New Delhi: The coffee at the Davos Congress Centre tastes the same as it did on Day 1, but by Thursday morning, Day 4 of the World Economic Forum, nobody’s pretending anymore. The PowerPoint slides about “sustainable growth” and “inclusive innovation” have given way to something rawer: the sound of politicians and billionaires admitting they don’t have all the answers.

And that, frankly, is more interesting.

Elon Musk walked into a conversation with BlackRock’s Larry Fink and essentially said: “Your children will live in a world where machines are smarter than all humans combined. Also, we’re building rockets that might save us when things get weird.”

Five years. That’s his timeline. By 2030, according to Musk, artificial intelligence will surpass the collective intelligence of humanity. Not in one narrow task like chess or image recognition. In everything. He delivered this with the casual certainty of someone ordering lunch, while the audience did that awkward thing where they laughed but nobody was actually sure if it was funny.

The robotics panel that came next felt like a cold shower. Daniela Rus, one of the world’s leading roboticists, basically said: “Yeah, Elon’s timeline? Optimistic.” She pointed out that we have robots that can move containers in ports 24/7, but ask a robot to wash your dishes at home? That’ll cost you half a million dollars. The gap between what’s theoretically possible and what’s commercially viable? It’s still massive.

Here’s what this means for you: Your job might be safer than you think at least for the next few years. But the industries you don’t work in? They’re already changing.

Friedrich Merz, Germany’s Federal Chancellor, stood up and essentially told Europe to wake up. His message was blunt enough that you could feel the discomfort in the room: “The post-World War........

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