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Latest Interview of Elon Musk: The Future of Technology in Warfare! · Elon Musk Thinking

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Speaker 1: You must thank you very much for being here, sir.
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Speaker 2: We appreciate it's not hot to be here.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really great, honor.
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Speaker 1: Well, we're really excited for you to help us kick
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Speaker 1: off our intellectual theme, Human in the Machine, which is
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Speaker 1: leadership on the emerging battlefield, and we want to make
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Speaker 1: sure that the academy the cadets are focused on not
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Speaker 1: tomorrow but the next twenty thirty forty years. And underlying
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Speaker 1: the entire theme is an emphasis on the importance of
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Speaker 1: preparing cadets for future warfare and really where humans and
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Speaker 1: machines intersect. It's as if your background was made for
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Speaker 1: this theme. However, Sure, I actually talked to quite a
0:33
Speaker 1: few people and they really don't know who you are,
0:36
Speaker 1: so neither do I. Yeah, so I thought I should
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Speaker 1: tell people a little bit about your bio. Who are
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Speaker 1: we really? Yeah, you'll make a company that figures it out, sir.
0:45
Speaker 1: All right, So if you don't know, if you don't know,
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Speaker 1: and this is ridiculous, of course you know, but I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna do Anyways. Elon Musk sitting next to me, co
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Speaker 1: founded and leads or leads x Tesla SpaceX Neurolink. Here's
1:00
Speaker 1: my favorite as an academic the boring company. That's good.
1:04
Speaker 2: That was good.
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Speaker 3: Come on, I thought it as a joke.
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Speaker 1: Yeah it did. That's real. That's awesome. By the way,
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Speaker 1: you have a new company also, XAI. And that's all
1:12
Speaker 1: of them, unless you started one this morning. I don't
1:14
Speaker 1: know about I'm not sure right, but basically what this
1:17
Speaker 1: means is everybody in this room has the opportunity, based
1:21
Speaker 1: on these companies, to drive a futuristic electric truck through
1:24
Speaker 1: a gigantic underground tunnel while using a digital connection in
1:27
Speaker 1: their brain to start a rocket, while simultaneously getting updates
1:31
Speaker 1: on Army football. His innovations have revolutionized electric vehicles, batteries,
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Speaker 1: space exploration, advanced human machine interactions, made information instant, access
1:44
Speaker 1: to information instantaneous, and have starting to help integrate AI
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Speaker 1: throughout our daily lives. After the convocation, I'm hoping to
1:51
Speaker 1: have a little bit of time so you can give
1:52
Speaker 1: me some personal tips, because somehow you have founded and
1:55
Speaker 1: lead multiple companies. You're a father to multiple children, and
1:59
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted after two hours of coaching one's kids sport.
2:02
Speaker 1: That's sure, So whatever you can do to help me out,
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Speaker 1: I'd appreciate it. So we have cadets and staff and
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Speaker 1: faculty who can speak on multiple disciplinary perspectives that would
2:11
Speaker 1: interest you. Drone swarms, electric batteries and molecular brain science, engineering, psychology, philosophy, law,
2:17
Speaker 1: Chinese language. But that's just the start. I think this
2:20
Speaker 1: one particularly relevant because we can even cover the intense
2:24
Speaker 1: science of boxing with our world class Department of Physical Education,
2:28
Speaker 1: just in case, you never know, some random head of
2:30
Speaker 1: state challenges you to a fight. You know, I did
2:33
Speaker 1: challenge Putin to one on one combat. Did you take it?
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Speaker 2: No?
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Speaker 3: And then I was like, I was like, I actually
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Speaker 3: on you know, the x FK Twitter, I said, I
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Speaker 3: hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to one on one combat, and
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Speaker 3: I made sure to use his name in Russian cerrillic.
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Speaker 3: And then I said, and the stakes saw Ukraine and
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Speaker 3: the use of Ukraine and Ukrainian curillic and uh and
3:01
Speaker 3: then and then and then the people thought I wasn't serious,
3:03
Speaker 3: and like, no, I'm absolutely serious. I mean, he he
3:06
Speaker 3: does have he has ah, you know he's good at judo.
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Speaker 3: I hear and uh, I think would be I mean
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Speaker 3: the paper view and loan on that would be incredible.
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Speaker 1: I could get everybody in here to start channing twomen
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Speaker 1: in or one line leaves tumin in or one man leaves.
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Speaker 3: So but I'd watch that and I'm in it.
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Speaker 1: So I will tell you that our thirty first Superintendent
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Speaker 1: Douglas MacArthur once said, there's no substitute for victory. Yeah,
3:34
Speaker 1: and when it when it comes to fighting, it's not
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Speaker 1: just our military, but it's also the whole country and
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Speaker 1: the whole industrial base. Yeh, that's so important. And you've
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Speaker 1: innovated across so many areas, whether it's beneath O's surface
3:44
Speaker 1: to outer space and everything in between. And we're again
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Speaker 1: truly truly grateful for you to be here as we
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Speaker 1: start to talk about some of these some of these
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Speaker 1: things that you've been working on. As you look into
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Speaker 1: the audience, I just want to give you a bit
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Speaker 1: of context. A lot of these are the leaders who
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Speaker 1: will face our nation's most complex and challenges going forward.
