Elon Musk, the most sceptical man in the impending Man vs Machine war (and also inventor of a bunch of things), believes that a machine tasked with deleting spam will be the catalyst to end humanity.

Cue Terminator theme song.

“I don’t think anyone realizes how quickly artificial intelligence is advancing. Particularly if [the machine is] involved in recursive self-improvement . . . and its utility function is something that’s detrimental to humanity, then it will have a very bad effect,” said Musk, detailing his fears after teasing the announcement of Tesla’s secretive project called “the D.”

“If its [function] is just something like getting rid of e-mail spam and it determines the best way of getting rid of spam is getting rid of humans…”

Walter Isaacson, the president and C.E.O. of the Aspen Institute, then asked Musk if his previously announced plans to retire on Mars are part of his plan to escape this evil machine.

“No—more likely than not that if there’s some… apocalypse scenario, it may follow people from Earth,” said Musk.

Sweet. Not even the deep reaches of space can save us.

Check out the full story on Vanity Fair.