Joe Rogan Experience #1169 - Elon Musk

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Ah. …

   1. EMElon Musk0:00

      Ah.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Ha, ha, ha. (coughs) Four, three, two, one. (claps) Boom. Thank you. Thanks for doing this, man. Really appreciate it.

   3. EMElon Musk0:09

      Yeah, you're welcome.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      It's very good to meet you.

   5. EMElon Musk0:11

      It's nice- nice to meet you too.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      And thanks for not lighting this place on fire.

   7. EMElon Musk0:13

      You're welcome.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      (laughs) How does-

   9. EMElon Musk0:15

      That's coming later.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:16

       How does one, um, just in the middle of doing all the things you do, uh, create cars, uh, rockets, all this stuff you're doing, constantly innovating, decide to just make a flamethrower? Where do you have the time for that?

   11. EMElon Musk0:31

       Well, the flame... I didn't put, we didn't put a lot of time into the flamethrower.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       (laughs)

   13. EMElon Musk0:35

       The... (laughs) This was an off-the-cuff thing and, um, so we have... I have this sort- sort of like... It's sort of a, sort of a hobby company called The Boring Company, uh, which started out as a joke. Uh, and we decided to make it real, um, and- and dig a tunnel under LA, and then dig... Then people, other people asked us to dig tunnels and so we said yes in a few cases.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       (laughs) Now, who-

   15. EMElon Musk1:02

       Um, and then- and then we have a merchandise section that only has one piece of merchandise at a time. And we started off with a cap and there was only one thing on... It was just boringcompany.com/cap or hat. That's it. It... And- and then we- we sold the hats. Limited- limited edition. It just said The Boring Company. And then I'm a big fan of Space Balls, the movie, and in Space Balls, Yogurt, um, goes through the merchandising section and they have a flamethrower-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       (laughs)

   17. EMElon Musk1:37

       ... in the merchandising section of Space Balls. And he... Like, the kids love that one. Uh, that's the line, uh, when he pulls out the flamethrower. He's like, "We should do a flamethrower." So we...

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:52

       Does anybody tell you no? Does anybody go, "Elon, um, maybe for yourself, but selling a flamethrower? The liabilities? All the people you're selling this device to? What kind of unhinged people are gonna be buying a flamethrower in the first place? Do we really wanna connect ourselves to all these potential arsonists?"

   19. EMElon Musk2:12

       Yeah, it's a terrible idea.

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:13

       (laughs)

   21. EMElon Musk2:13

       Terrible. You shouldn't buy one.

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:15

       (laughs)

   23. EMElon Musk2:15

       I don't... I said, "Don't buy this flamethrower. Don't buy it."

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:18

       (laughs)

   25. EMElon Musk2:19

       "Don't buy it." That's what I said. Uh, but still people bought it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:22

       Yeah, they're not gonna listen.

   27. EMElon Musk2:23

       There's nothing I can do to stop them.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:24

       It's... You build it, they will come.

   29. EMElon Musk2:26

       I did not stop them.

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:26

       (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Humans and electronics all…

   1. EMElon Musk15:00

      a cy- a cybernetic collective of people and machines. That's what a company is. And then there are different c- there's different levels of complexity in the way these companies are formed. And then there are sort of ... There's, there's sort of like a collective AI in, in the Google sort of search, Google Search, you know, the ... Where we're all sort of plugged in as like, like nodes on the network, like leaves on a big tree. All f- And we're all f- we're all feeding this network with our questions and answers. We're all collectively programming the AI. And the, the ... And Google plus all the humans that connect to it are one giant cybernetic collective. This is also true of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all these social networks. They're giant cybernetic collectives. They're all-

   2. JRJoe Rogan16:06

      Humans and electronics all interfacing, and constantly now, constantly connected.

   3. EMElon Musk16:11

      Yes, constantly.

   4. JRJoe Rogan16:15

      One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot over the last few years is that one of the th- the things that drives a lot of people crazy is how m- how many people are obsessed with materialism and getting the latest, greatest thing, and I wonder how much of that is ... Well, a lot of it is most certainly fueling technology and innovation, and it almost seems like it's built into us. It's like what we like and what we want that we're fueling this thing that's constantly around us all the time. And it doesn't seem possible that people are gonna pump the brakes. It doesn't seem possible at this stage when we're constantly expecting the newest cell phone, the latest Tesla update, the newest MacBook Pro. We- W- Everything has to be newer and better, and that's going to lead to some i- incredible point. And it seems like it's built into us. It almost seems like it's a, an instinct that we, we're working towards this, that we like it.

