Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk Says Future of Autonomous Cars is Nigh

When you’re preparing to launch a computing platform for self-driving cars, it helps to bring one of the leading voices in automotive innovation along for the ride.

That’s just what NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang did in his opening keynote at the 2015 GPU Technology Conference. Just moments after announcing NVIDIA’s DRIVE PX self-driving car computer, he sat down for a quick fireside chat with Musk, who, as usual, put the pedal to the metal.

“We’ll take autonomous cars for granted in quite a short time,” Musk told a crowd of some 4,000 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. “I almost view it as a solved problem. We know what to do, and we’ll be there in a few years.”

Musk—who also is co-founder and CEO of Space X, has floated an idea for an ambitious system of pod-like transports, and recently compared the development of artificial intelligence to “summoning the demon”—made it clear that NVIDIA’s advances in GPU technology will play a key role.

“What NVIDIA is doing with Tegra is really interesting and really important for self-driving in the future,” said Musk.

Not that Musk thinks autonomous cars will come easily. It’s a long road to get from developing the capabilities to implementing them. For example, he predicts that regulators will be loathe to allow self-driving vehicles until they’re presented two or three years of compelling evidence about their safety in comparison to driver-controlled vehicles.

Musk also cautioned that we’ll eventually will have to embrace a seismic change in our relationship with cars as regulators struggle with how to transition from driver-controlled vehicles to those controlled by computers.

Bottom line: at some point, people may not be trusted behind the wheel anymore.

“In the distant future, (legislators} may outlaw driven cars because they’re too dangerous,” he said.

Read more: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk Says Future of Autonomous Cars is Night