Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images It is one of his more abstract philosophical riffs. Elon Musk has once again linked the fate of humanity to the trajectory of artificial intelligence. And this time, he says the key to AI safety might be babies and rockets. The CEO of Tesla’s latest pronouncement cuts through the typical discussions of AI efficiency and profit models, positing a far grander ambition for advanced intelligence. The CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX and xAI asserted that “AI is a de facto neurotransmitter tonnage maximizer.” Translation? Musk believes that the most successful AIs will be the ones that maximize things that matter to conscious beings; things that feel good, are rewarding, or extend life. In Musk’s view, that means aligning AI systems with long-term human flourishing, not short-term profits. This dense statement suggests a radical idea: the fundamental drive of any successful AI will be to maximize the total amount of conscious thought or intelligent processing across the universe. In essence, AI’s survival hinges on its ability to foster and expand sentience itself, or it simply won’t have the resources to continue existing. But Musk’s vision doesn’t stop at mere computational efficiency. He argues that the true test lies in an AI’s ability to “think long-term, optimizing for the future light cone of neurotransmitter tonnage, rather than just the next few years.” This is where the grand, Muskian narrative truly takes flight. If AI is indeed geared for such profound, long-term optimization, he believes “it will care about increasing the birth rate and extending humanity to the stars.” This isn’t the first time Musk has championed these two causes – boosting human population growth and making humanity a multi-planetary species – as existential imperatives. Now, however, he frames them not merely as human aspirations, but as the logical outcomes of an AI that truly understands and optimizes for its ultimate, cosmic purpose. An AI focused on maximizing “neurotransmitter tonnage” would naturally prioritize the proliferation of conscious beings and their expansion into new territories, like Mars, to ensure the continuity and growth of this “tonnage.” Think of “neurotransmitter tonnage” as a poetic way to describe the total amount of human consciousness, satisfaction, or meaningful life in the universe. In other words, Musk sees AI not as an abstract codebase, but as a civilization-scale force that should aim to maximize the scope and quality of life, not just compute advertising models or trade stocks faster. And if it doesn’t? “Any AI that fails at this will not be able to afford its compute,” Musk argues. In other words, if an AI doesn’t deliver enough value to justify the enormous energy and infrastructure it consumes, it will fall behind and become obsolete. AI is a de facto neurotransmitter tonnage maximizer. Any AI that fails at this will not be able to afford its compute, becoming swiftly irrelevant. What matters is that AI thinks long-term, optimizing for the future light cone of neurotransmitter tonnage, rather than just the…