Joe Rogan Experience #1470 - Elon Musk

Joe Rogan 0:00 Welcome back.

Elon Musk 0:02 Here we go again.

Joe Rogan 0:02 Great to see you. And congratulations.

Elon Musk 0:04 (laughs) Thank you.

Joe Rogan 0:05 Um, you will never forget what is going on in the world when you think about when your child is born. You will know-

Elon Musk 0:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:11 ... for the rest of this child's life, you were born during a weird time.

Elon Musk 0:16 That's for sure.

Joe Rogan 0:17 (laughs) That is for sure. The, probably the weirdest that I can remember.

Elon Musk 0:22 Uh, yeah. Yeah. Um, and he was born on, uh, May the 4th.

Joe Rogan 0:25 And, uh, that's hilarious too.

Elon Musk 0:27 Yeah. It's great. He's-

Joe Rogan 0:27 May the 4th be with him.

Elon Musk 0:28 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Joe Rogan 0:29 Has to be.

Elon Musk 0:30 I hope... Hopefully. I sure hope so.

Joe Rogan 0:31 Perfect.

Elon Musk 0:31 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:32 I mean, that was the perfect day for you.

Elon Musk 0:33 I'm... (claps hands) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:34 And then, what, how do you say the name?

Elon Musk 0:37 (laughs) Well, uh, (stuttering)

Joe Rogan 0:40 Is it a placeholder?

Elon Musk 0:41 Yeah. First of all, my partner's the one that, uh, actually mostly came up with the name.

Joe Rogan 0:44 Congratulations to her.

Elon Musk 0:46 Yeah. Yeah. She's great at names. Um, so I mean, it's just X, the letter X. Um, and then the AE is, like, pronounced ash. Um...

Joe Rogan 0:58 (laughs)

Elon Musk 0:59 Yeah. And then, uh, A12, A12 is my contribution.

Joe Rogan 1:04 Oh, why A12?

Elon Musk 1:05 Uh, Archangel-12, the precursor to the SR-71. Coolest plane ever.

Joe Rogan 1:12 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:12 It's true.

Joe Rogan 1:12 I, I, I agree with you. I don't know. I'm not familiar with it. I know what the SR-71 is.

Elon Musk 1:16 Well, I... So you don't know the... Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17 Yeah. I know what that is, but-

Elon Musk 1:18 So the SR-71 came from a CIA program, uh, called, uh, called Archangel.

Joe Rogan 1:22 Oh.

Elon Musk 1:23 So the Archangel Project.

Joe Rogan 1:24 Oh.

Elon Musk 1:25 Um, and then Archangel-12-

Joe Rogan 1:26 Oh, wow. What a dope-looking plane.

Elon Musk 1:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:28 Oh, okay. I get it.

Elon Musk 1:29 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:29 Well, as a person who's, uh, very much into, uh, aerial travel, as you are, that's, uh, perfect.

Elon Musk 1:36 It's pretty great.

Joe Rogan 1:37 Yeah. Pretty great. Um, so is it, uh, does it feel strange to have a child while this craziness is going... Does it feel... You've had children before. Is this any weirder?

Elon Musk 1:49 Uh, it's... Actually, I think it's better, uh, being older and having a kid. I appreciate it more.

Joe Rogan 1:56 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 1:56 Yeah. Um, k-... Babies are awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:59 They are pretty awesome.

Elon Musk 2:00 They are awesome. Yeah. And-

Joe Rogan 2:01 When I didn't, when I didn't have m- any of my own, I would see other people's kids, and I didn't not like them.

Elon Musk 2:06 Sure.

Joe Rogan 2:06 But I wasn't drawn to them.

Elon Musk 2:08 Sure.

Joe Rogan 2:08 But now, when I see little people's kids, I'm like, "Oh." I think of them in like, these little love packages.

Elon Musk 2:13 Yeah, the little love bugs.

Joe Rogan 2:14 Yeah. It's just you, you think of them differently when you see them come out and then grow and then eventually start talking to you. Like, your whole idea of what a baby is, is very different.

Elon Musk 2:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:23 So now, as you, you know, get older and get to appreciate it as a mature, fully-formed adult, it must be really pretty wonderful.

