Elon Musk Predicts AI Will Surpass Human Control Within a Decade

I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in about in around five years. In five years, roughly five years is my guess. Um, so there really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans apart from being human perhaps. In a more prosaic level, what will life be like? The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance uh where anyone can have anything they can think of. This is this may sound preposterous but well here we are in 2026. Let's see where we stand in 2036. Now of course there are things that could derail this like a massive global thermonuclear war or something like that. Um, but assuming that there's not

World War II, uh, I think we're headed for an age of amazing abundance. So, this is, I guess, a message of optimism and, uh, excitement about the future. You're sure that humans will no longer be in control in 10 years time? I think it is unlikely. Um, in the same way that if you had a vastly more like, you know, the like if the difference in intelligence between AI and humans is vastly greater than the difference in intelligence between AI and chimpanzees, it's hard to imagine that the chimpanzees would be in charge.

I'm really sorry. We are essentially um an evolved form of chimpanzee. So it wasn't that long ago that we're swinging through the trees eating bananas um in the jungle and we still eat bananas. You said there was a 10 to 20% chance of killer robots wiping out humanity. So you sounded worried then. Now you seem very relaxed about it. Have you changed your view? I still think there's risk associated with AI and robots. It's not zero. Um, I' I guess I've come to my sort of philosophical conclusion is to look on the bright side. Um, I like I can't see any way to really stop this incredible momentum of AI and

robots. Um, and at times I sort of think, well, perhaps, you know, even if there was a stop button, we probably shouldn't press it. uh because the most likely outcome is incredible abundance for all. That's what I thought actually. It struck me that now you seem to have decided it's inevitable. Let's hope for the best and go for the ride. Yeah. I mean, yes, pretty much. Let's uh let's enjoy the ride is I think my philosophy at this point because I mean honestly this there's it's it's there there seems to be just an inexurable uh progress here in AI and in robots that um but you even if I wanted to stop it I don't I couldn't um do you think there's still a 10 to 20% chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity?

That's a high P doom as they say. Well, in the long run, we're all dead of course. Um, you know, um, so I mean, so I mean like according to the standard model of physics, the end of the universe is um a long boring sort of thin gray soup of uh gradual cooling. um meaning the sort of the heat death of the universe it's called. So now if the heat death of the universe is in fact the outcome for our reality, then it really is all about the journey because the destination is terrible. But 10 years is not very Yeah, I get that. But that could be a long way and you're basically very long way. If it's 10 to 20% in 10 years, you know, would you go into one of your rockets if

you thought there was a 10 to 20% chance of it blowing up and killing you? Yes. But let's say there's you can't do anything about it. Mhm. that I guess the only thing we can try to do is minimize the probability of the bad outcome. Um but trying to stop the intelligence in robots. Um I mean for the longest time I declined to participate in AI or was you know created open AI as a essentially a counterweight to Google because at the time they were um they had more or less a monopoly on AI in creating open AI and then having anthropics spin out of that and now currently anthropics leader in AI. Um, I mean the these actions have actually resulted in knock-on effects that accelerated AI,

which wasn't really my intention. So, it just seems like all roads lead to acceleration of AI. So, then I'm like, okay, well, you can just sort of be sad about it or join the club, I suppose. Well, you've certainly joined the club. Yeah, you definitely joined the club. If you can't beat him, join them. You know, a number of the other leaders of model makers have been pushing for different ways to try and minimize the risks. Um, you know, just last week, Demises came out with a proposal for a private public regulator. Do you think you guys should be working more actively to get something in place to control the risks or do you think that's impossible

too? Yeah, my recommendation to Dennis because we I talked to him for a few hours before he published his piece was that um the most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies um at least just meet uh or have a some sort of call once every few weeks um and just uh discuss any safety and security issues. But why haven't you done that yet? I mean you don't all like each other very much. Yeah. But you're not all I mean you're also all competing right? You all want to be first. Yes. But that's that's where I think um the competitors can keep it keep each other honest. So meaning like if um like I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't

have a deep technical understanding and isn't driving the frontier of AI to know whether something should be released or not. Um however the competitors I think will can you know if given sort of a week or two to review a new model um can highlight issues and uh and have an incentive to keep all the competitors have an incentive to keep the others honest. So you'd have a system where the model makers would check each other's work. If there was something that worried them, you'd tell the government. Yeah. The government would then think, okay, if there's something that was worrisome and that company was not doing anything to address that risk, then that would be the moment for government to step in

and take action, which is literally what just what does all this have to happen? Well, I think it would be good to do that I think immediately really. Yeah, that's what people keep telling me. we have to get this some kind of system in the next 6 months because of the pace at which the models are improving. Yeah, 6 months is a long time. Um, so you think shorter than that? Well, I mean there's so many AI breakthrough announcements, sometimes multiple per day. I mean, how many were there last week?

A lot. I lost track, you know. Yeah, a lot. Um, so, so you basically, you know, whether it's Demis' proposal or others, you need to get together and get this set up kind of now. It sounds like you're telling me. Yeah. I would recommend that we at least have some sort of informal g um you know weekly or bi-weekly um call and that like I said just that there's that um there's maybe a week or two weeks of early access by competitors and this is why I think the incentives work is because if you know competing companies I think are likely to understand if something is a security risk and they're not going to be shy about highlighting that their competitor's models should be delayed in release.

You guys don't much like each other and you don't much trust each other. You're insulting each other on social media constantly. So, do you think you can do that with people that you dislike that where there seems to be such kind of personal vitrial between some of these leaders? Um, yes. Well, I'm I'm not a fan of Sam album because if you started a nonprofit that was meant to be an open-source AI company and um you know owned by the world uh and it somehow got turned into an $800 billion for-profit company with closed source. I think you'd be like well wait a second that's uh the exact opposite of what I donated the money for. That's my issue. I think it's a legitimate one. Um, and then Daario I

think also is not a fan of Sam Alman because he felt uh, in fact the reason the anthropic team left OpenAI is because they didn't trust Sam Alman otherwise anthropic wouldn't exist. They would still be at OpenAI. Um, I think Dario is a very principled person. He cares about things a lot. uh cares about the future of the world. And I think everyone I've met at Anthropic so far has been I'm like no one set off my evil detector. You know, they always seem like they're well-intentioned. Um and uh the road to hell is I think mostly paved with bad intentions. There are a few well-intentioned paving stones in there, so we don't want to be complacent. Um but uh you at the end of the day, if we have to talk, we'll talk.

I mean, set aside our personal differences for the good of the world type of thing.