Elon Musk Imagines World Without Human Drivers, Evokes The Terminator

Somebody think of the humans!

Futurist, Tesla CEO and recent The Simpsons guest star Elon Musk spoke at NVidia’s Technology Conference yesterday about the upcoming age of the self-driving car, unsettling everyone who remembers the plot to The Terminator.

Though Google, Volvo and Audi have begun work on non-human piloted automobiles, much of the planet still imagines them as a faraway concept.

But Musk is looking way past the point when self-driving cars are mere novelties. He envisions an era not too far from now where they'll rule the streets, eradicating human error and hopefully lessening – if not totally eliminating– road fatalities.

For that to happen, however, humans will need to relinquish control behind the wheel entirely.

“People may outlaw driving cars because it’s too dangerous,” he said, floating a thought bubble that, much like the spark of fire to Frankenstein's monster, was a terrifying prospect to Luddites the world over.

On Twitter, Musk clarified his comments - presumably to fend off the pitchfork-toting crowd descending on his castle - reiterating that he is still pro-human. (Or, rather, he is until officially recruited by the machine army for their ultimate takeover.)

“To be clear, Tesla is strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive their cars and always will be. Hopefully that is obvious… However, when self-driving cars become safer than human-driven cars, the public may outlaw the latter. Hopefully not.”

So don’t panic just yet, drivers. There are approximately two billion cars on the road that need replacing (and that’s not counting the additional 100 million cars produced each year).

Still, Musk suggests it would only take twenty years to swap them all out.

FYI, the war against the machines from The Terminator took place in 2029. Yes, fourteen years from now.

Choose your side.