The former business director at Google X has issued a dire warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence in a podcast interview.

Mo Gawdat, artificial intelligence expert and former business director at Google X, has warned childless people not to have children due to the evolution of artificial intelligence.

"The risks are so bad, in fact, that when you consider all the other threats to humanity, you should stop having kids if you're not yet a parent," he told the host of the "Diary of a CEO" podcast with Steven Bartlett.

For him, artificial intelligence is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

"There has never been such a storm in the history of mankind," he said. “[Storm] economic, geopolitical, global warming, climate change, the whole idea of ??artificial intelligence. This is a storm, uncertainty. It has never been more intense. If you really love your children, would you want to expose them to all these things?”

"I have spent my career being fascinated by the role technology plays and now the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced is upon us," added Gawdat. "Artificial intelligence is the pinnacle of technological advancement and I think it will be unprecedented in determining how the world is shaped."

"The sophistication of digital intelligence is such that it has become autonomous and is something that needs to be appealed to, rather than controlled," he added.

In late May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the "godfather of artificial intelligence" Geoffrey Hinton were among hundreds of tech experts who warned of the threat artificial intelligence is posing to humanity.

Experts describe the risk as "catastrophic" and "existential", in the sense that humanity could lose the ability to govern itself and become completely dependent on machines.

Countries around the world are scrambling to regulate the emerging technology.