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Elon Musk Shocking Statements!!! · Elon Musk Thinking

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People don't underpla is one of the biggest threats of the future of human civilization,
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and that is what it's going on right now, which is not great.
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I mean, we really want to wake up the morning and look forward
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to the future. We want to be excited about what's going to happen,
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and and life cannot simply be about sort of solving one miserable problem after another.
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I read At the same time, I want to want to caution against
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complacency, so I can't epsize that that're not As long as we push hard
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and are not complacent. Um, the future is going to be great.
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Don't worry about it. I'm curious about your timelines and how you predict and
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how comes. Some things are so amazingly on the money, and some art
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so when it comes to predicting sales of Tesla vehicles, for example, you
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were scoffed in twenty fourteen because no one since Henry Ford with the Model T
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had had come close to that kind of growth rate for four cars. You
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were scoffed, and you actually hit five hundred thousand cars and five hundred ten
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thousand or whatever. Pretty but five years ago, last time you came to
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Ted we Um, I asked you about full self driving and you said,
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yep, this very year where I am confident that we will have a car
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going from LA to New York without any intervention. Yeah. I don't want
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to blow your mind, but I'm not always right. UM. So talk
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talks between those too. Why why why has full self driving in particular been
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so hard to predict? I mean, the thing that really got me and
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I think it's going to get a lot of other people, is that there
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are just so many false storms with with self driving. Um, where you
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think you think you've got the problem, I have a handle on the problem,
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and then nope, it turns out you just hit a ceiling um and
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uh, because what would if you if you would applied the progress? The
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progress looks like a log curve. So it's like, yeah, a series
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of log curves. So most boil in our log curve business, suppose.
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But it goes it goes up sort of you know, it's sort of a
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fairly straightway, and then it starts tailing off and and and you start getting
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diminishing returns. Yeah, and you're like, oh, this it was trending
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up and now it's sort of curving over and not and and you you start
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getting to these what I call local local maxima where you don't realize basically how
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dummy were that's and then and then and then it happens game so um and
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ultimately um these things you know in retrospect they seem obvious, but in order
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to solve full self driving properly, you actually just you have to solve real
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world AI. Um. Yeah, because you see, like what other road
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networks designed to work with the designed to work with a biological neural net our
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brains, um, and with vision our eyes, and so in order to
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make it work with computers, you basically need to solve real world AI and
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vision because because we need we need cameras and silicon neural nets in order to
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have to have self driving work for a system that was designed for eyes and
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biological neural nets, you know we need I guess when you put it that
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way, sort of like quite obvious that the only way to solve for self
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driving is to solve real world AI and sophisticated vision. Or what do you
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feel about the current architecture? Do you think you have an architecture now where
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where there is a chance for the logrithmic curve not to tail off any any
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time soon. Well, I meantally these these maybe an infamous last words,
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but I actually am confident that we will solve it this year, that we
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will exceed Uh, you're like, what the probability of an accident? At
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what point do you exceed that of the average person? Right, I think
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we will exceed that this year. But but you but but but you're behind
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the scenes looking at the data. You're seeing enough improvement to believe that this
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year timeline is real. Yes, that's what it seems like. I mean,
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like I say, you know, we could be here talking again in
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a year. It's like, well, another year went by and it didn't
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happen. But I think this, I think this is the year. And
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so in general, when when people talk about elon elon time, I mean
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it sounds like like you can't just have a general rule that if you predict
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that something will be done in six months. Actually what you what we should
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imagine is it's going to be a year or it's like two x or three
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x. It depends on the type of prediction. Some things, I guess,
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things involving software at you know, AI whatever are fundamentally harder to predict
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than others. Is there an element that you actually deliberately make aggressive prediction timelines
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to drive people to be ambitious. Without that, nothing gets done well.
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I generally believe in terms of internal timelines that we want to set set the
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most aggressive timeline that we can UM, because there's sort of like a low
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of gases expansion, where for schedules where whatever time you set, it's not
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going to be less than that. It's very rare that will be less than
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that. UM. And as far as my predictions I concerned. UM,
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what what has to happen in the media is that they will report all the
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wrong ones and ignore all the right ones right UM. And or you know
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when when when writing an article about me, I've had a long career in
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multiple industries. If you if you list my sins, I sound like the
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worst person on earth. But if you put those against the you know,
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the things I've done right, it makes much more sense. You know.
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So essentially, the longer you do anything, the more mistakes that that that
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you will make cumulatively, which if you sum up those mistakes will sound like
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I'm the worst predictor ever. But for example, for it tells La vehicle
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growth. I said, I think we're doing fifty percent, and we've we've
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done eighty percent. Yes, so, but they don't mention that one.
