In his first lengthy interview with The Economist since SpaceX went public, Musk presented a very optimistic view of artificial intelligence from a technological standpoint.
Musk believes that in just a few years, artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence, the number of human-like robots may reach a billion, and an AI-powered “age of abundance” will make money meaningless.
“There won’t be anything that AI can’t do better than humans, except being human, maybe,” he said.
He expressed his belief that artificial intelligence may exceed the sum of human intelligence within approximately 5 years, pointing out that the most likely outcome is an era of amazing abundance where anyone can obtain anything that comes to mind.
He added: “This may seem like a fantasy… Of course there are things that may hinder this development, such as an all-out global nuclear war… But assuming a third world war does not occur, I believe we are heading towards an era of amazing abundance. So, this is a message of optimism and enthusiasm for the future.”
Musk, whose automaker Tesla is developing a multi-purpose worker robot called Optimus, believes that within 5 years there may be “at least 100 million humanoid robots, and possibly a billion” replacing manual labor.
