Speaking remotely at the International Samson Smart Mobility Summit, Elon Musk praised Israel’s tech sector, predicted most driving will be done by AI within a decade and said humanoid robots could eventually outnumber peopleDennis Bihler|Elon Musk praised Israel’s innovation ecosystem this week during a remote appearance at the 9th International Samson Smart Mobility Summit, saying the country stands out globally for the scale of its technological output.“I’m a huge admirer of the innovation coming out of Israel,” Musk said. “Honestly, I think it’s objectively true that Israel punches far above its weight for population.”He went further, adding: “Innovation per capita, Israel must be number one by far in the world.”Speaking from Austin, Texas, where he said it was about 2:30 a.m., Musk apologized for not attending the summit in person and said he looked forward to visiting Israel again. He also appeared to suggest that preparations for a possible SpaceX initial public offering were keeping him away.“I wouldn’t be there in person, but this is IPO, you know, going to get the IPO, SpaceX IPO going pretty soon, I think,” Musk said.1 View gallery Elon Musk (Photo: Gonzalo Fuentes/ Reuters)Most of the conversation focused on smart mobility and Tesla’s push to bring self-driving technology from testing into wider use. Musk said Tesla was making “steady progress” toward making autonomous driving ubiquitous, stressing that the company’s Full Self-Driving system relies on artificial intelligence and cameras rather than radar or LiDAR.“The Tesla full self-driving software, which is really just AI and cameras. We don’t use radars or LiDAR or anything like that,” he said.Musk said Tesla is trying to teach cars to drive in the same basic way humans do, using vision and a neural network.“It’s really trying to drive the car in the same way that a human drives the car,” he said, describing Tesla’s approach as “a digital neural net and cameras.”He predicted the system would eventually be “at least an order of magnitude safer” than human drivers and said he hoped Israelis would soon be able to experience it.“I’m not sure if we have approval for this in Israel. I think we may have. We’ll get it soon hopefully, and you’ll be able to experience it for yourself,” Musk said.He described the current technology in striking terms, saying Tesla’s latest software makes the vehicle feel almost alive.“It is quite magical because the car feels like it is sentient,” he said. “It actually feels like it’s alive, and as we improve the software, you can feel the sentience growing in the car.”According to Musk, Tesla already has vehicles operating with no people inside as safety monitors in three cities in Texas. He said the service would probably become widespread in the United States by the end of the year, adding that he hoped it would eventually reach Israel as well.Looking ahead, Musk predicted that driving one’s own car could become rare within a decade.“My guess is, 10 years from now, probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car,” he said. “It’ll be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car. The car will drive you.”Musk also said the world is heading toward an era in which robots will become far more common, describing Tesla’s cars as “four-wheel robots” and saying humanoid robots are likely to become widespread.“My prediction is that there will be far, far more robots, like intelligent robots, in the world than there will be people,” he said. “I think this is most likely to be a good thing.”Still, he said, robot safety should remain a serious concern.“We always want to be a little paranoid,” Musk said. “We’re certainly not complacent about the safety of robots.”He later added that a “Terminator” scenario was unlikely but “not impossible,” saying developers must ensure robots are safe.Musk argued that the rise of advanced robots could dramatically expand economic productivity and create what he called “universal high income,” rather than universal basic income.“If the robots are extremely productive and you have a lot of them, you’re effectively going to have an economy that will be maybe 10 or even 100 times bigger than what it is today,” he said.The session ended with Transportation and Road Safety Minister Miri Regev joining the conversation and thanking Musk for taking part despite the late hour in Texas.