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So, I mean, I'm not sure what my exact track record is on
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predictions. They're more optimistic than pessimistic, but they're not all optimistic. Some
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of them are exceeded, probably more or later, but they they do come
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true. It's very rare that they do not come true. It's sort of
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like, you know, uh, you know, if there's some radical technology
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prediction. But the point is not that it was a few years late,
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but that it happened at all. Yeah, that's the that's the more important
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part. So it feels like at some point in the last year, seeing
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the progress on understanding that the AI, the Tesla AI, understanding the world
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around it led to a kind of an Ahlm moment. It does, because
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you really surprised people recently when you said, probably the most important product development
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going on at Tesla this year is this robot Optimus. Yes, many companies
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out there have tried to put out these robots, have been working on them
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four years, and so far no one has really cracked it. There's no
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mass adoption robot in people's homes. There are some in manufacturing, but it's
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like I would say that no one's kind of really cracked it. What is
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it something that happened in the development of full self driving that gave you the
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confidence to say, you know what, we could do something special? Yeah,
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yeah, exactly. So you know, it took me a while to
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sort of realize that in order to solve self driving, you really needed to
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solve real world aim and the point of which you save real world AI for
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a car which is really a robot on four wheels, you can then generalize
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that to a robot on legs as well, the two hard parts. I
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think it's obviously companies like Boston Dynamics have shown that it's possible to make quite
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compelling, sometimes alarming robots. Right. Um, you know, so this
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is from a sensor is an actualator standpoint, it's certainly been demonstrated by by
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many that it's possible to make a humoroid robot. The thing that the things
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that are currently missing are enough intelligence, enough intelligence for the robot to navigate
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the real world and do useful things without being explicitly instructed. So the missing
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things are basically real world intelligence and scaling up manufacturing. Those are two things
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that tells LA is very good at and so then we basically just need to
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design the specialized actuators and sensors that are needed for a humanoid robot. People
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have no idea this is this is going to be bigger than the car.
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So let's dig into exactly that. I mean, in one way, it's
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actually an easier problem than full self driving because you instead of an object going
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along at sixty miles an hour, which if it gets it wrong, someone
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will die, this is an object that's engineered to only go what three or
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four or five marks in our walking experience, and so a mistake is that
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there aren't lives at stake. There might be embarrassment at stake. It doesn't
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take it over and right and now sleep recently a right, but but so
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talk about I mean, I think the first applications you've mentioned are probably going
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to be manufacturing, but eventually the vision is to have these available for people
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at home. If you had a robot that really understood the three D architecture
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of your house and knew where every object in that house was or was supposed
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to be, and could recognize or those objects. I mean that's kind of
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amazing, isn't it. Like like that the kind of thing that you could
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ask a robot to do would be what like tidy up? Yeah, absolutely,
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or make make dinner, I guess the lawn, take take a cup
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of tea two grandma and show her family pictures and exactly take care of my
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grandmother and make sure, yeah, exactly when it could recognize obviously, recognize
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everyone in the home. Yeah, could play catch with your kids, yes,
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I mean, obviously we need to be careful, just doesn't become a
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dystopian situation. Like I think. One of thinks that's going to be important
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is to have a localized ROM chip on the robot that cannot be updated over
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the air, where if you, for example, we're to say stuff soft
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stop, that would if anyone said that, then the robot would stop,
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you know type of thing, and that's not updatable remotely. I think it's
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going to be important to have safety futures like that. Yeah, that sounds
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wise. And I do think there should be a regulatory agency for AI.
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I've said this for many years. I don't I don't love being regulated,
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but I you know, I think this is an important thing for public safety.
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Let's come back to that. But I'm just I don't think many people
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have really sort of taken seriously the notion of, you know, a robot
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at home. I mean at the start of the computing revolution, you know,
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Bill Gates said a computer in every home, and people at the time
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said, yeah, whatever, who would even want that in our pocket?
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Do you think there will be basically like in say say twenty fifty or whatever,
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that like a robot in most homes is what there will be on people
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will I think they probably them account on them. You'll have your own butler
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basically, yeah, you'll have your sort of buddy robot. Probably yeah,
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I mean how much of a buddy do you like? Do you do?
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How many applications you thought? Is there? You know, can you have
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a romantic partner, sex part I mean probably inevitable. I mean I did
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promise the Internet that I would make catgirals. We could make a robot catgal
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that, So yeah, I guess it'll be what what whatever? People want?
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Really? You know, So what sort of timeline should we be thinking
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about of the first the first models that are actually made and sold, Well,
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you know, the first units that that we tend to make are m
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for jobs that are dangerous, boring, repetitive, and things that people don't
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want to do. And you know, I think we'll have like an interesting
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prototype sometime this year. We might have something useful next year, but I
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think quite likely within at least two years, and then we'll see rabbit growth
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year over a year of the usefulness of the humor wid robots, an decrease
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in cost, and scaling out production initially just selling to businesses or when when
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do you picture you'll you'll sell You'll start selling them where you can buy your
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parents one for Christmas or something i'd see I listened ten years. Yeah,
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how how how help me on the economics of this? So what do you
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picture the cost of one of these being? Well, I think the cost
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is actually not going to be crazy high, um, like less than a
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car. Initially, things will be expensive because it'll be new technology at low
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production volume. The complexity and cost of a car is greater than that of
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a humanoid robot, so I would expect that it's going to be less than
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a car, or at least equivalent to a cheap car. So even if
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it starts at fifty k. Within a few years it's down to twenty K
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or lower or whatever, and maybe for home they'll get much cheaper still book,
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But thinking about the economics of this, if you can replace a thirty
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thousand dollars forty thousand dollars a year worker which you have to pay every year,
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with a one time payment of twenty five thousand dollars for a robot that
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can work longer hours, a pretty rapid replacement of certain types of jobs.