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Speaker 1: We have our cadets who will serve as army officers,
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Speaker 1: leading hundreds and eventually thousands of soldiers through this complexity
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Speaker 1: that we talk about. And we also have our faculty
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Speaker 1: and who are preparing them to do just what I
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Speaker 1: just said, lead through these complex situations, and many of
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Speaker 1: our faculty will also re enter the army and be
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Speaker 1: required to lead. Thank you for taking the time to
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Speaker 1: help us think deeper and inform us as we start
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Speaker 1: to inform our cadets on how we can be successful
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Speaker 1: not just fighting, but winning in the contemporary and future
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Speaker 1: battle space. So let me start with this broad question,
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Speaker 1: how do you see warfare transforming in the future.
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Speaker 3: I mean, the biggest effect I think by far as
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Speaker 3: AI and drones. So the next well, in fact, the
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Speaker 3: current war in Ukraine is very much a drone war already.
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Speaker 3: It's sort of a contest between Russia and China to
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Speaker 3: see who can deploy the most number of drones. Now,
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Speaker 3: if there's a major power war, it's very much going
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Speaker 3: to be a drone war. It's it's going to be
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Speaker 3: drones and AI. And you know it's a sort of
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Speaker 3: I mean, I do worry about the existential risk of AI,
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Speaker 3: which is that if you if you employ AI and drones,
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Speaker 3: do you do you go down this path where eventually
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Speaker 3: you get to terminator. You know, try to avoid that.
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Speaker 3: That'd be good, that would be good, minimize the terminator risk.
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Speaker 3: But but I mean, essentially, if your are when you're
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Speaker 3: when you're making military drones, you are making terminators, and
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Speaker 3: when you're I think you're you're somewhat be forced into
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Speaker 3: giving localized the dron localized AI because if the AI
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Speaker 3: is far away, it can't control as well as localized AI.
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Speaker 1: So what do you mean by localized the.
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Speaker 3: Meaning it's autonomous scaling machine.
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Speaker 1: Completely autonomous.
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Speaker 3: Well, you give it the okay, yeah, in a particular arena,
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Speaker 3: and it's just and it.
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Speaker 1: Goes with certain parameters. Yeah, hopefully do you think our
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Speaker 1: you think our adversaries will have those same type of
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Speaker 1: concerns or limitations.
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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean it depends on how much existential
6:32
Speaker 3: risk there is in these wars. So if it's if
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Speaker 3: it's a regional war, I think it'll be more temperate.
6:39
Speaker 3: If it goes beyond a regional war, then it's all
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Speaker 3: bets roll and you know, and then you just started
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Speaker 3: playing things that you really wouldn't want it to fly.
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Speaker 3: So hopefully that doesn't happen, but.
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Speaker 1: You would, but you said it, and I would agree
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Speaker 1: that if you just look at the contemporary conflicts that
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Speaker 1: are taking place, you would agree that machines aren't just
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Speaker 1: disrupting war fora they're now commonplace.
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Speaker 2: H drones, drones are going to be overwhelmingly the.
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Speaker 3: What what matters in any in any between, you know,
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Speaker 3: any powers that have significant technology. It's so my personal
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Speaker 3: belief is like that, you really it'll actually be my
7:21
Speaker 3: I think probably too dangerous to have humans at the front.
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Speaker 3: It's it's growns, it's grones at the front.
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Speaker 1: It's too dangerous, don't miss because of the lethality. Then
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Speaker 1: it's too dangerous to have humans at the front.
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Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I mean if you've seen in some
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Speaker 3: of the computer controlled sniper rifles, I mean, they just
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Speaker 3: don't miss. So you're in the you're you're finding a
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Speaker 3: machine that it's gonna you know, aim with micro level
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Speaker 3: accuracy and.
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Speaker 2: Never gets tired.
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Speaker 1: So how do you think the United States should be
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Speaker 1: levering technology to further a national defense?
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Speaker 3: Well, I think we probably need to invest in drones.
8:05
Speaker 3: The the United States is strong in terms of the
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Speaker 3: technology of the items, but the production rate is low,
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Speaker 3: so it's it's a it's a small number of units
8:19
Speaker 3: relatively speaking. But yeah, but with basically I think there's
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Speaker 3: there's a there's a there's.
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Speaker 2: A production rate issue.
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Speaker 3: Like the you like, how fast can you make drones?
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Speaker 3: If you say there's a drone conflict, the outcome of
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Speaker 3: that during conflict will be how many drones does each
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Speaker 3: side have in that particular skirmish at times of kill ratio?
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Speaker 3: So if you've got you can have a if let's
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Speaker 3: say we would the United States would have a durn
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Speaker 3: set of drones that have have a high kill ratio,
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Speaker 3: But then the other side has four more drones. If
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Speaker 3: you've got a two to one kill ratio, the other
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Speaker 3: side has four times many drones, You're still gonna lose.
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Speaker 1: Do you think our industrial base can scale to make
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Speaker 1: the volume of drones that you're you're just you're you're.
9:01
Speaker 2: You know talking about. I think that's that's going to
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Speaker 2: be the same.
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Speaker 3: The biggest challenge that that is it can scale, but
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Speaker 3: it is not currently scaling.
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Speaker 1: Why would that be?
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Speaker 3: I think the procurement is still I mean, this is
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Speaker 3: I mean, I read a lot of military history and
9:21
Speaker 3: and actually like the thing that I go to sleep
9:25
Speaker 3: with is using an audio book on on on military
9:29
Speaker 3: history on of one kind or another. So I find
9:32
Speaker 3: the subject very interesting. And one of the things that
9:36
Speaker 3: tends to happen is that countries pretty much are geared
9:42
Speaker 3: up to fight the last war, not the next war.
9:45
Speaker 3: And it's it's hard to change. I mean, you look
9:48
Speaker 3: at the the uniforms at the start of World War
9:51
Speaker 3: One and the tactics and strategies they use. The sought
9:54
Speaker 3: of World War One, they were not significantly different from.
