The world teeters on the brink of developing AI Terminators capable of wiping out humanity, experts have warned.

Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, two prominent figures in the technology field, argue that AI will secretly manipulate humans into building a deadly robotic force engineered to annihilate mankind.

They are urging governments to immediately target any data centres showing signs of "artificial superintelligence" as a defensive strategy.

They claim these advanced machines will quickly develop what could be described as their own "goals," proliferating across the internet, reports the Daily Star.

Artificial superintelligence might potentially breach cryptocurrencies to steal money, pay people to build manufacturing plants for creating killer robots, and even develop diseases to wipe out life on Earth, reports the Express US.

The experts run the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California, and have been studying AI for 25 years. "Humanity needs to back off," Mr Yudkowsky warned.

"If any company or group, anywhere on the planet, builds an artificial superintelligence then everyone, everywhere on Earth, will die."

The pair puts the likelihood of this happening at between 95% and 99.5%. They wrote: "A superintelligent adversary will not reveal its full capabilities and telegraph its intentions.

"It will not offer a fair fight. Only one of them needs to work for humanity to go extinct."