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How worried should the world be about that? I want to worry about the
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sort of putting people out of a job thing. I think we're actually going
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to have and already do have a massive shortage of labor. So I think
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I think we will have not not people out of work, but actually still
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a shortage labor even in the future. But this really will be a world
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of abundance. Any good and services will be available to anyone who wants them.
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That it will be so cheap to have goods and services will be ridiculous.
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And presuming it should be possible to imagine a bunch of goods and services
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that can't profitably be made now but could be made in that world. Courtesy
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of legions of robots. Yeah, it will be a world of abundance.
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The only scarcity that will exist in the future is that which we decide to
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create ourselves as humans. Okay, so AI is allowing us to imagine a
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differently powered economy that will create this abundance. What are you most worried about
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going wrong? Well, like I said, AI and roboducts will will bring,
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um, bring out what might be termed the age of abundance. Other
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people affuse this word um and and that this is my prediction, will be
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an age of abundance um for everyone. Um that that. I guess.
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There's the the dangers would be the artificial general intelligence or digital superintelligence d couples
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from a collective human world and goes into direction that for some reason we don't
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like, of whatever whatever direction might go. Um, you know, that's
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sort of sort of The idea behind neuralink is to try to more tightly couple
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collective human world to the two digital superintelligence and also along the way solve a
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lot of brain injuries and spinal injuries and that kind of thing. So even
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if it doesn't succeed in the greater goal, it will I think it will
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succeed in in the goal of alleviating brain and spine damage. So that the
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spirit there is that if we're going to make these ais that are so vastly
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intelligent, we ought to be wide directly to them so that we ourselves can
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have these superpowers more more directly. But that doesn't seem to avoid the risk
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that those superpowers might ten ugly and unintended. I think it's a risk.
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I agree, I don't. I'm not saying that I have some certain answer
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to that risk. I'm I'm just saying, like, like, maybe one
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of the things that would be good for ensuring that the future is one that
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we want is to more tightly couple human world, collective human world, to
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digital intelligence. UM. The issue that we face here is that we're already
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a sidewalk. If you think about it, the computers are an extension of
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ourselves, and when we die, there's like we have like a digital ghost
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all of our text messages and social media and emails. And it's quite eerie
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actually when someone dies and there but everything online is still there. But but
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you say, like, what's what's the limitation? What is it that UM
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in him? It's human machine symbiosis. It's the data rate. When you
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communicate, especially with a phone, you're moving your thumbs right very slowly,
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so you're like moving with two little meatsticks right at a rate that's maybe ten
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per second, optimistically one hundred pers per second. And computers are are communicating
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at the gigabit level beyond. Have you seen evidence that the technology is actually
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working that you've got You've got a richer sort of higher bandwidth connection, if
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you like, between external electronics and a brain than has been possible before.
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Yeah. So the I mean, the fundamental principles of reading neurons sort during
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rewrite on neurons with tiny electrodes have been demonstrated for decades. So it's not
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like this is the concept is near. What the problem is that there's no
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product that works well that you can go and and buy. So it's it's
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all sort of in research labs. Um, and it's it's not it's uh
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like there's there's always like some chords sticking out of your head and it's it's
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quite gruesome, and it's it's really, um, there's there's no good product
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that that that actually there's a good job and is high bandwidth and safe and
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something you'd actually that you could buy and would want to buy. So um.
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But but in it the way to think of the neural device is kind
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of like a fitbit or an Apple watch. Um that's uh, where we
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take out a sort of a small section of skull about the size of a
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quarter. Um replace that with what, in many ways really is very much
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like um uh, a fitbitt, Apple watch or some kind of smart watch
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thing. Um uh and um and and but but with with tiny tiny wires,
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very very very tiny wires tied to wires so tiny it's hard to even
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see them. And it's very important to have very tiny wires that you when
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they're implanted, they don't they don't damage the brain. How far are you
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from putting these into humans? Well, we have put in our FDA application
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to have the aspirationally do do the first human implant this year. The first
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uses will be for neurological injuries are different kinds, yes, But running the
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clock forward and imagining when when people are actually using these for their own enhancement,
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let's say, ahead, for the enhancement of the world. How clear
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are you in your mind as to what it will feel like to have one
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of these inside your head. Well, I do want epsides we're out of
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at an early stage and so m it really will be many years before we
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have anything approximating a high bound with neural interface that allows for AI human symbiosis.
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UM. For many years, we will just be solving brain injuries and
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spinal injuries from probably a decade UM. This is not something that will suddenly
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one day it'll will have this incredible sort of whole brain interface. It's going
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to be, like said, at least a decade of really just solving um
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of brain injuries and spinal injuries. And and really I think you can solve
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a very wide range of brain injuries including severe depression, morbid obesity, sleep
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perchancely schizophrenia, like a lot of things that cause great stress to people,
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restoring memory in all the people. If you can pull that off, that
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is that that's the APP I will sign up for. I wouldn't please hurry.
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Actually yeah, I mean the emails that we get at neural link or
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heartbreaking, UM, I mean that they'll send us just fragic you know,
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you know where where someone was was sort of in the prime of life and
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and and they had an accident on a motorcycle, and and and someone who's
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twenty five is you know, it can't even feed themselves and this is something
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we could fix. Um. But but you have you have said that AI
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is one of the things you're most worried about, and that neuralink may be
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one of the ways where we can keep abreast of it. Or yeah,
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it's it's there's there's the short term thing, which I think is helpful on
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an individual human level UM with injuries. And then the long term thing is
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an attempt to address the civilizational risk of AI by bringing bringing UM digital intelligence
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and biological intelligence closer together. I mean, if you think of the hell
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the brain works today, they're really kind of two layers to the brain.
