Silicon Valley baron Elon Musk insulted rival billionaire Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, escalating a tech wizard war of words over whether robots will become smart enough to kill their human creators.

“His understanding of the subject is limited,” Musk said in a tweet about the Facebook Inc founder whose algorithms and other technology revolutionized social media and won 2 billion monthly active users.

Previously, Zuckerberg was asked about Musk’s views on the dangers of robots. In his response, Zuckerberg chided “naysayers” whose “doomsday scenarios” were “irresponsible.”

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Zuckerberg and Musk have been waging a debate at a distance over the past few days on the dangers of artificial intelligence.

The term artificial intelligence, or AI, is used to describe machines with computer code that learns as it goes. The technology is becoming widely used in sectors such as healthcare, entertainment and banking.

Fear that machines could become so intelligent that they might rise up and overthrow humanity is a common theme in science fiction.

“I’m really optimistic,” Zuckerberg said, “and I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios, I don’t understand it.”

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