Centibillionaire who opposes OpenAI with his xAI startup and strives to send humanity to Mars through SpaceX, Elon Musk, has cited a famous futurologist Ray Kurzweil about his expectations that artificial intelligence systems are likely to surpass human mind within the next five years.

Not so long ago, Musk made a similar prediction, naming a much shorter time span.

AI to surpass all humans by 2029, Kurzweil says

Elon Musk made a repost of a tweet published by X user @KanekoaTheGreat with an extract from a Joe Rogan’s podcast where he talked to the renowned futurist and longevity evangelist Ray Kurzveil.

In the extract, Rogan and Kurzweil talk about AI and its superiority over humans that Kurzweil not only believes to be a certainty in the future but he gives a definitive prediction that it will happen within the next four years – by 2029. By this year, the scientist believes, AI will reach a level of intelligence of a human being.

The futurist stated that he had first made this prediction thirty years ago – in 1999, adding that a lot of people, including numerous experts from around the world thought that he was “totally crazy.” He mentioned that as a result of a scientific conference organized by Stanford University, experts who participated in it arrived at a conclusion that AI will indeed become superior to humans by not for many years and certainly not by 2029.

Kurzweil added that many consider him to be conservative and say that AI will beat any human in anything much sooner, like “next year or the year after.”

The X community’s reaction to this was mixed, ranging from ironic disbelief to a strong concern. Lex Fridman, who had Musk on his podcasts several times, tweeted that he expects the future to be interesting and hopes that the humanity will win against AI ultimately.

Elon Musk's recent AI dominance prediction

In early December, Elon Musk also made a prediction about artificial intelligence. By that time, his xAI startup had already been running for about a year and in late fall of 2023 he had released an AI chatbot Grok, integrating it for X users of Premium+.

Musk then stated that he expects AI to become better at everything a regular person can do. This would include discovering new physics and writing novels as good as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.