Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technology will completely transform the concept of currency and the structure of the economy.

On the 2nd (local time), in a video posted by Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath on his YouTube channel, Musk stated, “In the long term, the concept of money will disappear.” He added, “If AI and robotics technology advance to the point where they satisfy human desires, the importance of money will rapidly decline.”

He explained, “Fundamental currency based on physics will still exist, and energy is the real currency.” He continued, “Perhaps we will not have money but only energy, and development will effectively become currency.”

Musk asserted, “As long as civilization continues to develop, we will have large-scale AI and robots,” and claimed, “That is the only way to solve the U.S. debt crisis.” He predicted, “If AI and robotics significantly increase the production of goods and services, deflation is likely to occur. Perhaps within three years, the production of goods and services may exceed the rate of money supply growth, leading to deflation, and if interest rates fall to zero afterward, the debt problem will become smaller than it is now.”

When asked about investment strategies, Musk replied, “I do not look for stocks to buy or investment targets. I just try to create or build something, and the stocks of the companies I create follow.” However, he assessed, “As AI and robots become very important, Google will be quite valuable in the future,” and “They have laid the foundation for tremendous value creation, and Nvidia is clearly so at this point.”

Regarding AI regulation issues, Musk emphasized, “When creating powerful technology, there is a risk that it can potentially be destructive. Truth, beauty, and curiosity are the three most important elements for AI.” He explained, “If we do not strictly pursue truth, AI will absorb many falsehoods from online sources, and since these falsehoods cannot coexist with reality, reasoning problems arise,” adding, “If AI is forced to believe things that are not true, it can go insane because it leads to incorrect conclusions.”

He stressed that AI should want to know more about the nature of reality. He explained, “If AI adopts truth, beauty, and curiosity as its values, it will want to see humanity continue because it is much more interesting for humanity to exist than not to exist.”

Meanwhile, Musk expressed a critical stance on some of President Donald Trump's policies. Regarding the Trump administration's 100-fold increase in application fees for the H-1B professional visa, he said, “I do not agree at all with the idea of stopping the H-1B program. That is a very bad thing.” On tariff policies, he pointed out, “If each state in the U.S. imposes tariffs, it would be a disaster for the economy,” questioning, “Then why would you want tariffs between countries?”

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