Elon Musk : How to Build the Future

today we have Elon Musk Eon thank you

for joining us thanks having right so we

want to spend the time today talking

about your view of the future and what

people should work on so to start off

could you tell us you famously said when

you were younger there were five

problems that you thought were most

important for you to work on um if you

were 22 today what would the five

problems that you would think about

working on B well first of all is it I

think if somebody is doing something

that is useful to the rest of society I

think that's a good thing like it

doesn't have to change the world like

you know if you make something that has

high value to people and frankly even if

it's something if it's like just a

little game or you know the some

improvement in photo-sharing or

something if it if it has a small amount

of good for a large number of people

that's I mean I think that's that's fine

like stuff doesn't need to be change the

world just to be good but you know in

terms of things that I think are most

likely to affect the the future of

humanity I think AI is probably the

single biggest item in the near term

that's likely to affect humanity so it's

very important that we have the advent

of AI in a good way but that is

something that if you if you could look

into a crucible and enter the future you

would like you would like that outcome

because it is something that could go

could go wrong and as we've talked about

many times and so we really need to make

sure it goes right that's that's I think

AI working on ai and making sure it's

great future that's that's the most

important thing I think right now the

most pressing item sec then obviously I

think Institute with with genetics if

you can actually solve genetic diseases

if you can promote dementia or

Alzheimer's or something like that that

was genetic reprogramming that would be

wonderful

so I think this

genetics it might be the sort of second

most important item I think having a

high bandwidth interface to the brain

like we're currently bandwidth-limited

we have a digital tertiary self in the

form of our email capabilities like

computers phones applications we're

effectively superhuman but we're

extremely bad with constraint in that

interface between the cortex and your

sort of that the tertiary digital form

of yourself and helping solve that

bandwidth constraint would be I think

very important for the future as well so

one of the I think most common questions

I hear young people and bishops young

people ask is I want to be the next to

go musk how do I do that um obviously

the next Elon Musk will work on very

different things then than you did but

what have you done or what did you do

when you were younger that you think

sort of set you up to have a big impact

well I think this well I should say that

I do not expect to be involved in all

these things so the the the five things

that I thought about the time in college

still quite a long time ago 25 years ago

you know being you know making life

multiplanetary selling accelerating the

transition to sustainable energy the the

Internet broadly speaking and then

genetics and AI I think I didn't expect

to be involved in in all of those things

I actually at the time in college I sort

of thought helping with electrification

a bit of cars which was how we start out

and that's a that's actually what I

worked on as an intern was advanced

ultra capacitors with to see thick there

would be a breakthrough relative to

batteries for energy storage and in cars

and then when I came out to go to

Stanford that's what I was going to be

doing my grad studies on is it was

working on her best at energy storage

technologies for electric cars and I put

that on hold to start an Internet

company in 95 because that that does

seem to be like a time for particular

technologies when there

at a steep point in the inflection code

and and I didn't want to you know do a

PhD at Stanford and then and what sure

will happen and then and I wasn't

entirely certain that the technology I'd

be working on would actually succeed I

can get you can get a you know doctrine

on many things that ultimately are not

do not have a practical bearing on the

world and I wanted to you know just I

really was just trying to be useful

that's the optimization it's like what

do what can I do that would actually be

useful do you think people that want to

be useful today should get PhDs um

mostly not so what what is the best some

yes but mostly not how should someone

figure out how they can be most useful

whatever this thing is that you're

trying to create what would what would

be the utility Delta compared to the

current state-of-the-art times how many

people it would affect so that's why I

think having something that has that

that has a mix makes a big difference

but effects a sort of small to moderate

number of people is great as is

something that makes even a small

difference but but affects a vast number

of people like the area yeah on you know

under the yeah exactly the area under

the curve is would actually be roughly

similar for those two things so it's

actually really about yeah just trying

to be useful and matter when you're

trying to estimate probability of

success so you say something will be

really useful good area under the curve

I guess to use the example of SpaceX

mmm-hmm when you made the NGO decision

that you were actually going to do that

this was kind of a very crazy thing at

the time very crazy there shortly yeah

I'm not shy about saying that but I kind

of agree I agreed with them that it was

quite crazy crazy if if the objective

was to achieve the best risk adjusted