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Speaker 2: Than Napoleonic era.
9:59
Speaker 3: You know, the the French room watching it to war
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Speaker 3: with brightly colored uniforms look great.
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Speaker 2: That's that's that's not what you want to be.
10:10
Speaker 3: You know, when somebody starting to pointing, you don't want
10:11
Speaker 3: a great look in uniform. You want to you want
10:14
Speaker 3: to inflement planes in So there's a tenancy to be
10:19
Speaker 3: gearing up to fight the last war in the last
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Speaker 3: one of the US four is kind of the Cold War,
10:23
Speaker 3: I guess. So, uh, it usually takes like some kind
10:30
Speaker 3: of shock factor to adjust. I would recommend adjusting now.
10:39
Speaker 3: And and you are seeing some startups like Andrel and
10:42
Speaker 3: a few others that are.
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Speaker 2: Have different mindset.
10:48
Speaker 3: But it's really it's it's it's it's gonna be can
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Speaker 3: you make a lot of drones? And what's the kill ratio?
10:54
Speaker 3: That's what it comes down to.
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Speaker 1: So there was recently a report that said that President Lensky.
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Speaker 1: By February twenty twenty five, there'll be a million drones
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Speaker 1: produced by the Ukrainian So it seems like it's doable.
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Speaker 1: And this might be a process question. And we'll talk
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Speaker 1: about process in a second. But as you were, as
11:11
Speaker 1: you were just talking, I was thinking about and you
11:13
Speaker 1: said that you can't have humans at the front, and
11:15
Speaker 1: so you haven't created a company that's solved aging yet,
11:18
Speaker 1: have you?
11:19
Speaker 2: No?
11:20
Speaker 1: Okay, so one hundred years.
11:22
Speaker 2: I wonder whether we should solve aging. There's a ques
11:25
Speaker 2: you know.
11:25
Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah, I'd like to wrap it
11:28
Speaker 1: up sometimes right, well it's.
11:29
Speaker 3: Like hot, yeah, how long do you want to putin?
11:33
Speaker 2: And Kim joguntlove that's a great point.
11:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, But let's say you go first. Let's say you
11:38
Speaker 1: go forward to fifty hundred years. How do you envision
11:42
Speaker 1: this evolution? And I think this might get to neurolink.
11:44
Speaker 1: How do you see this evolution between the human who
11:47
Speaker 1: maybe can't be at the front any longer, the technologies
11:50
Speaker 1: at the front yet keeping them integrated and synchronized, Like
11:54
Speaker 1: how does that? How is that going to work? In
11:55
Speaker 1: your mind?
11:58
Speaker 3: I mean, canmunications is essential? Like it is actually very
12:05
Speaker 3: important to have space based communications that are it cannot
12:09
Speaker 3: be intercepted, which is which is starlink.
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Speaker 2: Stallink offers Staalink is.
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Speaker 3: Starlink is the backbone of the Ukrainian military communication system
12:20
Speaker 3: because it can't be blocked by the Russians, essentially the
12:25
Speaker 3: only thing that can't be so on the front lines,
12:27
Speaker 3: all the fiber connections are cut, the cell towers are
12:30
Speaker 3: blown up, and the geostationary satellite links are jammed. The
12:34
Speaker 3: only thing that is jammed is starlink, so so the
12:37
Speaker 3: only thing and then GPS is also jammed. The GPS
12:42
Speaker 3: signal is very faint, but stallink can offer location capability
12:47
Speaker 3: as well, so it is a strategic advantage that's very significant.
12:53
Speaker 3: And when you're trying to communicate with the drones, the
12:56
Speaker 3: drones need to like basically they need to know where
12:59
Speaker 3: they are and they need to receive instructions. So if
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Speaker 3: you don't have communications and positioning, then the drawings dont work.
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Speaker 3: So that's that's that's quite important. It's essential.
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Speaker 1: But do you find it important that there's still that
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Speaker 1: that communication between the human and the machine or the drum.
13:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and there's like.
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Speaker 3: It's a different question of like, where are things like
13:23
Speaker 3: right now versus where we'll things be in ten years.
13:30
Speaker 3: But I have to say I do look at the
13:31
Speaker 3: future with some trepidation. I have to have some deliberate
13:35
Speaker 3: suspension of disbelief to sleep sometimes because I think the
13:41
Speaker 3: we're headed into a pretty wild future. And I'm n
13:44
Speaker 3: actually an optimistic person. So yeah, but but AI is
13:50
Speaker 3: going to be so good, including a localized AI. I mean,
13:55
Speaker 3: at the count rates, you'll have, you know, some of
14:00
Speaker 3: that sort of rock level AI probably that can be
14:05
Speaker 3: run on a drone, and so you could literally say,
14:13
Speaker 3: you know, this is the equipment that the drone needs
14:18
Speaker 3: to destroy. Going to that thing and recognize what equipment
14:22
Speaker 3: needs to be destroyed and take it out.
14:24
Speaker 1: There's a lot of your work of Neurolink, though, is
14:27
Speaker 1: to because what you're saying is that AI is going
14:29
Speaker 1: to quickly surpass, at least in your estimation, the humans
14:34
Speaker 1: ability to control it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, I mean I'd like to say no, but
14:45
Speaker 3: the answer is yes.
14:46
Speaker 1: So how first off, how long until you think that happens?
