Tesla CEO Elon Musk
Getty Images | Diego Donamaria
Elon Musk is concerned about his eight children's future careers especially if his kids have to compete with artificial intelligence for their dream jobs.
"How do we actually find fulfillment, how do we find meaning in life, if AI can do your job better than you can?" Musk wondered aloud in an interview with CNBC's David Faber on Tuesday.
Even as the world's second-richest person expressed a desire to help lead the coming AI charge his automaker Tesla is attempting to create fully self-driving cars, and he's previously discussed using Twitter to build AI tools he expressed concerns about the technology's future implications.
It's not the first time: In March, Musk signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on AI development to ensure that the systems are ethically implemented, given the"profound risks to society and humanity."
On Tuesday, he struggled to articulate how the next generation might find value in a world where AI can do everything. "This question is a tough question to answer," Musk said.
Here are the two pieces of advice he said he'd give his own children:
In a way, Musk's top piece of advice is the same as it would have been pre-AI: Follow your passions in a way that can benefit other people.
"I would just say, you know, to sort of follow their heart in terms of what they find interesting to do, or fulfilling to do," Musk said. "And try to be as useful as possible to the rest of society."
The definition of "being useful to society" is rapidly changing. Even before ChatGPT's popularity exploded, people wondered how AI would replace human jobs.
Office and administrative roles could be at risk. So could content-creating jobs, from designers to software engineers though new opportunities could involve training and maintaining quality control for the AI systems that create such content.
For jobs that require uniquely human skills, AI may simply become a tool that makes work easier. Those could range from physically demanding roles like construction to communication-centric jobs like therapists.
"Jobs that emphasize interpersonal skills are much harder to be replaced by an AI," Dimitris Papanikloaou, a finance professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, told CNBC Make It in February.
Musk sleeps six hours per night, works seven days per week and only takes two or three vacation days annually, he said.
Apparently, that's what it takes for Musk to simultaneously run Tesla, SpaceX and for now, Twitter while also owning ventures like Neuralink and The Boring Company. On Tuesday, he questioned whether it's all worth it, especially if machines can eventually do the most tedious parts of those jobs for him.
"I've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into building the companies," said Musk. "And then I'm like, 'Well, should I be doing this?' Because if I'm sacrificing time with friends and family but then ultimately, the AI can do all these things, does that make sense? I don't know."
That uncertainty may grow as AI becomes more and more complex. Even now, Musk sometimes adopts a "deliberate suspension of disbelief," finding a way to ignore the "dispiriting and demotivating" aspects of the technology he's helping build to get through his workdays, he said.
Not knowing what the future holds makes advice for the next generation difficult to give. The only wisdom Musk can reliably pass on, he said: "Work on things that you find interesting and fulfilling, and that contribute some good to the rest of society."
DON'T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life?Sign up for our new newsletter!
Get CNBC's free report,11 Ways to Tell if We're in a Recession,where Kelly Evans reviews the top indicators that a recession is coming or has already begun.
Here is the original post:
- Elon Musk bought Twitter because the account tracking his private jet annoyed him, book says - Quartz - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Elon Musk Says Employees Are 'More Productive' in the Office. A New Study Says He's Wrong - Inc. - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Elon Musk, fuming over $55 billion Tesla pay ruling, switches Neuralink incorporation from Delaware to Nevada - Fortune - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- SpaceX files to move incorporation site from Delaware to Texas - CNBC - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Top labor economist says dont believe the AI doom narrativeand his reason why is the underpopulation crisis Elon Musk talks about - Fortune - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Elon Musk to his sycophant pet journalist Matt Taibbi: "You are dead to me" - Boing Boing - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Ukraine Says Russia Is Using Starlink at the Front Line, Prompting Pushback From Elon Musk - The Wall Street Journal - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Elon Musk opposes aid to Ukraine, says Putin can't lose Bloomberg - Yahoo News - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Musk ordered to testify again in SEC investigation of Twitter takeover - The Guardian - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Tesla Stock Is Up Again. What's the Latest News. - Barron's - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Who killed Twitter? - Platformer - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Ex-Twitter engineer says Musk wrongly fired him for leaking information to the press - Business Insider - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- How Teslas Board Can Solve Its Elon Musk Problem Without Overpaying - Barron's - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk: Diversity-based hiring is antisemitic - POLITICO Europe - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk Backs Prediction of 1 Billion Humanoid Robots by 2040 - Elon Musk Backs Prediction of 1 Billion Humanoid ... - IoT World Today - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk, CEO of X, to visit Poland amidst online antisemitism uproar - NBC News - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk expresses shock about the Holocaust after Auschwitz visit that was incredibly moving, and deeply sad and tragic that humans could do this to... - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk says he is 'Jewish by Association' after Auschwitz visit - USA TODAY - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- MrBeast's first video on X made $263,000 in win for Elon Musk's creator dreambut the YouTube star dismissed the ... - Yahoo Finance - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musks satellite army has a new target: Connecting the $183 billion farm industry to high-tech ag tools - Fortune - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Everything Elon Musk Did During His Visit To Auschwitz - The Onion - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk visits Auschwitz after uproar over antisemitic messages on X - The Guardian - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk visits Auschwitz with Ben Shapiro - The Jerusalem Post - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- At Auschwitz, Musk says social media, free speech would have prevented extermination - The Times of Israel - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Musk on visiting Auschwitz: It will take a few days to sink in - Forward - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Stellantis CEO warns of EV bloodbath and race to the bottom if car makers follow Elon Musks lead and start cutting prices - Fortune - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk says audits show less antisemitism on X than other apps - Fox Business - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Musk vs. Zuckerberg: Elon seems