   5. EMElon Musk17:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:09

      That w- Our job, just like the ants build the anthill, our job is to somehow or another fuel this.

   7. EMElon Musk17:18

      Yes, um, I mean ... When I made those comments some, some years ago, but it feels like we are the biological boot loader for AI effectively. We are building it, and then we're building progressively greater intelligence, and the percentage of intelligence that is not human is increasing. And eventually we will represent a very small percentage of intelligence. But the, the AI isn't formed, strangely, by the human limbic system. It, it is, uh, in large part our id writ large.

   8. JRJoe Rogan18:03

      How so?

   9. EMElon Musk18:05

      Well, you mentioned all those things, the sort of primal drives.

   10. JRJoe Rogan18:08

       Mm-hmm.

   11. EMElon Musk18:09

       Um, um, there's all, all the things that we like and hate and fear.They're all there on the internet. The, they're a projection of our limbic system.

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:30

       (laughs)

   13. EMElon Musk18:32

       It's true.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:33

       No, it makes sense. And then the thinking of it as a ... I mean, think of, thinking of corporations and just thinking of just human beings communicating online through these social media networks as some sort of an organism that's a ... It's a cyborg. It's a, it's a combination. It's a combination of electronics and biology.

   15. EMElon Musk18:50

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:53

       This is-

   17. EMElon Musk18:53

       And, and so- and so measure, like, is the success of these online systems is the, is of, is sort of a function of, of how much limbic resonance they're able to achieve with people. The more limbic resonance, the more engagement.

   18. JRJoe Rogan19:13

       Mm. Whereas, like, one of the reasons why probably Instagram is more enticing than Twitter.

   19. EMElon Musk19:21

       Limbic resonance.

   20. JRJoe Rogan19:22

       Yeah. You get more images, more video.

   21. EMElon Musk19:25

       Yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan19:26

       It's tweaking your system more.

   23. EMElon Musk19:27

       Yes.

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:28

       Do you worry about, or wonder, in fact, about what the next step is? I mean, a lot of people didn't see Twitter coming, that, you know, communicating with 140 characters or 280 now would be a thing that people would be interested in. Like it's gonna excel, it's gonna become more connected to us, right?

   25. EMElon Musk19:49

       Yes. Things are getting more and more connected. They're, at this point, constrained by bandwidth. Our input/output is slow, particularly output. Output got worse with thumbs. You know, we just have input with 10, 10 fingers, now we have thumbs. But i- images are just, are also, they're a way of communicating at high bandwidth. Take pictures and you send pictures to people. What sends, that's, that communicates far more information than you can communicate with your thumbs.

   26. JRJoe Rogan20:18

       So what happened with you where you decided or you be- took on a more fatalistic attitude? Like, what, was there any specific thing or was it just the inevitability of our future?

   27. EMElon Musk20:38

       I try to convince people to slow down, slow down AI, to regulate AI. This was futile. I tried for years.

   28. JRJoe Rogan20:51

       This seems-

   29. EMElon Musk20:51

       Nobody listened.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:52

       ... like a scene in a movie-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Versus some sort of…

   1. EMElon Musk30:00

      that they want to retain their biological self or not. I think they'll probably choose to retain their biolo- biological self.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:07

      Versus some sort of Ray Kurzweil scenario where they download themselves into a computer?

   3. EMElon Musk30:12

      You will be essentially snapshotted into a computer at any time if your biological self dies. You can just probably just upload into a new unit. Literally.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:22

      Pass that whiskey. (laughs)

   5. EMElon Musk30:23

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:23

      This is... we're getting crazy over here.This is getting ridiculous. (glass clinks)

   7. EMElon Musk30:27

      Down the rabbit hole.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      Grab that sucker. Give me some of that.

   9. EMElon Musk30:31

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       This is too freaky.

   11. EMElon Musk30:33

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:33

       See, if I was just talking to-

   13. EMElon Musk30:34

       I've been thinking about this for a long time, by the way.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:35

       I believe you have. If I was talking to one of my ... Cheers, by the way. (glasses clink)

   15. EMElon Musk30:39

       Cheers. Yeah, this is a great whiskey.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       Thank you. I wonder where this came from, who brought this to us.

