Prediction ledger · Adoption
Elon Musk
CEO, Tesla · Apr 22, 2019
“…next year for sure, we'll have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over the air update; that's all it takes.”
In short: Tesla would have more than a million driverless robotaxis on the road in 2020, switched on by a software update.
- Verdict
- Too fastExpected the change sooner than it came
- Said
- Apr 22, 2019
- Date it named
- Dec 31, 2020
What happened
No Tesla robotaxi service ran in 2020. Paid rides began in Austin in June 2025 with safety monitors on board, and by mid-2026 the driverless fleet was about 20 cars.
How it's judged
A million Tesla vehicles operating as driverless robotaxis by the end of 2020.
The lesson
The physical world diffuses slowly. Is AI showing up in work yet, by country? · Why weak links slow adoption
More adoption predictions
Dario Amodei
CEO, Anthropic · Mar 10, 2025
“I think we will be there in three to six months, where AI is writing 90% of the code. And then, in 12 months, we may be in a world where AI is writing essentially all of the code.”
Six months on, there was no sign of AI writing 90% of code across the software industry. Measuring who writes code is hard, and a narrow reading (code at AI labs) would score differently.
Due Sep 2025Adoption
Sam Altman
CEO, OpenAI · Jan 5, 2025
“We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents 'join the workforce' and materially change the output of companies.”
Coding agents spread fast in 2025 and some firms rebuilt workflows around them. Evidence that agents materially changed company output at scale stayed thin, and "may" leaves room either way.
Due Dec 2025Adoption
Bill Gates
Co-founder, Microsoft · Nov 9, 2023
“In the next five years, this will change completely. You won't have to use different apps for different tasks. You'll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do.”
Not yet due. Assistant and agent products multiplied after 2023, but not yet the everyday replacement for apps he described.
Due Nov 2028Adoption