Elon Musk's Worst Predictions and Broken Promises of the Past 15 Years

"I feel very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year," Musk said in 2019.

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Elon Musk speaks at a press conference with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (left) about a new transportation system proposed by the Boring Company on June 14, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois.

Elon Musk has spent his entire career making predictions about the future. Some of those ideas have panned out—mostly thanks to his brilliant team of people at SpaceX. But for every promise Musk has helped make a reality through a company like SpaceX, there are many more the billionaire would probably like people to forget about.

Musk made some bold predictions on Monday about the future of artificial intelligence. The billionaire tech mogul earnestly seems to believe artificial general intelligence (AGI), the point when AI can apply reason and logic in the same way as humans, is just a year or two away.

“If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest human, I think it’s probably in the next year. Like within two years,” Musk said during a chat with the head of Norway’s sovereign fund on Tuesday.

“But that’s still a pretty big leap beyond that to say smarter than the machine-augmented human collective,” Musk continued. “So like, is it smarter than all humans working together who are also using computers to augment their output? And that I think is probably five years away.”

Ironically, Musk’s talk on X Spaces was cut short because of technical problems, something that’s happened frequently when Musk has tried to host a chat over recent months. The idea that we’re on the cusp of AGI while Musk’s social media platform struggles with hosting a basic audio chat is pretty funny to any outside observer.

Obviously, we’ll just have to wait and see whether Musk’s prediction on AGI proves correct. But there are plenty of people who don’t think Musk understands just how far away we are from developing what most people would consider AGI. Gary Marcus, the CEO of Geometric Intelligence, has offered to bet Musk $1 million that AI won’t actually be “smarter” than humans by the end of 2025. Another CEO followed suit and offered $10 million.

As Marcus points out, computers have been “smarter” than humans for decades. So the parameters of what Musk is talking about need to be defined in a clearer way. Much like the term “artificial intelligence,” the definition of AGI is still pretty hazy. But it makes for very cool-sounding headlines when Musk makes these proclamations.

Today, we’re taking a look at some of the promises and predictions that Musk has made which haven’t come true. It’s entirely possible that some of these things might become a reality in the future. But there have been enough failures that it can be enlightening to look back and ask yourself what went wrong—as well as what motivation Musk might have for hyping up technologies long before they’re ready.

Animation of Elon Musk’s ‘Loop” transportation system that has since been scrubbed from Vimeo.

Gif: The Boring Company / Vimeo