to envy the other CEO's Meta control - Business Insider - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk With Ben Shapiro in Auschwitz: Another Cynical Whitewashing Performance - Haaretz Today - Haaretz - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk visits Auschwitz after uproar over antisemitic messages on X - South China Morning Post - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Following Auschwitz visit, Elon Musk says X could have saved Jews from the Holocaust - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Will Elon Musk's xAI Be The Downfall Of OpenAI After Sam Altman's Betrayal and Ousting? - Yahoo Finance - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk Surprisingly Reacts to Bitcoin's Epic Surge By U.Today - Investing.com - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk visits Auschwitz amid uproar over antisemitic messages - Business Insider - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- MrBeast reveals his first video on X made $263,000but the YouTube multi-millionaire dismissed the cash as a facade and is giving it away - Fortune - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk Just Demanded 25 Percent of Tesla Stock. Here's Why That's Not as Crazy as It Sounds - Inc. - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk lays wreath at Auschwitz after private tour with Ben Shapiro and European rabbi - Baptist News Global - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk denies AI startup has raised $500M of $1B goal - Fox Business - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk's Tesla Confronts 'Black Cloud': Q4 Earnings Must Draw 'Line In The Sand Around Margins,' Analy - Benzinga - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk visits Auschwitz, says he was 'naive' about antisemitism: 'Two-thirds of my friends are Jewish' - New York Post - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk pledges to fund any Irish legal challenges to hate speech legislation - The Irish Times - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- X appears to be juicing MrBeast's views as Elon Musk tries to woo the YouTuber to the platform - Mashable - January 23rd, 2024 [January 23rd, 2024]
- Elon Musk Wants You to Use Neuralink to Lose Weight. That's a Bad Idea. - The Daily Beast - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Twitter Violated Contract by Withholding Employee Bonuses, Judge Rules - The Daily Beast - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- How Elon Musk Made Himself the Internet's Main Character in 2023 - Vanity Fair - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musks X Breached Twitter Worker Contracts By Refusing Bonuses, Judge Rules - Forbes - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musk's X accused of not paying employee bonuses after promising them verbally, to face court battle - India Today - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- How Elon Musk became the world's most famous poster - Business Insider - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Sam Altmans OpenAI to be second-most valuable U.S. startup behind Elon Musks SpaceX based on early-talks funding round - Fortune - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Judge rules that Twitter violated contract when it withheld millions of dollars in bonuses - Courthouse News Service - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musk reveals production plans of low-cost Tesla model: The revolution [of] that car will blow peoples minds - Yahoo - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Tesla in 2024 will have 'moving pieces' from the Cybertruck to EV pricing - Austin American-Statesman - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Hyperloop, Elon Musks Pipe Dream, Bites the Dust - Rolling Stone - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- The best books that CEOs read in 2023 from Airbnbs success story to Elon Musks biography - Fortune - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musk's Feud With Disney CEO Bob Iger Spills Over to Tesla - Observer - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Musk and Tesla are battling unions across Scandinavia. What comes next in the labor dispute? - The Associated Press - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- From AI and inflation to Elon Musk and Taylor Swift, the business stories that dominated 2023 - The Associated Press - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Calls It 'Insane' -- But What Does the World Think? - Inc. - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- How Donald Trump and Elon Musk killed Twitter, with Marty Baron and Zoe Schiffer - The Verge - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Hyperloop One to Shut Down After Failing to Reinvent Transit - Bloomberg - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Tesla Stock 2024 Forecast: Will the Elon Musk-Run Company Break Out to New Highs? - Nasdaq - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- 49% of Americans dislike tech billionaires, but you probably still want to be like themhere's why, say experts - CNBC - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Startup that tried to realize Musk's hyperloop dream is shuttering - Business Insider - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- The year of social media soul-searching: Twitter dies, X and Threads are born and AI gets personal - The Associated Press - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Elon Musk wants Grok to be the 'funniest' AI chatbot - Business Insider - December 27th, 2023 [December 27th, 2023]
- Musk's Erratic Behavior May Be Caused By Escalating Drug Use, Associates Say - The Daily Beast - August 24th, 2023 [August 24th, 2023]
- Keith Lee pitches Mr. Beast fight on Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg card - MMA Fighting - August 24th, 2023 [August 24th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Is Apparently Making the US Government Quite Nervous - Futurism - August 24th, 2023 [August 24th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Says He 'Looks Forward' To Visiting India In 2024 - Benzinga India - August 24th, 2023 [August 24th, 2023]
- Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai Applaud Chandrayaan-3's Landing on ... - The Weather Channel - August 24th, 2023 [August 24th, 2023]
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk still isn't ready to release hard information on ... - Longview News-Journal - August 24th, 2023 [August 24th, 2023]
- Mark Zuckerberg vs Elon Musk: clash of the tech egos - Financial Times - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- "I Look..": How Elon Musk Reacted To His Viral Childhood Pic - NDTV - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- Elon Musk believes Tesla will have 'level 4 or 5' self-driving this year ... - Electrek - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- Arnold Schwarzeneggers Son Already Gives Up, Amid Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Rigorously Hustling to Outdo Each Other: Honestly Dont Think I Have It... - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- Elon Musk Responds To His Parody Account's "Lizard Boy" Tweet - NDTV - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- Musk sues law firm for $135m bill on Twitter deal - The Australian Financial Review - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- `Insane`: Elon Musk Reacts To His Viral Baby Picture, Netizens Say This - Zee News - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- Mark Zuckerberg Trolls Elon Musk Over Threads With First Tweet ... - The Daily Beast - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]
- An Elon Musk-Controlled Charging Network Imperils The EV ... - Jalopnik - July 9th, 2023 [July 9th, 2023]