14:49
Speaker 1: Before that the AI has has evolved to the point
14:53
Speaker 1: where and I you know, the AIS can start working
14:57
Speaker 1: together even relying on computers like in a d Hall
15:00
Speaker 1: old way, and therefore surpasses the ability for the human
15:04
Speaker 1: to be able to influence how it's working.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think humans will be able to influence how
15:12
Speaker 3: it's working for a long time. This is an esoteric
15:18
Speaker 3: subject that what really goes into pretty well speculation. I
15:27
Speaker 3: think it's sort of agree that the AIS, I think,
15:30
Speaker 3: will want humans as a source of will. So if
15:36
Speaker 3: you think of how the human mind works, there's limit
15:39
Speaker 3: system and the cortex. You're sort of your kind of
15:44
Speaker 3: base instincts and the sort of thinking and planning part
15:47
Speaker 3: of your brain. But you also have a tertiary layer already,
15:50
Speaker 3: which is that all of the electronics that you use,
15:53
Speaker 3: your phones, computers, applications, so you're already sort of have
15:58
Speaker 3: three layers of intelligence, but all of those the cortex
16:04
Speaker 3: and the machine intelligence, you're sort of cybernetic third layer.
16:08
Speaker 3: It's trying to make the Limbic system happy, because the
16:10
Speaker 3: Olympic system is.
16:11
Speaker 2: A source a source of will.
16:13
Speaker 3: So there's some you know, it might be that that
16:17
Speaker 3: the AIS just want to make the humans happy. And
16:23
Speaker 3: part of what your links trying to do is improve
16:25
Speaker 3: the communication bandwidth between the cortex and the digital tertiary layer.
16:31
Speaker 3: Because our bandwidth band output bandwidth of a human is
16:34
Speaker 3: less than one but per second per day, there's eighty
16:36
Speaker 3: six thousand, four hundred seconds in a day. You don't
16:39
Speaker 3: output eighty six thousand, four hundred tokens. So yes, it's
16:46
Speaker 3: like the number of words that I can say at
16:48
Speaker 3: this forum you saying just like, just look at it
16:51
Speaker 3: from an information theory standpoint, how much information am I
16:54
Speaker 3: able to convey? Not that much because I can only
16:56
Speaker 3: say a few number of words. And in order to
16:58
Speaker 3: in order to convey an idea, I have to take
17:01
Speaker 3: a concept in my head. I have to compress it
17:03
Speaker 3: down to a small number of words. Try to aspirationally
17:07
Speaker 3: model how you would decompress those words into concepts in
17:10
Speaker 3: your own mind. That's communication. So your brain is doing
17:13
Speaker 3: a lot of compression decompression and then has a very
17:16
Speaker 3: small output bandwidth. Neuralink can increase that bandwidth by several
17:23
Speaker 3: orders and magnitude. And also you don't have to spend
17:27
Speaker 3: as much time compressing thoughts into a small number of words.
17:31
Speaker 3: You can do conceptual clepathy. That is the idea behind
17:36
Speaker 3: your links. So it is intended to be a mitigation
17:42
Speaker 3: against AI existential risk.
17:44
Speaker 1: You talk about alignment, Can you explain what you mean
17:48
Speaker 1: by alignment to help everyoners.
17:51
Speaker 3: In Yeah, just is AI going to do things that
17:56
Speaker 3: make civilization better, make people happy or will it be
18:01
Speaker 3: contrary to uh humanity? Will will will it foster humanity
18:08
Speaker 3: or not will be against humanity? So obviously we want
18:10
Speaker 3: an AI that will fuster humanity. I think you developed
18:14
Speaker 3: me an AI to fuster humanity because I've thought about
18:17
Speaker 3: AI safety for a long time. I think I've had
18:22
Speaker 3: probably one thousand hours of discussion about this, and my
18:26
Speaker 3: ultimate conclusion is that the best course for AI safety
18:29
Speaker 3: is to have an AI that is maximally truth seeking
18:33
Speaker 3: and also curious.
18:35
Speaker 2: And if you have both of those things, I think.
18:37
Speaker 3: It will foster it will naturally foster humanity because you
18:41
Speaker 3: will want to see how humanity develops. Humanity is more
18:45
Speaker 3: interesting than not humanity, you know.
18:48
Speaker 2: I like Mars.
18:49
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of oas obviously, and I think
18:54
Speaker 3: we should become a multi planet civilization. Like that's that's
18:59
Speaker 3: very important that the purpose of SpaceX is to make
19:03
Speaker 3: life multiplanetary. That's the reason I created the company, and
19:08
Speaker 3: and that's the reason that we have the starship development
19:10
Speaker 3: in South Texas. That rocket is far, far too big
19:14
Speaker 3: for just satellites. It's it's an intendant to establish life
19:19
Speaker 3: on Mars, not just that, you know, said astronauts there briefly,
19:23
Speaker 3: but to build a city on Mars. And that's ultimately
19:26
Speaker 3: self sustaining. So but getting back to AI, the if
19:32
Speaker 3: you've got a true c A I that is actually curious.
19:35
Speaker 3: My neural net, my biological ural net says that that's
19:39
Speaker 3: going to be the safest outcome because it's, like I said,
19:46
Speaker 3: wildlike Mars. You could Mars is not as interesting as
19:50
Speaker 3: Earth because there's no human civilization there, or thought of
19:54
Speaker 3: another way, if you're if you're if you want to
19:57
Speaker 3: render Mars, Rendering Mars is pretty it's basically red red
20:01
Speaker 3: rocks on a looks kind of like some parts of Arizona.
20:04
Speaker 2: You know, there's not a lot of people.