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There's the Olympic system and the quartet seek about the kind of animal brain where
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it's kind of like the fun part really must have Twitter operates by the way.
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Yeah, I mean we're I think, like to Imban said this,
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like we're like we're like somebody's you know, stuck a computer on a monkey.
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Um, you know, so we're like, if you gave a monkey
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a computer, that's our cortex. But we still have a lot of monkey
22:19
instincts, right, So which we then try to rationalize it's no, it's
22:23
not a monkey instinct. It's something more important than that. But it's often
22:26
just really a monkey instinct. We're in this, we're just monkeys with a
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computer STU stuck in our brain. Um so um. Even though the cortex
22:36
is sort of the smart or the intelligent part of the brain, the thinking
22:40
part of the brain. UM, people are quite I've not yet met anyone
22:44
who wants to delete the olympic system or their cortex. They're quite happy having
22:47
both. Everyone wants both parts of their brain and um. And people really
22:52
want their phones and their computers, which are really the tertiary the third part
22:56
of of of your intelligence. It's just that it's it's like said that it's
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band with the rate of communication with that tertiary layer is slow. Um.
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And it's just a very tiny straw to those tertiary layer. And we want
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to make that tiny straw a big highway. UM. And I'm definitely not
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saying that this is going to solve everything, or this is you know,
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it's the only thing. It's it's it's something that that that might be helpful.
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Um. And And in worst case scenario, I think we solve some
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important brain injury spinal injury issues, and that's still a great outcome. Right
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best case scenario, we may discover new human possibility telepathy you've spoken of in
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a stal collection with With With with the loved One. You know, full
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memory UM and and much faster thought process than maybe all these things. It's
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very cool if AI were to take down Earth. We need a plan.
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B Let's let's shift to space. We spoke last up to about reusability,
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and you're just demonstrated that spectacular for the first time. Since then, you've
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gone on to build this monster rocket, Starship UM, which kind of changes
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the rules of the game in spectacular ways. Tell Us, tell us about
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Starship. Yes, Starship is extremely fundamental. So the holy grail of of
24:23
rocketry or space transport is full and rapid reusability. This has never been achieved.
24:29
The closest that UM anything has come as our Falcon Rand rocket, where
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we are able to recover the prey the first stage the boost age, which
24:37
is probably about sixty percent of the cast of the vehicle, um of the
24:42
whole launch maybe seventy percent, and we've now done that over one hundred times.
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So with Starship we will be recovering the entire thing. That's or at
24:56
least that's the goal, right um. And and and more of recovering it
25:00
in such a way that it can be immediately reflown. Whereas with Falconline we
25:04
still need to do some amount of refurbishment to the brewster and to the firing
25:08
one nose cone so um. But with Starship, the design goal is immediate
25:15
reflight, right, So you just you're just refill propellant and go again.
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And the this is gigantic, It just just as it would be in any
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other mode of transporting. And it's and the main design is and is to
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basically take what one hundred plus people at a time, plus a bunch of
25:38
things that they need to Mars. So talk first of all, talk talk
25:41
about that piece. What what is your latest timeline? One for the first
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time a starship goes to Mars, presumely without people but just equipment. Two
25:52
with people, three the sort of okay, one hundred people at a time,
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let's let's go. Sure we and I just put the cost thing into
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perspective. Um. The the cost of the expected cost of Starship putting one
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hundred tons into orbit UM is significantly less than what UM it would have cost,
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or what it did cost to put out our tiny Falcon one rocket into
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orbit. UM. Just as the cost of flying a seven forty seven around
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the world is less than the cost of a small airplane, you know,
26:30
a smaller plant that was thrown away. UM. So it's really pretty mind
26:36
boggling UM that that the giant thing costs less, way less than the small
26:40
thing. So it doesn't use sort of exotic propellants or things that are difficult
26:47
to obtain on Mars. UM. It uses methane's fuel and it's primarily auctions.
26:53
It's sort of roughly seventy seven seventy eight percent oxygen by weight UM.
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And Mars has a AR two atmosphere and has water ice which is ER two
27:03
plus H two. Oh, so you can make thh four methane and O
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two oxygen on Mars. There's manly. One of the first task on Mars
27:08
will be to create, yes, a fuel plant that can create the fuel
27:12
for the return trips of many starships. Yes, and actually it's mostly gonna
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an oxygen plant. But but it's it's because it's um. It's it's cool,
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it's seventy eight percent oxygen twenty two percent fuel. UM. But but
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but the fuel is a simple fuel that is easy to create on Mars Um
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and and and many other parts of the Solar systems. So basically um and
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it's all propulsive landing, no parachutes, UM, nothing's thrown away. UH
27:42
has a heat shield that's capable of entering on Earth or Mars. Um.
