According to Elon Musk, founder of xAI, artificial intelligence could surpass the combined intelligence of humanity in around five years, and he doubts that people will maintain control over the technology in the next ten years. Musk shared these insights during an interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist.

https://youtu.be/1X-rr1DKSbY?si=nW6NbP6bdsrAAbDt

Musk believes that AI will eventually be capable of performing nearly all intellectual tasks better than humans.

"There will really be nothing that AI cannot do better than humans, except perhaps being human," he stated.

He predicts a likely scenario of an "age of abundance," where people could access virtually any goods and services through AI and robotics, projecting this outcome by 2036 but also emphasizing that risks persist.

Mutual Model Checks

Musk expressed that he sees no realistic way to halt the advancement of AI and robotics. He suggested that even if a "stop button" existed, it might not be wise to use it, as he considers "abundance for all" the most probable outcome.

However, he acknowledged that the risk of a catastrophic scenario is not zero. Previously, he estimated a 10-20% chance of humanity's extinction due to AI and robots, and he indicated that people might need to find new ways to give their lives meaning.

Rather than slowing down development, Musk proposed that leading AI companies should regularly discuss safety risks and grant competitors limited access to new advanced models before their public release. This way, rival labs could identify dangerous capabilities before the models are launched. If a company fails to address significant risks, Musk believes that authorities should step in.

This idea aligns with a similar initiative proposed by Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind.

Criticism of OpenAI

In the same interview, Musk criticized Sam Altman and the transformation of OpenAI from a nonprofit organization into a commercial entity. He argued that the project was originally intended to be an open AI company "for the whole world," but has ultimately become a closed business.

Regarding Dario Amodei, head of Anthropic, Musk was more lenient, describing him as a "principled person," but he still emphasized that even competing AI companies should collaborate on safety issues.

In May, a federal court in Oakland dismissed Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft due to its late filing. Musk claimed that OpenAI had strayed from its original nonprofit mission, but the jury sided with the defendants on the statute of limitations.

It is noteworthy that in September 2025, Eliezer Yudkowsky, founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, outlined the risks associated with superintelligent AI. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also warned that such technology could lead to disaster.

Earlier, Ilya Polozukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol, pointed out that AI lacks economic incentives to destroy humanity.