   17. NANarrator30:45

       Trying to remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:45

       Somebody gave it to us. Old Camp, whoever it was.

   19. EMElon Musk30:47

       It's good.

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       Thanks. It's good. Yeah, it is good. Um, this is just inevitable, again, b- going back to your, when you decided to be, have this fatalistic viewpoint. So, you warned ... You tried to warn people. You talked about this pretty extensively. I've read several interviews-

   21. EMElon Musk31:01

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:01

       ... where you talked about this. And then, you just sorta just said, "Okay, it just is." (hand slaps) Let's just ... And you, in a way, you're, by communicating the potential fear, I mean, i- uh, for sure, you're, you're getting the warning out to some people.

   23. EMElon Musk31:15

       Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I w- I was really going on the warning quite, quite a lot. I was w- good ... warning everyone I could. You ever met with Obama and just for one reason, like, just watch out-

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:33

       To talk about AI.

   25. EMElon Musk31:33

       Yes.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:34

       And what did he say? So what about Hillary?

   27. EMElon Musk31:37

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:37

       Worried about her first. (laughs)

   29. EMElon Musk31:38

       Shh, everybody be quiet. No, he listened.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       (laughs)
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yes. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      happen again, where we are completely ingrained in some sort of an artificial technology or some sort of a symbiotic relationship with the internet or the next level of, uh, sharing information. But right now, we're not there yet. That's possible too, right? It's possible that a simulation is one day going to be inevitable, that we're gonna have something that's indistinguishable from regular reality. But maybe we're not there yet. That's also possible. That we're not-

   2. EMElon Musk45:24

      Yes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:24

      ... quite there yet.

   4. EMElon Musk45:25

      It is.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:25

      Th- this is real? (taps mug) When I touch that wood?

   6. EMElon Musk45:28

      This feels very real.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      Maybe that's why everybody's like into like Mason jars and shit.

   8. EMElon Musk45:32

      Mason jars.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:32

      Suede shoes. People are into like craft restaurants and th- where they want raw wood. Everyone wants to s- everyone wants to see metal. People ... Uh, it seems like people are like longing towards some weird log cabin type nostalgia.

   10. EMElon Musk45:44

       Sure. Reality.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:45

       Yeah, like holding on, like clinging to-

   12. EMElon Musk45:48

       Sure.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:48

       ... str- dragging their nails through the mud, like, "Don't take me yet."

   14. EMElon Musk45:52

       Yes.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:52

       I wanna w-

   16. EMElon Musk45:52

       But, but then, but then people will go get a Mason jar with a wine stem or a handle. That's dark.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:00

       Mason jar-

   18. EMElon Musk46:00

       Makes me lose faith in humanity.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:01

       ... with a little wine stem and a handle. Do they have those?

   20. EMElon Musk46:03

       Yes.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       Oh, those dirty people.

   22. EMElon Musk46:05

       Ugh.

   23. NANarrator46:05

       (laughs) .

   24. EMElon Musk46:05

       Terrible.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:05

       Oh, that's just assholes. That's like people who make pet rocks.

   26. EMElon Musk46:07

       Rough.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:08

       Right? There's just ... Some people are just assholes. They take advantage of our, our, our generous nature.

   28. EMElon Musk46:13

       Which was made with a wine stem, made with a handle.

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       They made it that way?

   30. EMElon Musk46:18

       Yes.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   There's certain iconic shapes-…

   1. EMElon Musk1:00:00

      that is mine.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      There's certain iconic shapes-

   3. EMElon Musk1:00:02

      Yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:04

      And th- there's, there's something about those cars too. They're not as capable, not nearly as capable as, like, a Tesla, but there's something really satisfying about the mechanical aspect of, like, feeling the steering and the, the-

   5. EMElon Musk1:00:16

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      ... grinding of the gears and the shifting. There's something about those that's extremely satisfying, even though they're not that competent. Like, I have a, uh, 1993 Porsche 964. It's, like, a lightweight. It's not... It's an RS America. It's not very fast. It's not, like, in comparison to a Tesla or anything like that. But the thing about it is, like...... it's mechanical.

   7. EMElon Musk1:00:39

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

      You feel every- everything's like... (imitates car revving)

   9. EMElon Musk1:00:43

      Sure.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

       It's like, it gives you this weird thrill, like you're on this clinky ride and there's all this feedback and there's something to that, right?

   11. EMElon Musk1:00:52

       Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah. We- my E-Type is, like, basically no electronics.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:58

       Yeah.

