Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Insider’s parent company, recently interviewed Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Answering the question “what is your biggest fear?”. Musk listed three existential threats. They included declining birth rates, religious extremism and “artificial intelligence is not doing well.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed three “existential threats” he believes humanity is currently facing during a recent interview with Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Insider’s parent company Axel Springer. The richest man in the world said he feared religious extremism, declining birth rates and “artificial intelligence is not doing well.” Death, however, was not on his list. “I spent a lot of time talking about fertility,” Musk said. “This may be the greatest threat to the future of human civilization.” Musk has long voiced concerns about declining birth rates, a trend that has accelerated amid the “baby bust” pandemic. A 2021 CDC report found that the birth rate in the US fell by 4% from 2019 to 2020, the sharpest one-year decline in nearly 50 years and the lowest birth rate since 1979. “I’m really worried about this birth rate,” Musk said. “This has been bothering me for many years, because I just do not see it coming back. It gets worse every year. And I drive my friends crazy with it.” While the fear of infertility was high on Musk’s list, the fear of death was not. “I would definitely like to stay healthy for longer,” he told Döpfner. “But I’m not afraid to die. I think it would be a relief,” he said, adding that he would like to live long enough to see SpaceX fully implemented. Many of the world’s billionaires – including Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos – are on the hunt to discover the scientific source of youth. Musk, however, said he was not interested in increasing human lifespan. The story goes on “I do not think we should try to make people live long,” he said. “That would cause suffocation in society.” Musk specifically referred to U.S. politicians who are older than the majority of the population, an age difference that he believes has made the government lose touch with the average voter. “The truth is that most people do not change their minds. They just die. So if they do not die, we will get stuck with old ideas and society will not move forward,” he continued. On the other hand, Musk said that his greatest hope is for humanity to create a “self-sustaining city on Mars”. “I would be happy if humanity had a self-sustaining city on Mars because then, the possible lifespan of humanity is much longer,” he explained. “I think we really just got this little candle of consciousness, like a little light in a vacuum. And we do not want this little candle in the dark to go out.” Aside from Musk’s goals for the future of humanity, his feelings about personal happiness are less clear. “To be completely happy, I think you have to be happy at work and happy in love. So, I guess I’m moderately happy,” he said. Earlier this month, Musk broke up with singer Grimes after they welcomed a second child together. Read the original article in Business Insider
