Musk: Humans Will Lose Control of AI Within a Decade

Elon Musk said in an interview with The Economist that within the next decade, humans will no longer be in control of artificial intelligence. He used the relationship between humans and chimpanzees as a comparison: the intellectual gap between AI and humans, he said, will be so vast that humanity will end up in a position similar to that of animals relative to people.

Speaking with Beddoes, Musk said plainly that he does not believe humans will retain control over AI systems within a ten-year horizon. Asked whether, in 2036, it will still be humans steering the direction of the technology, he said he considered that unlikely.

The Chimpanzee Analogy

The core of the interview is the comparison Musk used to illustrate the scale of the coming shift. If the intelligence gap between AI and humans ends up larger than the gap between humans and chimpanzees, it's hard to imagine chimpanzees being the ones in charge. In his framing, humanity would find itself in an analogous position relative to the systems it created.

If the intelligence differential between AI and humans is much greater than the intelligence differential between AI and chimps, it's hard to imagine that it would be the chimps that are in charge - Elon Musk, The Economist

From Alarmist to Accelerationist

Musk has warned for years about the uncontrolled development of artificial intelligence, co-signed an open letter calling for a pause on training the most powerful models, and repeatedly compared AI to "summoning the demon." This time, however, despite putting the risk of human extinction in the double digits, he says he is himself accelerating the technology's development through xAI and his other companies.

He explains this by arguing that halting the race is no longer a realistic option, since competitors in China and the US will keep pushing forward regardless. In his narrative, the most likely outcome isn't catastrophe but a period of "incredible abundance," in which human labor will no longer be necessary to meet basic needs.

Money Is Set to Stop Mattering

Asked how his companies plan to make money in a world dominated by superintelligent systems, Musk replied that by 2036, money as we currently understand it will no longer matter. These remarks echo his earlier comments about an approaching technological "singularity," though this time they come attached to a concrete ten-year timeline.

The interview lands at a moment when Musk remains at odds with other industry leaders over the pace and manner of AI development, including OpenAI's Sam Altman. In recent weeks he has proposed measures to increase mutual oversight between companies over each other's models before release, which some observers read as a sign of a thaw in his relationship with OpenAI.

What This Means for the AI Safety Debate

Musk's comments add to a growing chorus of warnings from top figures in the industry, including the heads of OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind, who have in recent weeks jointly called for urgent AI regulation. The difference is that Musk pairs these warnings with a declared intent to keep accelerating the work, which critics point to as a contradiction between rhetoric and action.

For readers in Poland, the interview matters mainly as part of the broader debate over the pace of regulation the European Union is pursuing in parallel through the AI Act. Declarations from the world's richest man about losing control of the technology within a decade add ammunition for advocates of faster oversight over high-risk AI systems.