Elon Musk's fear of an army of robots

If the creator of robots is afraid, it is for a reason.

During Tesla's earnings call, Musk made one of the most disturbing statements of his career: “I don't feel comfortable building an army of robots unless I have a strong influence on it,” simple words but loaded with historical weight.

Musk, who already controls companies that orbit the Earth and dig tunnels beneath it, is now talking about something even deeper, the creation of an army of intelligent machines built not only to help, but potentially to act autonomously. The billionaire, who currently owns about 13% of Tesla, threatens to leave the company if he does not receive enough 25% control to ensure decisive influence over the fate of the robots he is creating.

The reason, the optimal, bipedal humanoids that Musk describes as universal workers, according to him, the future of Tesla is no longer in electric cars, but in these robots that one day, in his words, will represent 80% of the company's total value. To achieve this dream, more promises one million units operating globally with mass production already in 2026, but in the present the reality is much less epic, just a few dozen functional prototypes, manufacturing difficulties and unfulfilled promises, and even so, Elon Musk's speech suggests something bigger and more dangerous, by repeating several times, the term robot army ignited a global alert.

Historically, technological revolutions have favored the powerful.

You will be imagining humanoids used not only in factories and homes, but in scenarios of power, defense or control, historically, every technological revolution was born from the promise of freedom and ended up creating new forms of dependency. The industrial revolution freed man from physical force, but chained him to machines, the digital revolution promised to connect the world, but immersed him in surveillance among other things, now Musk proposes a physical and cognitive revolution, a planet inhabited by robberies endowed with their own reasoning subordinated to a single company.

The British philosopher Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence, once warned that the real danger is not that AI rebels, but that it obeys too much and that is what makes Musk's words so disturbing, he wants control not for fear of losing power, but for fear of what he has created.

While investors discuss profits, what is at stake is much more than money, a man who already masters satellites, rockets and autonomous vehicles, now seeks a monopoly on entities capable of acting and learning on their own and if the future really does come to be inhabited by an army of robots, the fate of humanity could depend on who of the first order Elon Musk says he is not comfortable without having influence over them.

The question that remains is, and who will have influence over him? because perhaps the real risk is not the birth of machines, but the power of those who control them.