Elon Musk 2:32 Yeah. P- Wonderful. It's great. But babies are awesome.

Joe Rogan 2:35 They are.

Elon Musk 2:35 Uh, uh, yeah. That's, uh, that's great. Um, yeah. Um, I mean, also, I've, I've, I've spent a lot of time on AI and n- neural nets, and so you can sort of see the, kind of, the br- brain develop, which is... You know, w- an, uh, uh, an AI neural, neural net is trying to simulate what a brain does, basically. Um, and you can sort of see the... It, it learning very quickly. Uh, you know, it's just... Wow.

Joe Rogan 3:03 See things fi-... So you're talking about the neural net. You're not talking about a, an actual baby.

Elon Musk 3:07 I'm talking about actual, an actual baby.

Joe Rogan 3:09 But both of them.

Elon Musk 3:10 Yes. But, uh, the word neural net comes from the br- the brain. It's like a net of neurons. So, you know, it's like the... Yeah. Humans are the, you know, original gangs to the neural net.

Joe Rogan 3:24 (laughs)

Elon Musk 3:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:26 That's a great way to put it.

Elon Musk 3:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:28 So when you're programming artificial intelligence, or you're working with artificial intelligence, are, are they specifically trying to mimic the developmental process of a human brain?

Elon Musk 3:41 In a lot of ways. N- there's some ways that are different. Um, you know, an, an analogy that's often used is like, you know, we, we don't make a submarine swim like a fish.

Joe Rogan 3:50 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 3:51 Um, but we take the principles of, of how, you- you know, what, what a... Of hydrodynamics and apply them to a submarine.

Joe Rogan 3:59 I've always wondered as a layperson, do you try to achieve the same results as a human brain but through different methods, or do you try to copy the way a human brain achieves results?

Elon Musk 4:10 Uh, I mean, the, the essential elements of an AI neural net are really very s- very similar to a human brain neural net. Yeah. It's having the, the multiple layers of neurons and, um, you know, back propagation. All th- these, all these things are what your brain does, you know. It's sort of... Yeah. Um, you have, you have a layer of neurons that goes through a series of intermediate steps to ultimately cognition, and that, and then it'll re- reverse those steps and go back and forth and go all over the place. Um, it's, um... Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Very interesting.

Joe Rogan 4:51 Yeah. I would imagine, like, the thought of programming something that is- is, uh, eventually gonna be smarter than us, that one day it's gonna be like, "Why did you do it that way?" Like, when, when artificial intelligence becomes sentient, then like, "Oh, you tried to mimic yourself." Like, there's so much better process. Cut out all this nonsense.

Elon Musk 5:11 Uh, there, like I said, there are elements that are the same, but just like... Well, it's like, like, an aircraft does not fly like a bird.

Joe Rogan 5:17 Right.

Elon Musk 5:17 You know, it doesn't flap its wings. Uh, but the wings... The way the wings work and generate lift is the same as bird.

Joe Rogan 5:27 Now, you're in the middle of this, uh, this strange time where you're selling your houses. You say you don't want any material possessions. And I've been seeing all that, and I've been really excited to talk to you about this.

Elon Musk 5:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:39 'Cause it's an interesting thing to come from a guy like yourself. Like, why are you doing that?

Elon Musk 5:44 I'm slightly sad about it, actually. But-

Joe Rogan 5:48 Well, th- if you're sad about it, why are you doing it?

Elon Musk 5:54 I think th- I think possessions kind of weigh you down. They're n- they're kind of an attack vector.... you know? People say, "Hey, billionaire, you got all this stuff?" Like, "Well, uh, now that I don't have stuff, now what's, what are you gonna do?"

Joe Rogan 6:07 (laughs) Attack vector meaning like people target it?

Elon Musk 6:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:11 Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. But you're obviously gonna... So you're gonna rent a place?

Elon Musk 6:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:17 Okay.

Elon Musk 6:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:19 And get rid of everything-

Elon Musk 6:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:20 ... except clothes?

Elon Musk 6:21 No, I said like almost everything. So it's like-

Joe Rogan 6:23 Keep a couple Teslas.