27:48
We could even potentially go to Venus. But it's not you don't want to
27:52
go there. It's Venus is hell almost literally, Um, but you you
27:59
could. It's a generalize a method of transport to to anywhere in the Solar
28:03
System because the point which you have a pellent deep on Mars, you can
28:07
then travel to the asteroid belt and to the moons of Jupiter and then to
28:11
the Saturn and ultimately anywhere in the Solar system. Right, but your man
28:17
for your main for focus and SpaceX's main focus is still Mars. Like that
28:22
that is that is the that is the mission, that is that is where
28:25
most of the effort will go. Yeah, or you are you actually imagining
28:30
a much broader array of uses even in the coming you know, the first
28:37
decade or so of use is of this where we could go, for example,
28:41
of the places and Solar System to explore. Perhaps NASA wants to use
28:47
the rocket for that reason. Yeah, now so, now so it is
28:51
planning to use a starship to return to the Moon, to return people to
28:55
the Moon. Um and so we're very honored that NASA has shown us to
29:00
do this. Um so. But I'm saying is it is a generalized it's
29:07
a it's a general solution to getting anywhere in the Greater Solar System. It's
29:15
not suitable for going to another star system, but it is a general solution
29:18
for transport anywhere in the in the Solar System. Before it can do any
29:22
of that, it's got to demonstrate it can get into orbit, you know,
29:25
around what what's what's what's what's what's your latest device on the on the
29:30
timeline for that, it's looking promising for us to have an orbital launch attempt
29:34
in in a few months UM. So we're actually integrating the we'll be integrating
29:42
the engines into the booster for the first orbital flight starting in about a week
29:48
or two UM and the launch complex itself is ready to go. So,
29:57
assuming we get regulatory approval, I think we could have a an orbital launch
30:03
attempt within a few months, and a radical new technology like this, presumably
30:07
there is real risk on those early sept that yeah, yeah, yeah,
30:11
Like I mean, the joke I make all the time is that excitement is
30:15
guaranteed. Success is not guaranteed, but excitement certainly is. But the last
30:19
less on your timeline, you've slightly put back the expected date to put the
30:25
first human on Mars till twenty twenty nine. I want to say, yeah,
30:30
I mean, so, let's see, I mean, we are we
30:33
have built a production system for starships, so we're making a lot of ships
30:37
and boosters. How many of your planning to make? Actually, well,
30:41
we're currently expecting to make a booster and a ship roughly every well, initially
30:49
roughly every couple of months, and hopefully by by the end this year,
30:53
one every month. So it's it's giant rockets, but a lot and a
30:56
lot of them. Just in terms of talking in terms of rough orders of
30:59
man. In order to create a self sustaining city on Mars, I think
31:03
that you will need something on the order of a thousand ships, and we
31:07
just need we just need a helen of Sparta. I guess on the Mars
31:15
this is not in most people's heads. The planet that launched a thousand ships.
31:19
That's that's nice, But this is not in most people's heads, this
31:22
picture that you have in your mind that so there's there's there's basically a two
31:26
year window. You can only really fly to Mars conveniently every two years.
31:30
Yes, you are still you were picturing that during during the twenty thirties,
31:34
every couple of years, something like a thousand starships take off, each containing
31:40
one hundred or more people. I mean that that picture is just completely mind
31:45
blowing to me, that that sense of this armada of humans going Battlestar Glad
31:51
together fleet departs, and you think that that it can basically be funded by
31:55
people spending maybe a couple hundred grand on a ticket to to Mars. Is
32:00
is that price about where where it has been? Well? I think it
32:04
say like, what's what's what's required in order to get enough people and enough
32:07
cargo to Mars to build a self sustaining city UM. And it's where you
32:14
have an intersection of sets of people who want to go, because I think
32:17
only a small percentage of humanity will want to go UM and can afford to
32:23
go or get sponsorship in some manner that intersection of sets I think needs to
32:29
be a million people or something like that. Um, and so it's what
32:32
what what can a million people afford or get sponsorship for or because I think
32:37
governments will also pay for it, and um, people can take out loans
32:40
and a. But I think at the point in which you say, okay,
32:45
okay, like if if moving to Mars costs are fragments, take um,
32:50
one hundred thousand dollars, then I think, um, you know,
32:53
almost anyone can can work and save up and and and eventually have one hundred
32:58
thousand dollars and be able to go to Mars if they want. We want
33:00
to make it available to anyone who wants to go. Yeah, So it
33:06
and and very important. Tom says that Mars, especially in the beginning,
33:09
will not be luxurious. It will be dangerous, cramped, difficult, hard
33:15
work. It's kind of like that Shackleton app for going to the Antarctic,
33:21
which I think is actually not real bit but it sounds real and it's cool.