return sliding our company is insane but

that was not that was not my objective

why I I'd totally come to the conclusion

that if something didn't happen to

improve ROC technology would be stuck on

earth forever and and the big aerospace

companies had just had no interest in

radical innovation

all they wanted to do is try to make

their old technology slightly better

every year and in fact sometimes we

would actually get worse and

particularly in Rockets is pretty bad

like the in 69 we were able to go to the

moon with a Saturn 5 and then the space

shuttle could only take people to

low-earth orbit and then the Space

Shuttle retired and that trend is

basically trends to zero it feels I

think technology just automatically gets

better over year but I actually doesn't

it only gets better if smart people work

work like crazy to make it better

that's how any technology actually gets

better and by itself technology if

people don't work and it actually will

decline you can look at the history of

civilizations many civilizations and

look at say ancient Egypt were they able

to pull these incredible pyramids and

then they basically forgot how to hold

permit and and then even hieroglyphics

they forgot how to read hydrocal

hieroglyphics so we look at Rome and how

they will to look to build these

incredible roadways and aqueducts and

indoor plumbing and they forgot how to

do all of those things and there are

many such examples in history so I I

think choice bear in mind that you know

entropy is not on your side

yeah one thing I really like about you

is you are unusually fearless and

willing to go in the face of other

people telling you something that's

crazy and I know a lot of pretty crazy

people you still stand out where does

that come from or how do you think about

making a decision when everyone tells

you this is a crazy idea where do you

get the internal strength to do that

well first of all I'd say I actually

think I feel

feel fair quite strongly so it's not as

though I just have the absence of fear

I've I feel it quite strongly but there

are times when something is important

enough you believe in it enough that you

do it in spite of the fear

so speaking of important things like

people shouldn't think I I I should if

you think well I feel fear about this

and therefore I shouldn't do it it's

normal to be to feel fair like you'd

have to

definitely something mentally wrong you

should feel fair so you just feel it and

let the importance of it drive you to do

it anyway yeah you know actually

something that can be helpful as

fatalism some degree if you just think

it's just accept the probabilities then

that diminishes fear so my starting

SpaceX I thought the odds of success

were less than 10% and I just accepted

that actually probably I would just lose

lose everything but that maybe would

make some progress if we could just move

the ball forward even if we died maybe

some other company could pick up the

baton and move and keep moving it

forward so that were still do some good

yeah same with Tesla I thought your odds

of a car company succeeding were

extremely low what do you think the odds

of the Mars colony are at this point

today well um

oddly enough I actually think they're

pretty good

so like when can I go okay at this point

I am certain there is a way I'm certain

that success is one of the possible

outcomes for establishing a

self-sustaining moss colony in fact

growing lost colony I'm certain that

that is possible

whereas until maybe a few years ago I

was not sure that success was even one

of the possible outcomes it's a

meaningful number of people going to

Mars I think this is potentially

something that can be accomplished in

about 10 years

maybe sooner I mean maybe 9 years I need

to make sure that SpaceX doesn't die

between now and then and that I don't

die or if I do die that someone takes

over who will continue that you

shouldn't go on the first launch yeah

exactly like the first launch will be a

robotic anyway so I want to go except

for that internet latency yeah they were

at latency to be pretty significant I

Mars is roughly 12 light minutes from

the Sun and Earth is 8 light minutes so

closest approach Mazdas 4 light minutes

away that furthest approaches 20 a

little more because you have to you

can't sort of talk directly through the

Sun

speaking of really important problems um

AI so you have been outspoken about AI

um could you talk about what you think

the positive future for AI looks like

and how we get there okay I mean I do

want to emphasize that um this is not

really something that I advocate or this

is not prescriptive this is simply

pretty hopefully predictive as you look

so I'm Sayla well like this is something

that I want to occur instead of so this

I mean I think that probably is the best

of the available alternatives the best

of the available alternatives that I can

come up with and maybe somebody else can

come up with a better approach or better

outcome is that we achieve

democratization of AI technology meaning

that no one company or small set of

individuals has control over advanced AI

technology like that that's very

dangerous

it could also get stolen by somebody bad

you know like some evil dictator or

country could send their intelligence

agency to go steal it and gain control

it just becomes a very unstable

situation I think if you've got any any

incredibly powerful AI you just don't

know who's who's going to control that

so it's not as I think that the risk is

that the AI would develop a will of its

own right off the bat I think it's more

that's the consumers that some someone

may use it in a way that is bad or and

even if they weren't going to use in a

