Elon Musk Recently Approved $1 Trillion Pay, Now Says Tesla Robots Will End Crime and Poverty
Elon Musk unveils Optimus humanoid robot with plans to end poverty and reshape work culture. Robots can increase productivity while raising questions about job disruption and privacy.
Elon Musk is having a heck of a time. Moments after Tesla shareholders gave the world’s richest man the green light for his astonishing $1 trillion pay package, the billionaire took the stage and laid out an even bigger vision, in which his humanoid robot, Optimus, ends poverty, eliminates jobs, and maybe even takes on criminals. According to Musk, Optimus will “literally eliminate poverty”, make “working optional” and expand the global economy by 100 times. It’s all part of what he calls a future of “sustainable abundance,” where humans can stop worrying about work altogether, and perhaps start worrying about what it takes instead.
“People often talk about ending poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care,” Musk said during a shareholder meeting on Thursday, Business Insider reports. “There’s really only one way to do this, and that’s with the Optimus robot.”
Musk’s trillion dollar plan
Musk’s trillion-dollar compensation plan is tied to Tesla achieving some major milestones, including selling one million Optimus robots over the next decade. These humanoids, still in development, have been appearing in light-hearted cameos: handing out candy at Halloween, performing kung fu with Jared Leto, and dancing at Tesla events.
But behind the looks, Musk says Optimus is serious business. He believes that robots will one day transform the world economy, making human labor nearly obsolete. “AI can only increase human productivity so much,” he said. “But there really are no limits to the AI that is embodied.”
According to Musk, each Optimus will be five times more productive than a human capable of working around the clock. He estimates that with the deployment of these in sufficient numbers, humanity will enter an era of “universal high income”, where anyone can buy “any products or services they want”.
In Musk’s version of the future, capitalist use of AI and robotics could even result in a “communist utopia.” He told podcaster Joe Rogan, “Capitalist implementation of AI and robotics, assuming it goes down the good path, actually results in a communist utopia.”
Ending crime with a robot sidekick?
Musk’s ambitions are not limited to economics. At the same shareholder event, he pitched the idea that Optimus could also transform the justice system. Musk suggested that instead of building prisons, robots could “follow you and stop you from committing crimes.” It’s unclear how this would work in practice, or how anyone would feel about being in the shadow of a Tesla robot around the clock, but Musk seemed confident in his vision.
He believes that AI and robotics are the only powerful tools that can get America out of its looming debt crisis. “I came to the conclusion that the only way to get us out of the debt crisis and save America from bankruptcy is AI and robotics,” Musk told Rogan.
Yet, Musk also admits that the road to his techno-utopia will not be easy. “There will be a lot of shocks and disruptions along the way,” he cautioned.
Tesla’s humanoid project remains in the design phase, with Musk saying the robot’s hands have proven particularly challenging. When mass production finally begins, he expects the Optimus to sell for $20,000 to $30,000, the price of a modest family car, but one that could clearly change the world.
And while Musk describes himself as “pathologically optimistic,” it can’t be denied that he’s thinking big, even by his own standards. In his imagined future, poverty disappears, crime becomes obsolete, and work turns into a hobby.