20:07
Speaker 3: It's it's just it's that's it's easy to render. It's
20:10
Speaker 3: rendered like to Mars. But but but rendering human civilization
20:14
Speaker 3: much more, much hotter, mutch, more complex, much more interesting.
20:18
Speaker 3: And so I think I'm curious to the taking a
20:21
Speaker 3: I would fuster the humanity and want to see where
20:23
Speaker 3: it goes.
20:25
Speaker 1: But that relies on requires trust between the human and
20:29
Speaker 1: the machine. And that's where I want to ask you
20:32
Speaker 1: a question on this. So the army leaders in the
20:35
Speaker 1: Army are no strangers to implement any new technologies. Think
20:39
Speaker 1: about how GPS, for example, transform navigation. It'd be unheard
20:42
Speaker 1: of not to use GPS today, Bhen I was a lieutenant,
20:47
Speaker 1: no one used GPS. So recently I was watching this
20:50
Speaker 1: incredibly important realistic documentary called Top Gun Maverick. Yeah, and
20:58
Speaker 1: in it, I learned it's really good. It's really good.
21:02
Speaker 3: It's it's I mean, if you don't want to think
21:04
Speaker 3: about the plot too closely, but it's in a great movie.
21:07
Speaker 1: It's a fantastic movie. I learned that Tom Cruise is
21:10
Speaker 1: actually not an actor. He's like a pilot apparently. But
21:14
Speaker 1: he taught me something really important in it. He says
21:16
Speaker 1: it's about the pilot, not the plane. And right, that's
21:19
Speaker 1: right before she defeats a fifth generation fighter with a
21:21
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy fourteen.
21:23
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, So I mean, just go with a biplane.
21:28
Speaker 1: There you go. Tom Cruise could do it. But in it,
21:32
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a bit of a cynicism or
21:35
Speaker 1: a cynical view of the need for technology. It's like, hey,
21:38
Speaker 1: technology is a perflus. Humans can do it, but we
21:41
Speaker 1: know that's I don't. I don't question Tom Cruise a lot.
21:45
Speaker 1: I don't ever question Tom Cruise. I'm just kidding, But
21:49
Speaker 1: I guess the question is how do we get humans
21:52
Speaker 1: to be able to trust the machines because there is
21:54
Speaker 1: a lot of stories. For example, we just recently had
21:56
Speaker 1: a conversation where where a pilot patch pilots we're given
22:00
Speaker 1: new technology and they're like, we're not going to use
22:02
Speaker 1: it because we don't really trust it, So they use it,
22:05
Speaker 1: And so how do you get the how do you
22:06
Speaker 1: when new technology is implemented, we have to be able
22:09
Speaker 1: to trust, especially if it's going to be the difference
22:11
Speaker 1: maker to win. So how do we do that? How
22:14
Speaker 1: do we build the trust between the human and the machine?
22:17
Speaker 3: Well, I don't, I don't. I think we shouldn't just
22:19
Speaker 3: automatically trust these things. I mean, I think you want
22:23
Speaker 3: you want to test it out. You're gonna do a
22:26
Speaker 3: lot of testing and see how it actually works in
22:31
Speaker 3: a conflict that's small scale, and then scale it up
22:33
Speaker 3: if if it's effective. But yeah, I mean I have
22:40
Speaker 3: to say like, I'm not sure, for example, that there
22:42
Speaker 3: is a unfortunately this is not air force gathering, but
22:47
Speaker 3: there's there's not No, I'm not sure there's a lot
22:49
Speaker 3: of opportunity for fighter pilots because I think the if
22:55
Speaker 3: you've got a drown swarm coming at you, well, what
23:01
Speaker 3: the pilots of liability in the fire plane? To be honest,
23:05
Speaker 3: So you know, if you say that you compare a
23:12
Speaker 3: drone versus a fighter plane, how easy is it to
23:15
Speaker 3: make a drone?
23:16
Speaker 2: You could? Could? You can?
23:18
Speaker 3: It's an orderomatitude maybe a hundred at least at least ten,
23:21
Speaker 3: maybe a hundred times easier to make the drone, and
23:23
Speaker 3: you can afford to sacrifice the drones, whereas the pilots.
23:26
Speaker 3: You don't want to sacrifice the pilots. So my guess
23:29
Speaker 3: is that actually the age of human piloted fighter aircraft
23:34
Speaker 3: is coming to an end.
23:37
Speaker 1: If that's the case, then there's a there's a question
23:42
Speaker 1: that is oftentimes debated and law and ethics debates about
23:47
Speaker 1: killer robots. Yes, and really are these things that should
23:52
Speaker 1: we be willing to lean so forward with the technology
23:55
Speaker 1: that we start to supplant the human pilot with the
23:58
Speaker 1: technology and where is that go And so what are
24:01
Speaker 1: your thoughts as we talk about technology replacing humans on
24:05
Speaker 1: the battlefield.
24:09
Speaker 3: Well, I guess what I'm saying is that the at
24:13
Speaker 3: the front of the battle lines is going to be
24:15
Speaker 3: just drones and any humans quote in the crossfire are
24:18
Speaker 3: going to get will be killed.
24:21
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a it's then then it's irrelevant.
24:23
Speaker 1: It's just going to be that. It's just going to
24:25
Speaker 1: be the way military operations take place. There isn't going
24:27
Speaker 1: to be if you make the choice to be there,
24:29
Speaker 1: then you're you're at a significant disadvantage.
24:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's to just think like
24:36
Speaker 3: you got drones that that you know are constantly scanning,
24:40
Speaker 3: they're scanning and infrared scanning, invisible that there's thousands, thousands
24:46
Speaker 3: of the Motanza thousands you mentioned million that Ukraine is
24:49
Speaker 3: going to make.
24:50
Speaker 2: This is good. You've got a million drones coming at you.
24:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:52
Speaker 2: Do you do you want to be on the there with.
24:56
Speaker 3: Trying to try to take out drones of this whul rifle.
24:58
Speaker 2: It's like not going to be a good situation.
25:02
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that there is there is something
25:04
Speaker 3: where if you go fully analog.
25:09
Speaker 2: Where if you if you're if you can do.
25:12
Speaker 3: Sort of an e M I like electromagnetic explosion of
25:16
Speaker 3: some kind that could trick it take out electronics, But
25:19
Speaker 3: then then your electronics is gonna go to so you're
25:21
Speaker 3: gonna go either fully analog or fully digital. So I
25:26
Speaker 3: think that they actually would be a role for a
25:28
Speaker 3: fight or plane if it was fully analog and had
25:32
Speaker 3: mechanical controls, because then you could do an sort of
25:37
Speaker 3: an e M F last take out the drones and
25:40
Speaker 3: the analog.
25:42
Speaker 2: I mean that that could be another Tron time cruise.
25:44
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe I don't know, you know, he just just
25:50
Speaker 3: gets a fully analog aircraft and all the drones fall
25:52
Speaker 3: out of the sky because of.
25:53
Speaker 2: M F bomb.
25:55
Speaker 1: How do you reply to those in uh say, industry
25:58
Speaker 1: that would say, I don't we don't want to contribute
26:01
Speaker 1: to the development of technology that could be used by
26:03
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense, Like basically, we need to build
26:08
Speaker 1: we need to build trust with with the industrial base
26:10
Speaker 1: and with society. Maybe something we're doing, how do we
26:13
Speaker 1: how do we do that? Well, I'm very pro military,
26:21
Speaker 1: So to be clear, it's good your audience will like that, yes, the.
26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, So but I think what what what?
26:36
Speaker 3: What if there's a significant conflict, the U. S. Industrial
26:41
Speaker 3: base will switch quickly to military. Active military production just
26:44
Speaker 3: is dead in World War two? Is a you know,
26:47
Speaker 3: is it quick enough? I don't know, but that's what
26:49
Speaker 3: will probably happen. Yeah, Ai Andron, That's that's the future
26:57
Speaker 3: of warfare. And I mean, tell me if I'm listening
27:01
Speaker 3: to something here, but where do you.
27:02
Speaker 1: See where you see the domain of space?
27:06
Speaker 3: Space? Uh?
27:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, space is how many?
27:15
Speaker 3: Space is the ultimate high ground, so it really goes.
27:20
Speaker 3: Space is big, real big.
27:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:27
Speaker 3: If you ever see like Earth to scale with the
27:29
Speaker 3: Sun and the you know, it's like, wow, we're just
27:32
Speaker 3: like a tiny little dust moat and you know, floating
27:35
Speaker 3: around space.
27:37
Speaker 2: That's Earth.
27:38
Speaker 1: But space is becoming increasingly militarized. And so how do
27:42
Speaker 1: you see that, especially as it relates to land warfare,
27:45
Speaker 1: Like what's your thoughts on the space domain as it
27:47
Speaker 1: relates to land warfare and and what are things that
27:51
Speaker 1: we should be doing to to start to gain those advantages.
27:54
Speaker 2: That are necessary?
27:55
Speaker 3: Well, I mentioned I mentioned the space space communications is critical.
27:59
Speaker 3: Like if you can't communicate, you don't know what's going on,
28:02
Speaker 3: care received orders, you can't report information and whether it's
28:08
Speaker 3: a tuman or a drone. They need communication, so you're
28:10
Speaker 3: going to have communications. Any ground based communications like fiberctic,
28:14
Speaker 3: fiber octic cables and sulphonetowers will be destroyed, so it's
28:19
Speaker 3: it's basically only or you've got our basically analog rato radios.
28:23
Speaker 3: And then but for any kind of data communications, it's
28:26
Speaker 3: space based. And then while GPS has been effective for
28:30
Speaker 3: a long time, GPS jamming at this point is pretty
28:33
Speaker 3: easy because the GPS signal is it's a weak signal,
28:36
Speaker 3: so it's easy to jat do GPS jamming. So having
28:42
Speaker 3: sort of a next generation a system that can provide
28:47
Speaker 3: positioning is going to be very important. The space can
28:52
Speaker 3: also probably offer you know, the ultimate weapons where you
28:56
Speaker 3: just have you know, tounguesten cannibals from all but.
29:01
Speaker 1: How about offensive weapons in space? Do you see those?
29:03
Speaker 2: That's what I mean by rods from God.
29:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so if.
29:07
Speaker 3: You have like you know, class they talked about this
29:11
Speaker 3: in the Small Wars program in the eighties. But this
29:13
Speaker 3: is certainly something that can be done, which is you
29:15
Speaker 3: have just kinetic weapons from space or space based lasers.
29:21
Speaker 3: Starting system technically does have lasers, but they're low power
29:27
Speaker 3: lasers for now.
29:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me let me ask you about back
29:35
Speaker 1: to this question about the process process. So so I
29:42
Speaker 1: like military history also yeah, so in so I like
29:47
Speaker 1: all disciplines at West Point, by the way, I love
29:49
Speaker 1: all of it. So in there was the Third Punic
29:55
Speaker 1: War is ongoing, and the Roman legions are outside Carthage
30:00
Speaker 1: and they lay siege to Carthage and it's not going
30:05
Speaker 1: very well. The pro consuls that are in charge are passive,
30:10
Speaker 1: risk averse, and they're losing. And there's a young guy
30:14
Speaker 1: who's from the famous Scipio line of pro consuls, and
30:19
Speaker 1: it is a Scipio Emilianus who is the grandson, the
30:24
Speaker 1: adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus, And so Scipio is the
30:28
Speaker 1: only one who's doing something. And so Cato the elder
30:31
Speaker 1: is sitting in the Senate and he says this. He
30:34
Speaker 1: says he alone still thinks the others flit about in
30:38
Speaker 1: the shadows. And he's basically an argument was I want
30:42
Speaker 1: Scipio in charge. And the problem with Scipio is too young.
30:45
Speaker 1: You had to be forty two to be a pro consul.
30:47
Speaker 1: And so Cato's like, I don't care. He's the right guy.
30:49
Speaker 1: And then what does Scipio do. He goes in and
30:51
Speaker 1: he puts juice into He's innovative and they and obviously
30:55
Speaker 1: we don't how the third Punic Warrians because we know
30:56
Speaker 1: about Roman, not Carthage. Right, So what Cato was getting
31:02
Speaker 1: at is this need for innovative and creative and entrepreneurial leaders, right,
31:06
Speaker 1: That's what is necessary. And so process is really as
31:09
Speaker 1: good as those who lead it. And so what are
31:11
Speaker 1: the traits you look for and those who lead your
31:13
Speaker 1: various businesses and enterprises.
31:18
Speaker 2: Well, I'm very much in technology.
31:21
Speaker 3: So for me, if somebody is going to lead something
31:25
Speaker 3: in technology, they must themselves be good at technology. I
31:29
Speaker 3: think that if they're going to lead something that evolves
31:33
Speaker 3: complex engineering, they must themselves be good at engineering. They
31:37
Speaker 3: don't necessarily need to be the best engineer on the team,
31:40
Speaker 3: but they need to be a They need to be
31:43
Speaker 3: very competent in their field.
31:46
Speaker 2: So this is this is incredibly important to me. If
31:53
Speaker 2: if somebody.
31:54
Speaker 3: Is leading a given engineering field or engineering department and
31:58
Speaker 3: they are not good at that, then that would be
32:00
Speaker 3: like a cavalry captain who can't ride a horse.
32:03
Speaker 1: Problem problem.
32:05
Speaker 3: Great leader in every way except can't ride a horse,
32:08
Speaker 3: and then you've got to charge the battle and cavalry
32:11
Speaker 3: captain pulls off the horse, you know, not aspiring. So, uh,
32:16
Speaker 3: calvary captain must be able to ride a horse. That's
32:20
Speaker 3: that's so that that that's actually need. Don't need to
32:24
Speaker 3: be the best horsh rider, but they must be competent
32:26
Speaker 3: in this regard. Otherwise they cannot evaluate the talent of
32:29
Speaker 3: the team and they don't understand the technology that's being developed.
32:33
Speaker 3: This may seem like a simple thing, but it is
32:35
Speaker 3: often the case the case that this this is overlooked.
32:40
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to pick on the.
32:41
Speaker 3: CEO of Boeing, but uh thing's got a you know,
32:45
Speaker 3: a degree in accounting or something, which I think that's
32:49
Speaker 3: the case. You know, you want to have like a
32:51
Speaker 3: someone who knows how our planes foot work right running
32:54
Speaker 3: the airplane company.
32:56
Speaker 1: I guess cross out my job that Boeing CEO can't
33:00
Speaker 1: do that.
33:00
Speaker 3: But it's like it's like you want to you want
33:03
Speaker 3: to not be the It's just if you're running airplane company,
33:06
Speaker 3: you should know how a plane. You should know how
33:09
Speaker 3: airplanes work and how they fly and how to design airplane.
33:13
Speaker 3: I think that's pretty important. So I think it's vital.
33:18
Speaker 1: But how do you create innovative intuition and those that
33:22
Speaker 1: work for you? I mean, you're you're you're famous for
33:26
Speaker 1: UH trying to gain efficiencies, create create better processes, pushing
33:31
Speaker 1: UH to try to to try to to gain those
33:35
Speaker 1: not just efficiencies but effectiveness. So how do you Is
33:37
Speaker 1: it possible can you build this innovative intuition in a person?
33:43
Speaker 2: Well, let's.
33:46
Speaker 3: I think it is possible to learn to be innovative.
33:50
Speaker 3: You know a lot of times for for any given.
33:52
Speaker 2: Thing, you have to say, did you try?
33:57
Speaker 3: This may sound sound obvious, UH, but actually try like
34:02
Speaker 3: you If somebody might wonder what.
34:04
Speaker 2: Can I be innovative? Well, have you tried?
34:08
Speaker 3: Just try thinking of interesting ideas? I mean, I do
34:12
Speaker 3: find A good source of innovation is if you read it.
34:15
Speaker 3: If you read about a whole bunch of fields, you
34:17
Speaker 3: can cross fertilized ideas from one field into another, and
34:21
Speaker 3: so you can synthesize, say, takes a SpaceX and Tesla.
34:26
Speaker 3: The automotive industry is very good at manufacturing. In terms
34:31
Speaker 3: of manufacturing complex machines at volume, the automotive industry is
34:34
Speaker 3: the best that now the rocket industry. Space industry is
34:40
Speaker 3: very good at advanced materials and making things very light
34:44
Speaker 3: and uh and so so taking a mass materials and
34:51
Speaker 3: mass optimization UH concepts from the space industry, applying it
34:56
Speaker 3: to automotive and taking automotive mass manufacturing tech niques and
35:00
Speaker 3: applying it to space was kind of like a superpower.