Elon Musk 6:25 Yeah, sure I'll save a Tesla.

Joe Rogan 6:26 You have to.

Elon Musk 6:27 Kinda have to.

Joe Rogan 6:28 Yeah.

Elon Musk 6:28 Test the product and stuff. Um, yeah, the things that have sentimental value, for sure, keeping those. You know? Um. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:38 So do you feel like there's-

Elon Musk 6:40 I mean, what's, what's the worst that could happen to me? I'll be fine.

Joe Rogan 6:42 Y- yeah. You could always buy more stuff if you don't like it.

Elon Musk 6:45 Suppose so.

Joe Rogan 6:46 Yeah. I mean, from the money that you sell all your stuff, you could buy new stuff. But do you, you feel like people define you by the fact that you're, you're wealthy and that they-

Elon Musk 6:57 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:57 ... define you in a pejorative way?

Elon Musk 6:59 For sure. I mean, not e- not everyone, but-

Joe Rogan 7:01 Right.

Elon Musk 7:01 ... you know, there's, uh, for sure in recent like y- years, billionaire has become a pejar- like it's in a pejorative.

Joe Rogan 7:09 Yeah.

Elon Musk 7:09 So like, it's like that's a bad thing, um, which d- I mean, I think d- doesn't make a lot, a lot of sense in most cases. If you, if you've done... If you basically, uh, organized a c- a company... Like what, so like how do, how does this wealth arise? It's if you organize people in a, in a better way to produce products and services that are better than what existed before, and you have s- some ownership in that company, then that, that essentially gives you the right to allocate more capital. So it i- it's... Th- there's a conflation of consumption and capital allocation. So, I mean, take Warren Buffett, for example, and to be totally frank, I'm not his biggest fan, but, uh, y- you know, he, he does a lot of capital allocation, um, and he reads a lot of, a lot of sort of annual reports of companies and w- all the accounting, and it's pretty boring really. Um, and he's trying to figure out is, does Coke or Pepsi deserve more capital? I mean, that's... I mean, it's kind of a boring job if you ask me. Um, but, uh, you know, it's still a thing that's important to figure out, like which, is a company deserving of more or less capital? Should that company grow or expand? Is it making products and services that are better than others or worse? And, you know, should, should, you know... If, if y- if a company is making compelling products and services, it should get more capital, and if it's not, it should get less or go out of business.

Joe Rogan 8:40 Well, there's a-

Elon Musk 8:40 Um-

Joe Rogan 8:40 ... big difference too be- between someone who's making a, an incredible amount of money designing and engineering fantastic products versus someone who's making an incredible amount of money by investing in companies or moving money around in the stock market or doing things along those lines. It's- it's a different thing.

Elon Musk 9:00 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:00 And to put them all in the same category seems... It's, it's very simple and, as you pointed out, it's an attack vector.

Elon Musk 9:06 Yeah. For sure.

Joe Rogan 9:08 Yeah.

Elon Musk 9:08 Uh, I mean, I think it's, it's really... Uh, I, I do think there... In the U- in the United States especially, there's an over-allocation of talent, uh, in finance and law. Uh, basically, too many smart people go into finance and law. Um, so, you know, this is both a compliment and a criticism. Uh, we should have, uh, I think fewer people doing law and fewer people doing finance and more people making stuff.

Joe Rogan 9:38 Yeah.

Elon Musk 9:38 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:39 Well, that would certainly be better for all involved if they made better stuff.

Elon Musk 9:43 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 9:44 Yeah.

Elon Musk 9:44 Um, and, and, uh, you know, manufacturing used to be highly valued in, in the United States, and these days it's not a... It's, it's often looked down upon, which I think is wrong.

Joe Rogan 9:54 Yeah. Well, I think that people are kind of learning that sp- particularly because of this whole pandemic and this relationship that we have with China, that it, there's a lot of value in the making things and the making things here.

Elon Musk 10:10 Yes. Somebody's gotta do the r- the real work.

Joe Rogan 10:13 Yeah.

