Elon Musk says 'jobs are going to change; nobody wants to do calculations' in the age of AI

Elon Musk momentarily forgets Donald Trump's new "Super Intelligence" terminology during a White House event, referring to the technology as "AI" before quickly correcting himself to "SI".

Elon Musk appeared to have a brief slip-up at a White House event after referring to the technology as 'AI' before quickly correcting himself to 'SI', hours after US President Donald Trump directed his administration to use 'Super Intelligence' instead of 'artificial intelligence'.

The moment came during a White House event on Tuesday, where Trump hosted Musk and several prominent technology executives and discussed the future of the technology industry.

While interacting with reporters after signing an AI accord aimed at strengthening self-regulation within the industry, Trump was asked about the jobs of the future and whether people should be concerned about the impact of increasingly advanced technology on employment.

Trump called out to Musk during the interaction and invited him to answer the question.

"I think it's worth highlighting the positive benefits of AI" Musk began, before pausing and correcting himself. "SI, pardon me," he quickly added.

The brief slip prompted laughter from Trump, who responded with a quick "Thank you" and appeared to tap Musk on the arm.

Musk then continued using the term "Super Intelligence" as he spoke about the potential impact of the technology. He said he believed the most likely outcome would be an "age of abundance" and argued that jobs would evolve as technology takes over certain tasks.

"When you have robots and you have superintelligence, it means that everyone in the world can have better medical care than anyone here, including me. And wouldn't that be wonderful? Not if they haven't got a job. Well, jobs are going to change. Jobs have always changed," Musk said, comparing the development of modern computers with the older use of people as human 'computers' to carry out calculations.

"Now, digital computers do those tasks. And I don't think anyone is pining to go back and do calculations all day, to do bank interest rates, which is what they used to do. So, I think we'll see an evolution of roles," he added.

The exchange came shortly after Trump announced the terminology shift. The White House has begun referring to the technology as "Super Intelligence", or "SI", instead of "artificial intelligence" or "AI". Trump has also described the emerging technology using the new terminology in recent official statements.

The White House event also featured discussions around technology safety and US technological leadership.

The terminology shift came alongside Trump's White House meeting with some of the biggest names in the technology industry, including Musk, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Trump and several technology executives also signed a one-page voluntary agreement focused on safeguards for the development and deployment of increasingly powerful AI systems.

The agreement calls for companies to maintain safeguards, including internal controls, independent assessments and board-level oversight.