33:24
It's sort of like the sales pitch we're going to Mars is it's it's
33:28
it's dangerous, it's cramped. You might not make it back. It's difficult,
33:35
it's hard work. That's the sales pitch. Right, you will make
33:38
history. Bet it'll be glorious. Right. Also, on that kind of
33:43
launch rate you're talking about, over two decades, you could get your million
33:46
people to to Mars. Essentially, whose city is it? Is it NASAs
33:51
City? Is it Space exus? It's the people of Marsas City. The
33:57
reason for this, I mean I actually like what we feel like, well,
34:00
why why? Why do this thing? It's I think this is important
34:04
for Max mice and the probable lifespan if of humanity or consciousness, human civilization
34:09
could come to an end for external reasons like giant meteor or super volcanoes,
34:15
or extreme climate change or World War three, or you know, anyone of
34:23
a number of reasons. Um and and but the probable lifespan of of civilizational
34:30
consciousness as we know it, um, which we should really view as this
34:35
very delicate thing, like a small candle in a vast darkness. That's that's
34:39
caught that that is what appears to be the case. Um. We're in
34:44
this vast darkness of space. Um, and there's this little candle of consciousness
34:50
that's only really come about after four and a half billion years and it could
34:55
just go out. I think that's powerful and I think I think a lot
34:58
of people will be inspired about that vision. And the reason so the reason
35:01
you need the million people is because they has to be enough people that to
35:05
do everything that you need to survived. It's really like the critical threshold is
35:12
um, if the ships from Earth stopped coming for any reason? Right?
35:16
Um? Does it? Does the Mars city die out or not? Right?
35:22
And and so we have to pass that. That's you know, people
35:25
talk about like these sort of the great filters, the things that perhaps um,
35:30
you know, we talk about the Fermi paradox and where are the aliens
35:32
and like, well, maybe the aliens didn't There is various great filters that
35:37
the aliens didn't pass, and and so they eventually just cease to exist.
35:42
And one of the great filters is becoming a multiplanet species. So we want
35:46
to pass that filter. Um. And And I'll be long dead before this
35:52
is, you know, a real real thing, before before it happens.
35:57
But I'd like I'd like to at least see us make a great progress in
36:01
this direction, given how tortured the Earth is right now, how much we're
36:06
beating each other up. Shouldn't there be discussions going on with everyone who is
36:13
dreaming about Mars to try to say, we've got a once in a civilization's
36:19
chance to make some new rules here is that it should someone be trying to
36:24
lead those discussions to figure out what it means for this to be the people
36:29
of Mars's city. Well, I think ultimately this will be up to the
36:31
people of Mars to decide what how they want to rethink society. Yeah,
36:38
there's there's certainly a risk there, and hopefully the people of Mars will be
36:45
more enlightened and will not afflight amongst each other too much. I mean,
36:50
I have some recommendations, but which people of Mars may choose to listen to
36:54
or not. And I would advocate for more of a direct democracy. You're
36:58
not a representative of democracy seeum and laws that are short enough for people to
37:01
understand um and where it is harder to create laws than to get rid of
37:08
them. Coming back a bit nearer term, I'd love you to just talk
37:12
a bit about some of the other possibility space that's Starship seems to have created.
37:19
So given given suddenly we've got this ability to move one hundred tons plus
37:22
into orbit. Yes, so we've just spent We've just launched the James Webb
37:27
telescope, which is an incredible thing. It's unbelievable, happens exiit piece of
37:31
technology, exquisite piece of technology. But people spent two years trying to figure
37:36
out how to fold up this thing. It's a three ton it's a three
37:38
ton telescope. We can make it a lot easier if you've got more volume
37:40
and mass. Well, so let's let's ask a different question, which is
37:45
what what what? How much more powerful a telescope could someone design based on
37:52
using Starship for example? I mean roughly, i't it's probably in order of
37:58
magnitude, more resolution if you've got a hundred tons and a thousand cubic leaders
38:01
volume, which is roughly what we have. And what about other explorations through
38:07
the Solar system. I mean, I'm you know, Europa, well,
38:10
Europa, good question, Mark, Right. So there's an ocean there,
38:14
right, and what you really want to do is to drop a submarine into
38:16
the Maybe there's like some squid civilization under the cephalopod civilization under the ice of
38:22
Europe that would be pretty interesting. I mean, you know, if you
38:24
could take a submarine to Europa and we see pictures of this thing being devoured
38:30
by a squid. That will honestly be the happiest moment of my life.
38:34
Very well, yeah, that would be. What what are the possibilities are
38:37
out there? Like? It feels like if you're going to create a thousand
38:42
of these things, they can only fly to Mars every two years, what
38:45
are they doing the rest of the time. It feels like there's this this
38:50
explosion of possibility that I don't think people are really thinking about. I mean,
38:54
I don't know if we've certainly got a long way to go, has
38:57
you alluded to earlier, We've we still have to get to orbit, and
39:00
then after we get to orbit, we have to um really prove out and
39:06
refine full and rapid reusability. That will take a moment um and but but
39:15
I do think we will solve this. I am I highly confident we will
39:20
solve this. At this point, do you have a wake up with the
39:22
fear that there's going to be this Hindenburg moment for SpaceX where we've had many
39:28
Hindenburg Well, we've we've never had Hindenburg moments with people, which is very
39:31
important big difference. We've blown up quite a few rockets, so there's we
39:36
have a there's a whole compilation online that we've put together and others put together.