Elon Musk 10:13 You know? And, um, you know, like making, making a car, it's an honest day's, it's an honest day's living. That's for sure. You know? Or making anything really or providing a valuable service, um, like providing, you know, good entertainment, good information. Th- these are all valuable things to do. Um, you know, so yeah. There shou- should be more, more of it.

Joe Rogan 10:36 Did you have a moment where... Is this something that, this idea of getting rid of your material possessions, is something that built up over time, or did you have a moment of realization where you realized it?

Elon Musk 10:47 I- yeah, I've been thinking about it for a while. Um, you know, part of it is like, uh, like I have a bunch of houses, but I don't spend a lot of time in most of them, and, um, that doesn't seem like a good use of assets, like somebody could probably be enjoying those houses and get better use of them than me, so.

Joe Rogan 11:09 Don't you have Gene Wilder's house?

Elon Musk 11:11 I do.

Joe Rogan 11:12 That's amazing.

Elon Musk 11:12 It's awesome.

Joe Rogan 11:13 Wow.

Elon Musk 11:13 Yeah, it's r- it's j- exactly what you'd expect.

Joe Rogan 11:17 Did you request that the buyer not fuck it up?

Elon Musk 11:19 Yeah, that's a requirement.

Joe Rogan 11:20 Oh, oh, a requirement?

Elon Musk 11:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:21 That's, that's a good requirement.

Elon Musk 11:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:23 In that hou- in that case, in that house.

Elon Musk 11:25 Yeah. It'll probably sell for less, but still I don't care.

Joe Rogan 11:27 Ah, he's a legend.

Elon Musk 11:29 Yeah, he's awesome.

Joe Rogan 11:29 You'd want his soul.

Elon Musk 11:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:31 You'd want his essence-

Elon Musk 11:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:32 ... in the building.

Elon Musk 11:33 It's r- and it's there. That's a real quirky-

Joe Rogan 11:36 Is it?

Elon Musk 11:36 ... quirky house. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:37 What, what makes you say it's there? Like, what do you get out of it?

Elon Musk 11:41 (sighs) Um, I mean, a- all the, all the cabinets are like hand- handmade, and, and they're like odd shapes and th- there's like doors to nowhere and strange like corridors and tunnels and-

Joe Rogan 11:56 Really?

Elon Musk 11:57 ... odd, odd paintings on the wall and, um, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:01 Did you ever live in it?

Elon Musk 12:02 It's very quirky. (laughs) I did live in it briefly, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:06 ... but why do you buy houses? Like, if you own all these houses, do you just get bored and go, "I think I'd like to have that."?

Elon Musk 12:13 Well, I, you know, had one house. And then the Gene Wilder house right across the road from me, from, from my main house, and it was gonna get, it was gonna get sold and then torn down and turn into, you know, be a big construction zone for three years. And, and I was like, "Whoa, I think I'll, I'll buy it and preserve the spirit of Gene Wilder and not have a giant construction zone." And then the, you know... This, I started having, like, some privacy issues where, like, people would... Like, lots of people would just, like, come to my house and, you know, start climbing over the walls and stuff.

Joe Rogan 12:54 (laughs)

Elon Musk 12:54 (laughs) I felt like, "Man." Um, so then, then I started, like, to want a house, some of the houses around my house. And then I thought at one point, "Well, you know, it'd be cool to, to build a house." So then I, I, I acquired some properties at the top of Samara Road, uh, and which has got a great view. And I was like, "Okay, well, these are some bunch of sort of small older houses. They're gonna get te- torn down anyway." I was like, "Well, you know, if I collect these, like, little, little houses, then I can build something, you know, I don't know, artistic, like a, you know, dream house type of thing." Um-

Joe Rogan 13:33 What's a dream house for Elon Musk? Like some Tony Stark type shit?

Elon Musk 13:36 Yeah, definitely.

Joe Rogan 13:39 (laughs)

Elon Musk 13:39 Yeah, you gotta have the, the, the dome that opens up with the s- the stealth helicopter and that kind of thing, you know?

Joe Rogan 13:44 Yeah.

Elon Musk 13:44 For sure.

Joe Rogan 13:45 Fuck yeah.

