Musk: AI Could Outpace All of Humanity in 5 Years — What It Means for AI-Linked Crypto

Elon Musk believes in the possibility of an artificial intelligence that can out-think the sum of all humanity in less than five years. This is no hot take from a random account, but rather what he told The Economist in an interview this week.

Musk likened the soon-to-be space between man and machine to the space between man and chimpanzee. Once the AI systems are far beyond what humans can do, he said, “It's hard to imagine that the chimpanzee would be in charge.”

His timeline extends further out about a decade down the road: humans will lose meaningful control of the systems they've created; and by 2036, money will no longer be seen as such a major factor, he says.

The reasoning: If AIs and robots can create more goods and services than the number of people that could consume them, scarcity, which is what makes money valuable, begins to disappear.

As production will be near limitless, "governments could step in the middle of it and provide direct payments to citizens," Musk said.

This aligns in a trend that is already happening in crypto markets. All year long, tokens that are associated with AI have surged and plunged on optimism regarding just such a story.

AI projects with branding have made disproportionate gains when a big AI newsflash has happened, with a focus on AI agents, data infrastructure or machine intelligence.

That will come in handy next time an “AI coin” gains 20% over one news article. It's rarely about fundamentals, and it's narrative momentum that can shift as quickly as it has been established, particularly in a narrative that's developed on a bold timeline.

But the future that Musk is painting isn't guaranteed, he admits. He has claimed that his views on AI are "exciting and concerning even intraday.

A prediction, not a certainty: a 2036 abundance economy, and economists have challenged the pace at which scarcity of things such as energy and land might realistically be eliminated.

Not financial advice.

Do you think AI-linked crypto projects are pricing in real technological progress, or mostly riding hype cycles? Curious where the community lands.