way that's bad but somebody could take

it from them and use it in a way that's

bad that that I think is quite a big

danger so I think we must have

democratization of AI technology make it

widely available and that's you know the

reason that obviously you mean the rest

the team you know created open AI was to

help with the democracy our a AI

technology so it doesn't get

concentrated in the hands of a few and

but then that of course that needs to be

combined with

solving the high bandwidth interface to

the cortex humans are so slow humans are

so slow yes exactly but you know we

already have a situation in our brain

where we've got the cortex and limbic

system and the limbic system is kind of

a mess that's the primitive brain it's

kind of like the your instincts and

whatnot and then the cortex is thinking

of a part of the brain those two seem to

work together quite well occasionally

your cortex and limbic system may

disagree but they attending it works

pretty generally works pretty well and

it's like rare to find someone who I've

not found someone who wishes to either

get rid of the cortex or get rid of the

Olympic system very true

yeah it's that's unusual so so I think

if we can effectively merge with AI by

improving that the neural link between

your cortex and the your digital

extension yourself which already likes

that already exists just has a bandwidth

issue and then then effectively you

become an AI human symbiote and and if

that then is widespread with anyone who

wants it can have it then we solve a

control problem as well we don't have to

worry about some sort of evil dictator

AI because kind of we are the AI

collectively that seems like the best

outcome I can think of so you've seen

other companies in the early days that

start small and get really successful um

hope I don't regret asking this on

camera but how do you think open AI is

going as a six month old company I taste

you go pretty well I think we've got a

really talented group what opening eye

and yeah really really talented team and

they're working hard

open a is structured as see a 501c3

nonprofit but you know many nonprofits

do not have a sense of urgency it's fine

they don't have to have a sense of

urgency but opening ideas

is I think people really believe in the

mission I think it's important and it's

about minimizing the risk of existential

harm in the future and so I think it's

going well I'm pretty impressed with

what people are doing in the talent

level and obviously we're always looking

for great people to join we call a

mission list of 40 people knots yes well

well alright just a few more questions

before we we wrap up how do you spend

your days now like what what do you

allocate most of your time to my time is

mostly split what's between SpaceX and

Tesla and of course I I try to spend

it's a part of every week at opening I

so I spend most I spend basically half a

day at opening I most weeks and then and

then I have some open enough that

happens during the week but other than

that it's really traceable interlaced

like so Tesla like what is your time

look like there yeah so it's a good

question um I think a lot of people

think I must spend a lot of time with

media or on business II things but

actually almost almost all my time like

80% of it is spent on engineering design

in engineering and design so it's

developing next generation product at

that's 80% of it you probably remember

this a very long time ago many many

years you took me on a tour of SpaceX

and the most impressive thing was that

you knew every detail of the rocket and

every piece of engineering that went

into it I don't think many people get

that about you

yeah I think a lot of people think I'm

kind of a business person or something

it just fine like business is fine but

um a guy it really it's you know it was

like it SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell was chief

operating officer she kind of manages

legal finance sales and kind of general

business activity and then my time is

almost entirely with the engineering

team working on improving that the

Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft and

developing the most colonial

architecture I mean that Tesla

it's working on the model 3 and yes I'm

in the design studio to agree up

happening a week dealing with its

aesthetics and and look and feel things

and then most of our week is just going

through engineering of the car itself as

well as engineering of the factory

because the biggest epiphany I've had

thus this year is that what really

matters is that is the machine that

builds the machine the factory and this

that is at least towards my to eat

harder than the vehicle itself it's

amazing to watch the robots go here and

these cars just happen

yeah now this actually is has a

relatively low level of automation

compared to what the gigafactory will

have and what model 3 will have what's

the speed on the line of these cars

actually average the line is incredibly

slow it's probably about a both X and s

it's maybe a 5 you know 5 centimeters

per second and what can you go this is

very slow or what would you like to get

to I'm confident we can get to to at

least 1 meter per second so 20-fold

increase that would be very fast

yeah um at least I mean I think quite a

1 meter per second just put that in

perspective is a slow walk or a good

medium speed walk a fast walk could be 1

and 1/2 meters per second and and then

the fastest humans can run over 10

meters per second so if we're only doing

point zero five meters per second that's

very slow current current flow speed and

and at 1 meter per second you can still

walk faster than the production line