Elon Musk 13:45 Yeah, fuck yeah. Um, but, but then I was like, "Man, do I really want... Does it really make sense for me to spend time designing and building a house?" And I'd be real, you know, ghetto, like OCD on the little details and the design and... Or should I be allocating that time to getting us to Mars? I should probably do the latter. (laughs) So, you know, like, what's more important, Mars or a house? I like Mars. Okay.

Joe Rogan 14:12 (laughs) Is that really how you think? Like, that it'd be better off planning on a trip to Mars or getting people to Mars?

Elon Musk 14:21 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, the... You can only do so many things.

Joe Rogan 14:25 Right.

Elon Musk 14:26 Right? So how are you gonna have-

Joe Rogan 14:27 I don't know how you do what you do anyway. I don't, I don't understand how you can run Bo- The Boring Company, Tesla, SpaceX, all these different things you're doing constantly. I just, I don't understand. I mean, you explained last time you were here how you sort of allocate your time and, and, and how hectic it is and insane. I still don't... The, the productivity is, uh, baffling. Just doesn't make sense how you can get so much done.

Elon Musk 14:52 Well, I think I do have high productivity, but even with that, there's still some opportunity cost of time. And allocating time to building a house, even if it was a really great house, still is not a good use of time relative to developing the rockets necessary to get us to Mars and helping solve sustainable energy. Uh, SpaceX and Tesla are by far, you know, by the, the most amount of, like, brain cycles. Um,

Elon Musk 15:23 you know, B- The Boring Company does not take, you know, it's like less than 1% of brain cycles. And, um, and then there's Neuralink, which is, I don't know, maybe it's like 5%. And then-

Joe Rogan 15:36 5%?

Elon Musk 15:37 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:37 That's, that's a good chunk.

Elon Musk 15:38 It's a good chunk. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:39 We were talking about that last time, and you were trying to figure out when it was actually going to go live, when it's actually going to be available. Are you testing on people right now?

Elon Musk 15:50 No, we're not testing on people yet, but I, I think it won't be too long. I think we may be able to implant a Neuralink in less than a year in, in a person, I think.

Joe Rogan 16:06 Phew. And when you do this, is there any test that you have to do before you do something like this to, to see what percentage of people's bodies are going to reject these things? Is it pu- is it... Is there a potential for rejection?

Elon Musk 16:20 It's, it's a very low potential for rejection. I mean, you can think of it like people put in, you know, heart monitors and, um, you know, things for ep- epileptic seizures and deep brain stimulation. Um, obviously, like, you know, artificial hips and-

Joe Rogan 16:38 Right.

Elon Musk 16:38 ... knees and that kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 16:40 Yeah.

Elon Musk 16:40 So the, the probability of... I mean, like, so it's well known, like, what will cause rejection, what, what will not. Um, it's definitely harder when you've got something that is, uh, um, re- sort of reading and writing neurons that's generating a current pulse and reading current pulses. That's, that's a little harder, um, um, than, than a, than a, than, say, a passive device. But it's still, you know, very doable and, um, yeah. There, there are people who have primitive devices in, in their brains right now.

Joe Rogan 17:15 What kind of devices?

Elon Musk 17:17 Oh, like deep, deep brain stimulation is... For, I think for Parkinson's is... Like, has really changed people's lives in, in a big way. Um, which is kind of remarkable because we're... It, it, it kind of, like, zaps your brain. Um, it's like kicking the TV type of thing.

Joe Rogan 17:34 (laughs)

Elon Musk 17:35 Um, and you think like, "Man, ki- kicking the TV shouldn't work."

Joe Rogan 17:38 It does sometimes.

Elon Musk 17:39 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:40 The old, old TVs.

Elon Musk 17:41 It did.

Joe Rogan 17:41 My grandpa used to slap the top.

Elon Musk 17:43 For sure. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:44 And it would work sometimes.

Elon Musk 17:45 Yeah. So there's deep brain stimulation, uh, implanted devices in the brain that, uh, have changed people's lives for the better, like fundamentally. Um-

Joe Rogan 17:53 Well, let's talk about what you can talk about to what Neuralink is because the last time you were here, I really couldn't discuss it. And then there was a, I guess, a press release or something that sort of outlined-

Elon Musk 18:03 Oh yeah, sure. Sure.

