🤖 Elon Musk: 'There will come a point where no job is needed. AI will be able to do everything.'

Musk's robot revolution isn't here yet. But some good news on US productivity growth could be a sign of accelerated tech progress to come

Quote of the Issue

“If the robot can recognize the clean flame of life

in men who have never fallen from life

then he repents, and his will breaks, and a great love of life

brings him to his knees, in homage and pure passion of service.

Then he receives the kiss of reconciliation

and ceases to be a robot, and becomes a servant of life.”

- D.H. Lawrence

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• Amazon

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The Essay

Prototype of Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus

🤖 Elon Musk's robot revolution isn't here yet

Item: Elon Musk told UK prime minister Rishi Sunak there “will come a point where no job is needed” as the billionaire entrepreneur described artificial intelligence as the “most disruptive force in history” in a wide-ranging conversation. Speaking in the lavish Lancaster House in London, the Tesla chief executive and owner of SpaceX and X said he believed there would come a time when “you can have a job if you want a job . . . but AI will be able to do everything”. The discussion between the two global figures comes as the UK government closed its two-day summit in Bletchley Park designed to shape global rules and examine the extreme risks around the development of AI, such as its possible scope to aid in the development of biological and chemical weapons by nefarious actors. - The Financial Times, 11/03/2023

As any Wall Street sharpie knows, if you have to make a forecast, use a number or a date — but not both. You can say “The Dow is headed to 50,000” or “The Dow’s best days are ahead of it,” but avoid “The Dow will hit 50,000 by the end of 2025” or some such. With that in mind, I’m not having a big reaction to Elon Musk’s telling UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Bletchley Park international AI summit that there “will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want a job . . . but AI will be able to do everything.”

Of course, it’s not an uninformed opinion by any means. Musk seems quite serious about Tesla’s humanoid robot program, known as Tesla Bot or Optimus, and the effort seems to making significant strides. He also announced today that his xAI, his artificial intelligence company, will release its first product on Saturday. So Musk obviously has more than a passing knowledge about the state of both technologies.

Robots when and where?

But notably, the entrepreneur didn’t offer a timeline indicating exactly or even approximately when no job would be needed. So what do we do with that?