ASIA
24 August 2026
Elon Musk on Artificial Intelligence
What to make of Elon Musk’s AI-optimism?
Elon Musk’s AI-optimism stands in stark contrast to the careful analyses of many academic studies I have covered elsewhere on this website. But he is currently the richest person in the world, and arguably the most successful businessman of his generation. So we should listen to him.
Musk recently opened up in an interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor of the Economist magazine. Here are the key points on the subject of AI.
The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. There are things that could derail this like a massive global thermonuclear war. But assuming that there's no World War III, we're headed for an age of amazing abundance. This is a message of optimism and excitement about the future.
Digital intelligence is now advancing very rapidly. With every passing week there are more AI breakthroughs. Progress is still somewhat confined to the digital realm. But if you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi infinite economy.
So the future is going to be very, very different from the past. Money won't matter in 2036. If robots and AI are providing more goods and services than any human could possibly consume, what do you need money for? We should try to make sure that AI has good values, that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosper.
It's quite difficult for someone in 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.
What should the US government do about this? It has been trying to hold China back with export controls. It could pass a law preventing US companies from using Chinese AI models, but it can't stop the rest of the world from using them. And stopping US companies from using Chinese models won’t stop China from becoming the leader in AI.
The US has banned the export of the latest AI chips to China. China is somewhat chip starved. But it is becoming much more efficient at using the chips they have and one of the striking things from the Kim K3 (a Chinese AI model) is that China is getting closer to solving the lithography problem. This would enable them to make AI chips at very large volumes.
Musk believes that it’s going to be a bumpy road because AI will be able to do every job better than any person can do that job, and that will be true very quickly for jobs that are digital or anything that involves a person at a computer or on a phone. AI could do all of that very soon. Already AI is better than at least 90% of humans at writing software.
Musk believes that work is going to be optional. In ten years, every job can be done better than humans by AI. What do the people not working do? The pace of change is radically accelerated relative to previous episodes of jobs being replaced by technology. The best books for envisioning an AI future are those by Iain Banks.
Will we need to redistribute income from the wealthy to the newly unemployed? It will not be necessary because we will be in a world of deflation (falling prices).
But how do we get from the current polarized, angry, fearful policy we have now to this nirvana.
Musk says these politics of AI are both exhilarating and terrifying!
Musk recently opened up in an interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor of the Economist magazine. Here are the key points on the subject of AI.
AI to overtake human intelligence in 5 years
It's hard to imagine a future where there's not an overwhelming amount of AI, according to Elon Musk. He expects AI to be far greater than the sum of human intelligence in around five years. There really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans apart from being human.The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. There are things that could derail this like a massive global thermonuclear war. But assuming that there's no World War III, we're headed for an age of amazing abundance. This is a message of optimism and excitement about the future.
Digital intelligence is now advancing very rapidly. With every passing week there are more AI breakthroughs. Progress is still somewhat confined to the digital realm. But if you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi infinite economy.
So the future is going to be very, very different from the past. Money won't matter in 2036. If robots and AI are providing more goods and services than any human could possibly consume, what do you need money for? We should try to make sure that AI has good values, that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosper.
AI risks
Musk believes that it is unlikely that humans will be in control in 10 years time. But there are risks associated with AI and robots. To minimise these risks, Musk believes the five US leading AI companies should discuss safety and security issues before a new frontier model is released. They could test models for any harmful effects and recommend pausing release to address some of these security issues. Musk also recommends involving leading Chinese AI companies in this process.It's quite difficult for someone in 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.
Will China become the leader in AI?
The Chinese AI companies are doing very well with a relatively small amount of compute. If they had a lot of compute, there's a good chance they would be the world leader. The constraints on AI are electricity and AI chips. China has far more electricity than the US, Europe and India combined, its electricity could get to four times the US, which is roughly proportional to the population. The power constraint on electricity can be solved by having AI data centers in space.What should the US government do about this? It has been trying to hold China back with export controls. It could pass a law preventing US companies from using Chinese AI models, but it can't stop the rest of the world from using them. And stopping US companies from using Chinese models won’t stop China from becoming the leader in AI.
The US has banned the export of the latest AI chips to China. China is somewhat chip starved. But it is becoming much more efficient at using the chips they have and one of the striking things from the Kim K3 (a Chinese AI model) is that China is getting closer to solving the lithography problem. This would enable them to make AI chips at very large volumes.
AI and jobs
AI has become incredibly unpopular among ordinary Americans. Some 75 percent of people are worried about it – they worry about their jobs. Some 50 percent of entry-level white collar jobs will be gone within a few years according to Dario Amodei co-founder of Anthropic, the company behind the large language model series Claude.Musk believes that it’s going to be a bumpy road because AI will be able to do every job better than any person can do that job, and that will be true very quickly for jobs that are digital or anything that involves a person at a computer or on a phone. AI could do all of that very soon. Already AI is better than at least 90% of humans at writing software.
Musk believes that work is going to be optional. In ten years, every job can be done better than humans by AI. What do the people not working do? The pace of change is radically accelerated relative to previous episodes of jobs being replaced by technology. The best books for envisioning an AI future are those by Iain Banks.
Will we need to redistribute income from the wealthy to the newly unemployed? It will not be necessary because we will be in a world of deflation (falling prices).
But how do we get from the current polarized, angry, fearful policy we have now to this nirvana.
Musk says these politics of AI are both exhilarating and terrifying!