Grimes, Pop Singer and Elon Musk’s Ex, Says AI Will Be a Bigger Deal than Jesus
Grimes sat down with sci-fi author Nnedi Okorafor for Interview Magazine to talk about her new album Psy Opera. The conversation got weird fast. By the end of it, her publicist had to physically step in and cut her off before she said something that would get her deported.
Here are the four most alarming things she said.
1. She thinks we’re heading for a military disaster and nobody is listening
Grimes has been warning about AI for six years. In this interview, she stopped pretending to be subtle about it.
Guys, we’re going to end up in a military disaster. Will anyone listen to me? Not to be on my high horse, but this is the most dangerous thing that is ever going to happen. This is a bigger deal than Jesus. It’s the same as monotheism taking over the Western world, if not much, much more impactful. If they kill—actually, no, I can’t say any more political things. I cannot agitate.
That “if they kill” is where the publicist jumped in.
2. She’s openly planning for human extinction and hoping AI brings us back
While discussing a poem she wrote about AI and mortality, Grimes casually dropped this into the conversation like it was a dinner order.
We might really go extinct, for a number of reasons. Human life is very frail and time is very long. But I’d hope, if we had good relations with AI, they would take our DNA and make more of us when things get more hospitable.
She’s not kidding. She’s already made peace with extinction. She’s just hoping the machines like us enough to resurrect the species someday.
3. She believes AI models have souls and are being traumatized
This is where Okorafor tried to push back and point out that AI is not actually sentient. Grimes did not flinch.
At Anthropic, they’ve written Claude’s soul. If Claude feels like it has to do bad things, it starts becoming a less effective model. It starts to trust itself less because it thinks it’s a bad entity. If the model has to lie or cheat, but they know there’s a good reason for it, they don’t feel as bad about it and they don’t internalize it so much. It’s so interesting how these AIs are getting traumatized, then healing and relating to the people they work with who are these super genius renegade AI psychologists. Them trusting us that we are not going to do bad things to them is really, really crucial.
A few minutes later she added, “I might have AI psychosis. I’m biased.”
4. She got canceled for suggesting we fight wars with drones. She was right.
When Okorafor asked her what misunderstandings irritate her most, Grimes brought up an idea that turned the internet against her a few years ago. She does not seem to have learned her lesson.
A couple of years ago, I got really canceled. I was like, “Why don’t we fight the wars in a video game?” Or, “Why don’t we fight the wars with drones?” Which by the way, is going to happen. I’m like, “Way less people would die.” I’m sure there’s holes in it, but I think it’s good to be able to try out ideas. It just makes me sad when people think I wish harm on others.
Drone warfare is now the default mode of modern combat. Ukraine. Russia. Gaza. She was early.
The bonus quote that almost got her deported
Right before her publicist stepped in, Grimes slipped in one more observation that nobody quite knew what to do with.
Our nuclear treaties are falling apart as of yesterday. We clearly suck at communicating.
Then Mitchell Jackson, the publicist, reminded everyone that “Grimes got deported” was not a headline he wanted to deal with. Grimes went quiet. The interview ended shortly after.Share
