On November 2nd, during a podcast episode, Elon Musk predicted that traditional mobile phones and Apps will disappear within the next 5-6 years, and that most of the content consumed by humans will be generated by AI.
Musk believes, “In the future, there will be no operating system, there will be no Apps. Your phone will only display pixels and emit sound. It will predict what you most want to see and hear, and then generate it in real-time. We will integrate AI into this device as much as possible.”
“There will no longer be mobile phones in the traditional sense. What we call a phone is actually an edge node for AI inference, equipped with some radio modules for connectivity.” Musk put forth the view that, essentially, server-side AI will communicate with the AI on the user device and generate any real-time video the user desires.
Regarding AI replacing human professions, Musk provided a countdown timeline: desk jobs like email processing and phone customer service are rapidly disappearing, while jobs such as programming and content creation will likely be largely replaced within 1-2 years. Work in areas like driving and logistics will rapidly change once autonomous driving matures.
AI is still digital, and moving atoms is much harder than moving bits. Therefore, physical labor such as welding, plumbing, electrician work, and cooking will persist longer, but will ultimately also be replaced by robots.
During the three-hour podcast, Musk also discussed Grok’s pursuit of truth, how to protect human civilization in the face of the exponential evolution of AI-generated content, and AI safety.
Musk stated that Grok is an AI that views all human life equally. The team has invested tremendous effort to combat bias on the internet, and it took a significant amount of work to make the AI “tell the truth” and not have its factual judgment distorted by “political correctness.”
He predicts that AI will surpass the intelligence of a single human by 2026 and will surpass the total intellectual capability of all humanity by 2030. This transformation is not science fiction, but a “Civilization Reshaping Plan” being fully driven by Musk’s projects, including Neuralink and xAI.
Tesla plans to complete and demonstrate a working prototype of a flying car within a few weeks before the end of 2025. Musk called the significance of this demonstration extraordinary, suggesting it might be the “most memorable product launch in history.” Despite the tight timeline, he insisted that Tesla “has a realistic chance” of completing the task on schedule.
Musk also mused, “We live on a planet where the gravity is just right for us to leave the Earth—it’s like a video game set at the hardest difficulty but not impossible.” Now, he says, we are entering the most critical level in this “game”: either achieve unprecedented abundance through AI and technology, or head toward the collapse of civilization amidst ideology and lies.