Artificial Intelligence poses a double challenge to the human mind. Not only will the most advanced models soon be able to think better than people, but\u00a0AI<\/small>\u00a0has consequences for humanity which are so uncertain, so potentially vast and are approaching at such a rapid pace that even the best brains flinch. An example is Elon Musk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our long interview with him this week, featured in The Insider<\/a> <\/em>and our Business section<\/a>, the engineer and entrepreneur sets out two paradoxes and one contradiction. The first paradox is that one of the world\u2019s most power-hungry tycoons is enthusiastically helping create a technology that he says will render him\u2014and all other human beings\u2014powerless after as little as five years. The second is that the world\u2019s richest man says he is preparing for a world of infinite abundance, where money, including his $750bn fortune, no longer matters. And the contradiction is that, despite these stated beliefs, Mr Musk continues to act as if they were not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Musk is divisive. His political views, disseminated to his 240m followers on X, strike many as plain-speaking and strike many more, including The Economist<\/em>, as plainly bigoted. By his own admission, his attempt to use DOGE<\/small> to scythe through the federal bureaucracy went wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he is also one of a handful of men who are pioneering AI<\/small> and who thereby have an outsize influence on its trajectory. When he speaks, he reflects the debates they are having. His data centres in space could power AI<\/small>\u2019s future. For all his political polemics, he has a record of being right about technology in fields such as electric cars, rockets and satellite communications that confounded other engineers and entrepreneurs. For those reasons, his claims about AI<\/small> repay examination. Unfortunately, such an exercise only underlines how ill-prepared the world is for a technology that may soon throw everything up in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> AI is charging ahead. Not even its creators\u2014including @elonmusk<\/a>\u2014know how to keep up https:\/\/t.co\/8UwsIS9FQY<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/TndVl6q8ir<\/a><\/p>— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 23, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>