Musk says AI and robotics are 'only' things that can solve massive US debt crisis

Elon Musk said in a new interview that he thinks robotics powered by artificial intelligence (AI) driving productivity gains and output are the only way to address the more than $38 trillion national debt.

Musk said in a podcast interview on "A Different Conversation with Nikhil Kamath" released Sunday that the widespread deployment of AI and robotics are the only ways to address the large and growing national debt. 

"I think that's pretty much the only thing that's going to solve for the U.S. debt crisis, because currently the U.S. debt is insanely high," Musk said. "The interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military budget of the United States – just the interest payments, and that's at least in the short-term going to continue to increase."

"So I think actually the only thing that can solve for the debt situation is AI and robotics," he added. "It probably would cause significant deflation because deflation or inflation is really the ratio of goods and services produced to the change in the money supply."

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Musk said that because AI and robotics could lead to a significant increase in output, it would likely lead to deflation – which is the opposite of inflation and results in a decrease in the price level.

"If you have AI and robotics, and a dramatic increase in the output of goods and services, probably you will have deflation. That seems likely. Because you simply won't be able to increase the money supply as fast as you can increase the output of goods and services," he said.

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The Tesla CEO was asked about the current level of inflation, which remains elevated relative to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and said that AI hasn't boosted productivity enough yet to cause deflation.

"AI has not yet made enough of an impact on productivity to increase the goods and services faster than the money supply. The U.S. is increasing the money supply quite substantially with deficits that are on the order of $2 trillion, so you have to have goods and services output more than that in order to not have inflation," he said.

"We're not there yet, but if you say 'how long would it take us to get there,' I think it's three years. Probably three years – in three years or less, my guess is goods and services growth will exceed money supply growth in about three years," Musk added.

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The tech billionaire also said he thinks the proliferation of AI and robotics will remake the economy and the monetary system overall.

"I think at a certain point you decouple from the sort of conventional economy if you have AI and robots producing chips and solar panels and mining resources in order to make chips and robots… You sort of complete that cycle, once that cycle is complete, I think that's the point at which you decouple from the monetary system," Musk said.

Musk was asked if that's the way forward for the U.S. addressing its national debt, and the Tesla CEO noted, "In this future that I'm talking about, the notion of countries becomes sort of anachronistic."

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"These are just what I think will happen based on what I see, as opposed to these are fundamentally good things, and I'm trying to make them happen," he said. "I think this would happen without me, whether I like it or not. As long as civilization keeps advancing, we will have AI and robotics at very large scale."