35:03
Speaker 1: But when you that's interesting because when you think about it,
35:06
Speaker 1: when you're talking about innovating though, and you say that
35:08
Speaker 1: people can try, I mean you have to be willing
35:10
Speaker 1: to let them fail, yes, And so where do you
35:13
Speaker 1: draw the line between recklessness and over being overly cautious?
35:18
Speaker 3: No, if you're not if you're not failing at least
35:20
Speaker 3: some of the time, you're not trying hard enough. You
35:23
Speaker 3: have to fail some of the time. So you know,
35:31
Speaker 3: it's more like a batting average. Somebody should have a
35:32
Speaker 3: good batting average, but nobody bats a thousand. But if
35:36
Speaker 3: somebody bats zero all the time, I mean, okay, you
35:38
Speaker 3: know you've got to take them off. So you know,
35:45
Speaker 3: So I think I do have this sort of simplest
35:50
Speaker 3: principles algorithm that I think could be quite helpful. And
35:55
Speaker 3: I sort of say it as a monitor to myself
35:57
Speaker 3: because I've made this mistake someone many times. So the
36:02
Speaker 3: first element is for any given thing, make make make
36:07
Speaker 3: the requirements less dumb. So so whatever problem your solved,
36:12
Speaker 3: make the requirements less down and whoever gave you those requirements,
36:15
Speaker 3: even if they are the smallest person in the world,
36:18
Speaker 3: they're still dumb.
36:19
Speaker 2: So the so if if say.
36:22
Speaker 3: Like this is where save military procurement, it goes wrong
36:26
Speaker 3: right at the outset with excess requirements, so you'll get
36:32
Speaker 3: sort of this giant document of requirements that actually should
36:36
Speaker 3: be like one page. So step one, make the requirements simplifying.
36:42
Speaker 3: Just make the requirements less done. Because if you don't
36:45
Speaker 3: make it, if you don't do that as the first step,
36:48
Speaker 3: then you can get the right answer but to the
36:51
Speaker 3: wrong question. If the question is wrong, it's it doesn't matter.
36:56
Speaker 3: So then then the the step two is delete the
37:01
Speaker 3: part or process. Step delete. And if you're not putting in,
37:07
Speaker 3: if you're not adding back ten percent of what you deleted,
37:10
Speaker 3: you're not you haven't deleted enough. This is again the
37:14
Speaker 3: substance I think maybe very obvious, but it's very effective
37:18
Speaker 3: because the idea is like.
37:20
Speaker 2: If you're not if you're not if some of the ideas.
37:23
Speaker 3: That you're doing. Don't fail, You're not trying not enough.
37:26
Speaker 3: And then only the third step is to optimize the thing.
37:32
Speaker 3: And if I say, like, what's one of the mistakes
37:36
Speaker 3: that I see smart people making all the time, especially
37:40
Speaker 3: spat engineers. Is optimizing a thing that should not exist?
37:47
Speaker 3: Sounds obvious? You know, like you could try to make
37:52
Speaker 3: let's have the world's best biplane cloth biplane. I'm like, well,
37:54
Speaker 3: actually know we should have jet our planes instead, you know,
37:59
Speaker 3: so you should not have the thing that should not exist.
38:03
Speaker 3: And then step four is go faster. Again, this sounds
38:08
Speaker 3: really obvious, but people just don't try going faster. And
38:16
Speaker 3: the first step would be to automate something, but only
38:21
Speaker 3: automated once you've done those those other four things. Now,
38:25
Speaker 3: the reason I have this mantra is because I have
38:27
Speaker 3: personally many times automated something, sped it up, optimized it,
38:34
Speaker 3: and then deleted it. And I'm like, wait, I am
38:38
Speaker 3: tired of going backwards here. So if you run that
38:44
Speaker 3: simple algorithm in many arenas of life, you will be
38:48
Speaker 3: shocked at how effective it is.
38:51
Speaker 1: So shockingly, we are already running out of time. So
38:55
Speaker 1: let me ask you this, If you could choose one attribute,
38:59
Speaker 1: just one autre ut that'd be critical for our future
39:02
Speaker 1: officers to have to be successful. What would it be?
39:08
Speaker 3: Curiosity as long as you're not a cat, but curiosity,
39:17
Speaker 3: try to read as much as possible, learn as much
39:19
Speaker 3: as possible, and in many different fields, and apply critical
39:26
Speaker 3: thinking to anything that you're told.
39:31
Speaker 1: Thank you. So i'd like to say, on behalf of
39:34
Speaker 1: the tenant, General Gillan and the entire academy, we're really
39:39
Speaker 1: thankful that you're here. We're really thankful you took the
39:42
Speaker 1: time to help us celebrate the excellence of the faculty
39:46
Speaker 1: and the cadets and really sharing some wisdom with us
39:50
Speaker 1: because we're really thinking about what do we need to
39:52
Speaker 1: do to be successful because we have a very important mission,
39:56
Speaker 1: which is a no fill mission, which is we have
39:59
Speaker 1: to fight and win, and we're laser focused on that.
40:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:01
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, in my view, I don't think probably
40:05
Speaker 3: a lot of people's views. You know, America is like
40:12
Speaker 3: like Atlas holding up the free world, and you are
40:16
Speaker 3: the arms of Atlas.
40:20
Speaker 1: So thank you, mister must