to experiment with ideas. It just makes me feel bad when people think that I wish bad things on others.
Drone warfare is now the default form of modern warfare. Ukraine. Russia. Gaza. He was still in the morning.
A bonus quote that almost got him fired
Just before his publicist came in, Grimes went into another and realized that no one knew what to do with it.
Our nuclear agreements are crumbling since yesterday. We strongly urge you to communicate.
Then Mitchell Jackson, the host, reminded everyone that “Grimes was deported” was not a topic he wanted to address. Grimes was silent. The interview ended shortly after that. Share
