Billionaire Elon Musk made his debut at the world’s most important political and economic summit, held in the Swiss Alps, declaring to the World Economic Forum (WEF) that robots will outnumber humans and artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence.
The world’s richest man offered to solve the issue of human aging, as reported by Euronews and Fox Business.
Musk also stated that artificial intelligence and robotics will trigger an unprecedented economic boom.
"We will make so many robots and artificial intelligence that they will actually saturate human needs. My prediction is that there will be more robots than humans," he said.
Musk said that Tesla's humanoid robots Optimus will carry out simple tasks in factories by the end of this year and more complex industrial work within 12 months.
The company plans to make Optimus robots available to the public by the end of 2027.
"Who wouldn't want a robot, assuming it's very safe, to take care of their children, to take care of their pets? If you have elderly parents - many of my friends have said it's very difficult to take care of them," Musk said, mentioning that caring for the elderly can be costly due to relatively fewer young workers.
Aging, "a solvable problem"
He predicted that artificial intelligence will become smarter than any individual human by the end of 2026 and will surpass the collective intelligence of humanity within five years.
Tesla has launched robotaxi services in several cities in the US and expects widespread implementation across the country by the end of the year, Musk stated. He added that Tesla hopes to receive European approval for vehicles next month, but did not specify in which countries.
Regarding human longevity, Musk said that aging is "a very easy problem to solve" and predicted that once identified, the cause will be "incredibly obvious" to scientists.
Musk was added to the World Economic Forum agenda as a last-minute participant, appearing a day after Trump addressed the forum.
Musk had previously called the annual meeting "boring" and criticized the WEF in previous years, calling it a body that "increasingly becomes an unelected world government."
Musk's wealth is estimated at $779 billion, according to Forbes' real-time billionaire list.