The South Africa-born tech billionaire made his debut at the world’s top political and economic summit in the Swiss Alps, telling the World Economic Forum that robots will outnumber people and AI will surpass human intelligence. World’s richest person Elon Musk made his first appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, predicting robots will eventually outnumber humans and offering to solve human ageing. The Tesla and SpaceX chief spoke with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in a change of tack for the tech billionaire who has previously dismissed the world’s top annual political and business gathering as elitist and boring.
According toeuronews.com, Fink opened the session by instructing the audience to applaud more enthusiastically for Musk. “That was not a large applause. Start again,” the BlackRock chief said.
He also repeated his claim about extraterrestrial life. “I’m often asked: ‘Are there aliens among us?’ And I say, I am one, but they don’t believe me. If anyone would know if there were aliens among us, it would be me.” Musk also told the audience that AI and robotics would trigger an unprecedented economic explosion.
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“We will actually make so many robots and AI that they will actually saturate human needs,” he said. “My prediction is that there will be more robots than people.” Musk said Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots would perform simple tasks in factories by the end of this year and more complex industrial work within 12 months. “Who wouldn’t want a robot to, assuming it’s very safe, watch over your kids, take care of your pets?” Musk asked.
He predicted AI would become smarter than any individual human by the end of 2026 and surpass the collective intelligence of humanity within five years. Tesla has rolled out robotaxi services in several US cities and expects widespread deployment across the country by year’s end, Musk said. He added that Tesla hopes to receive European approval for the vehicles next month but did not specify which countries.
On human longevity, Musk said ageing was “a very solvable problem” and predicted that once identified, the cause would be “incredibly obvious” to scientists. Musk was added to the WEF schedule as a last-minute participant, appearing one day after Trump addressed the forum. Musk has previously called the annual gathering “boring” and slammed the WEF as a body that’s “increasingly becoming an unelected world government” in previous years.
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