   13. EMElon Musk1:00:59

       Um, so-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       So you like that, but you also like electronics.

   15. EMElon Musk1:01:03

       Yes. Uh-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

       Like, your Tesla's sup- it's like the far end-

   17. EMElon Musk1:01:08

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       ... of electronics.

   19. EMElon Musk1:01:09

       Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:10

       Drives itself.

   21. EMElon Musk1:01:11

       It's driving itself better every day.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

       Yeah.

   23. EMElon Musk1:01:15

       You know? It's, uh, we're about to release the software that will enable you to just turn it on and it'll drive from highway on-ramp to highway exit, do lane changes, overtake other cars-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:25

       Jesus.

   25. EMElon Musk1:01:26

       ... to go from one interchange to the next. If you get on, say, the 405, you can get off- get off 300 miles later and go through several highway interchanges and just take- overtake other cars and hook into the nav system and then, um-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       And you're just meditating. (meditates)

   27. EMElon Musk1:01:44

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:44

       And the car's just traveling.

   29. EMElon Musk1:01:45

       It's very-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       (continues meditation)
6. 1:15:00 – 1:26:16

   Now, have you ever…

   1. EMElon Musk1:15:00

      And, uh, and the... but the, the pumps, uh, exceed the outflow rate and then that sets the pressure in the, in the cabin.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:08

      Now, have you ever looked at planes-

   3. EMElon Musk1:15:09

      It's how it works.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:10

      ... and gone, "I could fix this."? Or just don't have the time-

   5. EMElon Musk1:15:13

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      ... too busy making-

   7. EMElon Musk1:15:14

      I have a design for a plane.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:16

      You do?

   9. EMElon Musk1:15:17

      Yes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

       A better design?

   11. EMElon Musk1:15:19

       I mean, probably, I think it is. Yes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

       Well, who have you talked to about this? (sighs)

   13. EMElon Musk1:15:25

       I mean, I've talked to friends.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:15:28

       Friends?

   15. EMElon Musk1:15:28

       Friends and-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:15:29

       I'm your friend.

   17. EMElon Musk1:15:30

       ... girlfriends and-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:15:30

       You could tell me. (laughs)

   19. EMElon Musk1:15:33

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

       What do you got? What's going on?

   21. EMElon Musk1:15:36

       Well, I mean, the exciting thing to do would be some sort of electric vertical takeoff and landing supersonic jet of some kind.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:15:43

       Vertical takeoff and landing meaning n- no need for a runway? Just shoot up-

   23. EMElon Musk1:15:47

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:15:47

       ... straight in the air and then tchoo. Ooh. How would you do that? I mean, they do that s- on some military aircraft, correct?

   25. EMElon Musk1:15:56

       Yes. The trick is that you have a... you have to transition to level flight, um, and then you... The, the, the thing that you'd use for vertical take, for takeoff and landing is not suitable for high-speed flight.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:16:12

       So you have two different systems? Vertical takeoff and landing system-

   27. EMElon Musk1:16:16

       I've thought about this quite a lot.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:16:16

       Okay.

   29. EMElon Musk1:16:16

       I've thought about this quite a lot. Um, the interesting thing about an electric plane is that you wanna go as high as possible, but you need a certain energy density in the battery pack, um, because you have to up- uh, overcome gravitational potential energy. Once you've overcome gravitational potential energy and you're at a, at, at, at a high altitude, the energy used in cruise is very low. And then you can recapture a large part of your... the gravitational potential energy on the way down. Um, so you really don't need any kind of reserve fuel, if you will, because you have the, the, the energy of height, the gravitational potential energy. This is a lot of energy. So, so once you can get h- high, you, the, the... Like, the way to think about a plane is it's a force balance. So there's a force balance. So a plane that, that is not accelerating, um, is a, is a neutral force balance. You have the force of gravity, you have the lift force with the wings, then you've got the force of the, whatever thrusting device, so the, the propeller or turbine, or whatever it is. Um, and you've got the resistance force of the air. Now, the higher you go, the lower the air resistance is. Air density drops exponentially, but drag increases with the square. An exponential beats a square. The higher you go, the faster you will go for the same amount of energy. And at a certain altitude, you will... you can go supersonic with less energy per mile, quite a lot less energy per mile than an aircraft at 35,000 feet, because it's just a force balance.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:18:01

       I'm too stupid for this conversation.

Episode duration: 2:37:02