A Three Mile Island Moment for AI? Stark Warning to the World

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At Davos, Strive Masiyiwa says AI is dangerously ahead of leadership—and the world is nowhere near ready

By TRH Tech Desk

New Delhi, January 23, 2026 — At Davos, amid polished optimism about artificial intelligence, one voice cut through the noise with unsettling clarity. Strive Masiyiwa, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Econet Group, delivered a blunt message in conversation with GZERO Media: the world is hurtling toward an AI disaster without the leadership required to prevent it.

“I’m not an expert,” Masiyiwa said, “but I know enough to know that we’re dealing with a technology that requires a lot more leadership than we are providing.” His most chilling metaphor followed: a potential “Three Mile Island moment”—a sudden, catastrophic failure that freezes public trust and triggers panic-driven rejection.

The danger, he warned, is not AI itself, but the illusion of control. “We cannot control it as companies,” Masiyiwa said, arguing that corporate self-regulation is simply inadequate for a technology of such potency. What is missing is honesty—about what AI actually is, what it can do, and how dangerously uneven global understanding remains.

Masiyiwa rejected both fatalism and complacency. The genie, he said, is coming out of the bottle—but it is not fully out yet. That distinction matters. “There’s a lot we can do today,” he insisted, to manage AI responsibly—if there is will and capacity.

Pressed on whether that will exists, his answer was devastating: “No. Neither.” Not in governments, not globally—and certainly not in Africa, which he described as having virtually no leverage over the forces shaping AI’s future. “We can meet at the African Union and say we want to protect our children,” he said. “Who’s going to listen to us?”

His appeal was direct and uncomfortable: global leadership must come from those who actually wield power. Africa alone cannot set the rules of AI. The world’s major economies must “stand up” and lead—or risk sleepwalking into a technological disaster of their own making.

Masiyiwa’s warning is not anti-AI. It is a demand for responsibility before catastrophe forces it upon us.