Elon Musk said that the singularity is not in the future, but now.

Many people are still discussing a question: When will the "Singularity" of AI arrive?

Will it be in five years?

Or in ten years?

On March 12th, Elon Musk gave the answer: It has already arrived.

He even thinks the current pace is a bit outrageous: "When I go to sleep, there's a breakthrough in AI; when I wake up, there's another one."

Moreover, he also mentioned:

• AI is entering the "Recursive Self-Improvement" (RSI) stage;
• In the next 10 years, the global economic scale may expand tenfold;
• In terms of intelligence, humans may soon become the "minority" on Earth.

Section 1 | Why Does He Say: The Singularity of AI Has Appeared

Recursive Self-Improvement, simply put, is whether AI can make itself stronger on its own.

Many people think this day may still be far off. But Musk says that today's large models are already in this process.

Why?

The new generation of models increasingly relies on the previous generation of models for development. For example, Google's Gemini Pro is used to accelerate its own training. Almost all of Anthropic's code is written by Claude Code, and OpenAI's GPT - 5 uses synthetic data generated by previous models. Writing code, data sorting, testing programs, and improving algorithms, which were almost entirely the work of engineers in the past, are now being participated in by AI.

In other words, in the process of model upgrading, human engineers are still involved, but their proportion is decreasing.

This is the early form of recursive improvement.

Of course, this process is not fully automated yet. Musk also mentioned that humans still play a key role in the critical links. But the direction is clear: AI is not just a tool; it is starting to become part of the R & D process.

Once AI is fully involved in R & D, the improvement speed will accelerate. And this acceleration is not linear.

Each breakthrough will provide stronger tools for the next breakthrough.

Section 2 | Why Does He Say: The Progress of AI Will Suddenly Accelerate in Stages

How long will this acceleration last? Or rather, how far into the future can we still make predictions?

This question is difficult to answer because the development of many technologies is not at a constant pace.

Musk says that most technological progress is more like an S - shaped curve.

At the beginning, it is very slow, and many people even think there is no change. Then a breakthrough occurs, and the development speed suddenly accelerates. When the problems are gradually solved, the progress slows down again.

Many industries have gone through this process.

The Internet is like this, and so are smartphones.

The development of AI is the same, but there is a key difference: AI's S - curves are one after another.

When a key technological breakthrough occurs, the development speed will suddenly accelerate for a period of time. Then it enters a new stage and waits for the next breakthrough. This is why the progress of AI sometimes seems very strange. For a while, there seems to be little change, and then suddenly many new capabilities appear.

Musk says that in recent years, many people have a feeling that the changes in AI have suddenly become faster. This is because a new technological stage is unfolding.

More importantly, when multiple such curves are superimposed, the progress of the entire field will become faster and faster.

This is another signal that AI has entered a new stage.

Section 3 | What Does the Singularity Mean

If AI really becomes stronger and stronger, what will happen to the world?

Musk believes that if the current trend continues, the global economic scale may grow to ten times its current size in the next 10 years.

His logic is not complicated.

In the past hundred years, economic growth has mainly come from two things: machines replacing physical labor and technology improving production efficiency. For example, the mechanical equipment in the industrial era, and later computers and the Internet.

AI brings about a change of another magnitude. This time, in addition to physical labor being replaced, more and more mental work will also be automated. Writing code, doing analysis, designing solutions, and processing data, many jobs that used to rely on humans are now being participated in by AI.

Meanwhile, robots are also entering real - world production. Musk mentioned that Tesla is promoting the new - generation robot Optimus 3, planning to start production this summer (2026) and gradually expand the scale later.

A tenfold economic growth, automated mental work, and large - scale production of robots. These already sound exaggerated.

But Musk says this may just be the beginning.

He gave an example: What would happen if humans used a million times the energy they use now, which is a million times the current total electricity consumption of the Earth?

A million times is an astronomical figure, and even so, it is still only one - millionth of the sun's energy output.

Why talk about energy?

Because the computing power of AI directly depends on energy. The more energy there is, the more data centers can be built, and the stronger the computing power of AI that can be run. In the solar system, the energy obtained by the Earth is only a small part. Most of the sun's energy is dissipated in space. If AI facilities can be built in other parts of the solar system in the future, the scale of available energy will far exceed that of the Earth.

That is to say, the total intelligence of AI in the solar system will far exceed the sum of all AI on Earth. And the AI on Earth will far exceed the sum of human intelligence.

When intelligence reaches that scale, production capacity will also change accordingly. The goods and services that AI and robots can produce will far exceed today's imagination. Prices will continue to fall, and the cost of many things will approach zero.

The deflation mentioned by Musk is essentially the result of this process.

What will really become scarce are energy and matter themselves, that is, the most basic resources such as electricity and raw materials.

Musk says that by then, humans may change from the majority in terms of intelligence to the minority, and finally to a "tiny minority."

Intelligence starts to change from scarce to abundant, and humans start to change from the majority to the minority.

Conclusion

Musk's core view in this conversation: The singularity has arrived.

AI starts to train itself, and each generation of models helps develop the next generation.

Technological breakthroughs are becoming more and more frequent, and what was impossible a few months ago is becoming a reality.

The proportion of humans in the intelligent system is shrinking, changing from the majority to the minority.

The scope of influence of this wave of AI has gone beyond technology itself.

📮 References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5KCm_55xeQ&t=2s

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2031797055338004572?referrer=grok - com

https://x.com/Stellarixorine/status/2031057210290430250?referrer=grok - com

This article is from the WeChat official account "AI Deep Researcher", author: AI Deep Researcher. Republished by 36Kr with permission.