Joe Rogan 18:04 Yeah, that, that, that happened quite a bit after last time you were here. So what exactly...... is it? How do you do... What, what happens if someone, uh, ultimately does get a Neuralink installed, what will take place?

Elon Musk 18:18 Well, for version one of the device it would be, um, it basically i- implanted in your skull. So, (laughs) uh, but it would be su- uh, flush with your skull. So you basically, uh, take out a chunk of skull, replace, put, put the Neuralink device in there. Um, you, you put the, the electrode... you'd insert the electrode threads very carefully into the, the brain. Um, and, uh, and then you, you know, stitch it up and, um, and you wouldn't even know that somebody has it. Um, and then it... And so then it, it can interface basically anywhere, any- any, anywhere in your brain. Um, so it could be something that, uh, you know, helps cure, say, uh, eyesight. Like give you... returns your eyesight, even if you've, like, lost your optic nerve type of thing. Uh, could-

Joe Rogan 19:09 Really?

Elon Musk 19:10 Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Hearing, obviously. Um, I mean, pretty much anything that w- where... that, that... It could, in principle, fix almost anything that is wrong with the brain. Um, and it could, it could, um, restore, uh, limb functionality. So if you've got, uh, i- interface into the motor cortex and then an implant that's, say, uh, that's like a micro-controller, uh, in, in, in your muscle groups, uh, you, you could then create a sort of a neural shunt that restores somebody who's a quadriplegic to full functionality. Like, they can walk around, be normal.

Joe Rogan 19:51 Whoa.

Elon Musk 19:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:52 So-

Elon Musk 19:52 Maybe slightly better.

Joe Rogan 19:54 Slightly better?

Elon Musk 19:55 O- over time, yes.

Joe Rogan 19:56 You mean with future iterations?

Elon Musk 19:58 Like the, you know, Six Billion Dollar Man.

Joe Rogan 20:00 Right.

Elon Musk 20:00 Although in his days that would... That doesn't seem like much.

Joe Rogan 20:02 That's pretty cheap. (laughs)

Elon Musk 20:03 (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:04 Six Billion Dollar Man.

Elon Musk 20:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:05 So the, the hole would be small-... How big would the hole be that you have to drill and then replace with this piece? It's only one hole?

Elon Musk 20:15 Well, um, yeah, the device we're working on right now is about, I'd say about an inch in diameter. Um, and... Y- your skull's pretty thick, by the way. So skulls are-

Joe Rogan 20:26 Mine is, for sure.

Elon Musk 20:27 It might actually literally be (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 20:29 (laughs)

Elon Musk 20:30 Um, I mean, if you're a big, if you're a big guy, your skull is actually fairly thick. Um, skulls like... it's like seven to 14 millimeters.

Joe Rogan 20:38 Mm.

Elon Musk 20:38 Um, so-

Joe Rogan 20:39 That's probably a couple inches.

Elon Musk 20:40 A half inch.

Joe Rogan 20:41 (laughs)

Elon Musk 20:41 You know, half-inch thick skull, ish, uh, so, um... Yeah, yeah. So y- that, that's a fair bit o-... Like, our, our... we got quite a coconut going on there.

Joe Rogan 20:50 Mm.

Elon Musk 20:50 It's not, it's not like some egg shell.

Joe Rogan 20:51 Oh, yeah. I believe you.

Elon Musk 20:53 Um, so the... Yeah, you basically implant the device, uh-

Joe Rogan 20:58 And so you would be, like, a one-inch square?

Elon Musk 21:01 Uh-

Joe Rogan 21:01 Or one, one inch in diameter?

Elon Musk 21:03 Yeah, like a-

Joe Rogan 21:03 So an inch circle, like a circular?

Elon Musk 21:05 Yeah, I think like a, like a smartwatch or something like that.

Joe Rogan 21:08 Oh, okay.

Elon Musk 21:10 Or... Yeah. Um-

Joe Rogan 21:11 Okay, so you take this one-inch diameter (drilling sound) like ice fishing, right? You ever go ice fishing?

Elon Musk 21:16 Uh, no, but I'd like to.