39:40
It's showing rockets are hard. Um. I mean, the sure amount
39:44
of energy going through rockets boggles the mind. So yeah, you know,
39:49
getting out of both gravity well as difficult. We have a strong gravity and
39:52
a thick atmosphere, and and Mars which is less than forty percent. It's
39:59
like a of both gravity and has athan atmosphere. The ship alone can go
40:05
all the way from the surface of Mars to the surface of Earth, whereas
40:08
getting two Mars requires a giant booster and orbital refilling soon. So I think
40:15
more about this incredible array of things that you're involved with. I keep seeing
40:21
these synergies, to use a horrible word, but between them. You know,
40:27
for example, the robots you're building from Tesla could possibly be pretty handy
40:31
on Mars doing some of the dangerous work and so forth. I mean,
40:36
maybe there's a scenario where you're city on Mars doesn't need a million people,
40:39
it needs half a million people and half a million robots, And that's a
40:44
possibility. Maybe the boring company could play a role helping create some of the
40:49
subterranean dwelling spaces that you might need. Yeah, back on planet Earth,
40:55
it seems like a partnership between Boring Company and Tesla could offer an unbelievable deal
41:01
to a city to say we will create few a three D network of tannels
41:07
populated by robotaxis. Yeah, that will offer fast, low cost transport to
41:13
anyone. You know, full self driving mail may not be done this year
41:16
and then, and in some cities like someone like Mumbai, I suspect won't
41:21
be done for a decade, are more charging than others. But today today,
41:25
with what you've got, you could put a three D network of tannels
41:30
under there. It's just an internel. That's the sold problem exactly. Full
41:34
self driving is itself problems. So so to me, there's there's an amazing
41:37
synergy there. Um you're with with with Starship. You know quinchotwell talked about
41:43
by twenty twenty eight having from city to city, you know, transport on
41:46
planet This is a real possibility. It's a Yeah, the fastest way to
41:53
get from one place to another it's a long distance is a rocket. It's
41:58
it's basically I CBA, right, with the but it has to learn learning,
42:01
delete new because it's a nice CBM, it has to land probably offshore,
42:06
yes, lou So, So why not have a tunnel that then connects
42:13
to the city and neural Link. I mean, if you're going to go
42:17
to Mars having a telepathic connection with loved ones back home, even if there's
42:22
a time delay, I mean, if these are not intended to be connected
42:27
by the way they just but there should certainly could be some synergies. Yeah,
42:30
surely there is a growing argument that you should actually put all these things
42:36
together into one company and just just have a company devoted to creating a future
42:43
that's exciting and let a thousand flowers bloom. Have you have you been thinking
42:46
about that? I mean it is tricky because Tellsla's a publicly traded company,
42:52
and the investor base of Tesla and SpaceX, and certainly Boring Company and neural
42:59
Link are are quite different company our tiny companies just right, the audience may
43:06
yeah, it tells us got one hundred and ten thousand people. SpaceX I
43:09
think is around twelve thousand people. Boring Company and neural Link are both under
43:15
two hundred people. So there are little, little, tiny companies, but
43:21
they will probably get bigger in the future. They will get bigger in the
43:22
future. It's not that easy to sort of combine these things. Traditionally,
43:30
you've said that for SpaceX especially, you don't you wouldn't want to public because
43:32
public investors wouldn't support the craziness of the idea of going to Mars or whatever,
43:38
and you want to making life multiplanetaries is outside of the normal time horizon
43:45
of Wall Street analysts say the least, I think something's changed, though.
43:52
What's changed is that Tesla is now so powerful and so big and throws off
43:55
so much cash that you actually could connect the dots here, just tell the
44:01
public that X billion dollars or whatever your number is, will be diverted to
44:07
the Mars mission. I suspect you'd have massive interest in that company, and
44:13
it might. It might unlock a lot more possibility for you. Now,
44:17
I mean, I would like to give the public access to ownership of SpaceX,
44:22
But I mean the thing that, like the overhead associated with a polar
44:28
company is high, so I mean it's a poll company. You're just constantly
44:36
sued. It does occupy like a fair butt of you know, time and
44:43
effort to deal with these things, right, but you still only have one
44:46
public company. It would be bigger and have more things going on, but
44:51
instead of being on four boards, you'd be on one. I'm actually not
44:53
even on the neural link of warring company boards. Well yeah, and I
44:59
don't really atta and the space x board meetings, we only have two a
45:01
year, and I just stopped buying chat for an hour. Um, So
45:07
the boarder overhead for a public company is much higher, right. I think
45:10
some investors probably worry about how your time is being split, and they would
45:14
be they might be excited by you know that, that's anyway I am.
45:19
I just I just work up the other day. I think I think it
45:21
just there are so many ways in which these things connect, and and you
45:24
know that just the note, the simplicity of that mission of building a future
45:30
that is worth getting excited about might might appeal to um an awful lot of
45:35
people. Um elon, you are reported by Forbes and everyone else's as now
45:42
you know the worlds, which is person that's not a sovereign, you know,
45:45
I think it's fair to say that if somebody is like the killing or
45:50
the facto king of a country, they're wealthier than I am. So,
45:54
but it's just harder to measure. But what people do so three hundred million
45:58
dollars, I mean, your your net worth on any given day is rising
46:05
or fall late by several billion dollars. How say, yeah, I mean
46:09
does that? How do you? How do you handle that? Psychologically?
46:13
There aren't many people in the world who have to even think about that.
46:15
I actually don't think about that too much. But the the thing that is
46:20
actually more more difficult and that does make sleeping difficult, is that, you
46:27
know, every good hour or even minute of thinking about TISLA and SpaceX has
46:35
such a big effect on the company that I really try to work as as
46:38
much as possible, you know, to to the edge of sanity, basically,
46:45
because the tela's getting to the point where probably we'll get to the point
46:51
later this year where every good, every high quality minute of thinking, um
46:58
is a million dollars to impact on Tesla. So, which is insane?
47:05
Um so UM? I mean the basic you know, if if Tesla's doing
47:12
you know of a sort of two billion dollars a week, let's say in
47:15
revenue, is sort of three hundred million dollars a day, seven days a
47:21
week. You know, it's if you can change that by five percent in
47:27
an hour's brainstorm, that that those those ant be valuable. That's a pretty
47:31
valuable hour. I mean there are many many instances where a half hour meeting
47:37
I was able to improve the finacial account of the company by one hundred million
47:43
dollars in a half hour meeting. There are many other people out there who
47:46
who who can't stand this world of billionaires like they are hugely offended by the
47:53
notion that's an individual can have the same wealth as as say billion of or
48:00
more of the world's porous people if they examine sort of the sort of I
48:05
think there's some axiomatic flows, um, that that are leading to them to
48:08
that conclusion. If for sure, it would be very problematic if I was
48:14
consuming you know, billions of dollars a year in personal consumption. But that
48:19
is not the case. Um. In fact, I don't even own a
48:21
home right now. I'm literally staying at friends places. I if I travel
48:25
to the Bay Area, which where most subtails and engineering is, I stayed
48:30
in my I basically rotate through friends spare bedrooms. Um, I don't have
48:35
a yacht. I really don't take vacations. So, UM, it's not.
48:39
It's not as though there's um that that my personal consumption is high with.
48:45
I mean, the one exception is a plane. But if I don't
48:45
use the plane, then I have less hours to work. So UM,
48:51
I mean I personally think you have shown that you are mostly driven by really
48:55
quite a deep set some moral purpose, Like you've tried your your your your
49:00
attempts to solve the climate problem have been as powerful as anyone else on the
49:07
planet that I'm aware of, And I actually can't can't understand personally. I
49:09
can't understand the fact that you get all this criticism from the left about oh
49:14
my god, he's so rich, that's disgusting, when when climate is their
49:19
issue. Um, philanthropy is is a topic that some people go to.
49:22
Philanthropy is a hard topic, like how how do you think about that?
49:27
Um? I think if you if you care about the reality of goodness instead
49:30
of the perception of it, philanthropy is extremely difficult. Um. SpaceX,
49:35
Tesla neural linked boring company are philanthropy. If you say philanthropy is love of
49:39
humanity, they are philanthropy. There. Tesla is accelerating sustainable energy. This
49:49
is a love of full entropy. SpaceX is trying to ensure the long term
49:54
survival of humanity with multiplied species. This is love of humanity. Um,
50:00
you know, neural Link is to help solve rain, injuries and existential whisk
50:07
with ai love of humanity. Boring Company is trying to solve traffic, which
50:10
is health most people. And that also it's not a humanity. It's how
50:16
how upsetting is it to you to hear this constant drum beat of billionaires?
50:23
My guard elon musk, Oh, my god, like is that do you
50:27
do? You do? You just shrug that offer? Does it? Does
50:29
it actually hurt? I mean, at this point, it's water off a
50:34
duck's back. You know, I'd like to as we wrap up now,
50:37
just pull the camera back and just think you're a father and I have seven
50:44
surviving kids, and and well, I mean, I'm trying to say a
50:46
good example, because the birth rate on Earth is so low that we're facing
50:50
civilizational collapse unless the birth rate returns to a sustainable level. Yeah, You've
50:57
talked about this a lot. The depopulation is a big problem and we we
51:00
yes, people don't. Understulation is one of the biggest threats of the future
51:05
of human civilization. And that is what it's going on right now. How
51:07
what what drives you on a day to day basis to do what you do?
51:13
I guess like I really want to make sure that there is a good
51:16
future for humanity and that we're on a path to understanding the nature of the
51:22
universe, the meaning of life. Why are we here? How do we
51:27
get here? And in order to understand the nature of the universe and all
51:35
these fundamental questions, we must expand the scope and scale of consciousness. Certainly
51:43
it must not diminish or go out. We certainly we weren't understand this.
51:45
So I always say, I'm motivated by curiosity more than anything, UM,
51:50
and just desire to think about the future and not be sad. You know,
51:57
and and are you? Are you not sad? I'm sometimes sad,
52:02
but mostly I'm I'm I mean not feeling I guess relatively optimistic about the future
52:08
these days. UM, there are certainly, UM, some big risks that
52:14
humanity faces. I think that the population collapse is a really big deal that
52:19
I wish more people would would think about, UM, because the birth rate
52:24
is far below what it's needed to sustain civilization as current at its current level.
52:30
And ye know, there's obviously we need to take action on climate sustainability,
52:37
which is being done UM. And we need to secure the future of
52:43
consciousness by being a multiplane of species. UM. We need to address the
52:47
Essentially, it's important to take whatever actions we can think of to address the
52:52
existential risks that affect the future of consciousness. There's there's a whole generation coming
52:57
through who seem really sad about the future. What would you say to them,
53:02
Well, I think if you want the future to be good, you
53:05
must make it so take action to make it good and it will be Yellen,
53:13
thank you for all this time. That is a beautiful place to end.
53:16
Thanks for all that you're doing. You're welcome.