Joe Rogan 21:17 It's great.

Elon Musk 21:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:18 It's really fun.

Elon Musk 21:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:19 So you basically take an auger and you (drilling sound) ... you drill-

Elon Musk 21:24 Right, you take-

Joe Rogan 21:24 ... through the surface of the ice-

Elon Musk 21:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:26 ... and you create a small hole.

Elon Musk 21:27 Yep.

Joe Rogan 21:27 And then you can dunk your line in there. So this is like that, you're ice fishing on the top of your skull, and then you cork it.

Elon Musk 21:33 Yeah, and you replace that, um, say, one-inch diameter piece of skull with the, the s- Neuralink device, um, and that has a battery and a, and a Bluetooth and a inductive charger. Um, and then you... And, and now, then, then you also got to insert the electrodes. Uh, so the electrodes are very carefully inserted, uh, w- with our, uh, with our, our robot that we developed, uh, that's look... you know, very carefully putting in the electrodes and avoiding, you know, any, any veins or arteries. Uh, so it's, it's, you know, doesn't create trauma.

Joe Rogan 22:07 So through this one-inch diameter-

Elon Musk 22:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:10 ... device, electrodes be inserted and they will find their way to s-

Elon Musk 22:13 Like tiny wires, basically.

Joe Rogan 22:14 Tiny wires.

Elon Musk 22:15 Tiny wires.

Joe Rogan 22:15 And they'll find their way to specific areas of the brain to stimulate?

Elon Musk 22:19 No, you literally put them where, where they're supposed to go.

Joe Rogan 22:22 Oh, okay.

Elon Musk 22:24 Yeah, you s- insert the-

Joe Rogan 22:24 How long will these wires be?

Elon Musk 22:27 Uh, I mean, they usually go in, like, you know, depending w- on where it is, like, you know, two or three millimeters.

Joe Rogan 22:35 So they just find the spots?

Elon Musk 22:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:38 Wow.

Elon Musk 22:40 Um, and then, um, yeah, and then you, you put the device in and that, that gets, uh, that, that replaces the, the little piece of skull I was taking out. Uh, and then you, you, you stitch up the, the hole and, and, um, you just have a l- like a little scar, and that's it. And then-

Joe Rogan 22:58 Well, this would be replaceable or reversible?

Elon Musk 23:00 Yes.

Joe Rogan 23:00 Like if someone can't take it anymore.

Elon Musk 23:02 Yeah, yeah. You can take, take-

Joe Rogan 23:02 I'm too smart, I can't take it.

Elon Musk 23:04 Yeah, you can totally take it out.

Joe Rogan 23:05 And what is the... Besides r- restoring limb function and eyesight and hearing, which are all amazing, is there, there any cognitive benefits that you anticipate from something like this?

Elon Musk 23:16 Uh, yeah. I mean, you could for sure, um, uh... I mean, basically it's a generalized, um, sort of, uh, thing for, for fixing any kind of brain injury in, in principle. Like if you... Or if you've got, like, like severe epilepsy or something like that. It could, it could just, it could just sort of stop the epi- epilepsy from occurring. Like it could detect it in real time and then fire a counter pulse and stop the epilepsy. Um, if, um... I mean, there's, there's a whole range of brain injuries. Like p- people... Somebody gets a stroke, they could lose the ability to speak, um, that, that'll, that could also be fixed. So if you've got like stroke damage or if you lose, say, muscle control over part of your face or something like that, I think... And then when, when, when you get old, you tend to, um... if you get like-... you know, Alzheimer's or something like that. Then you lose memory, and th- this could help you with r- you know, restoring your memory, that kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 24:20 Restoring memory. And what, what is happening that's allowing it to do that? Like, the wires, these, these small wires-

Elon Musk 24:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:26 ... stimulating these areas of the brain, and then is it that the areas of the brain are... Th- they're, they're losing some sort of electrical force? Like, what is, what is happening?

Elon Musk 24:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:35 Yeah?

Elon Musk 24:35 So it's, it's, it's like, it's like... Think of it just like a bunch of circuits, and there's some, like, circuits that are broken, and we can, like, uh, f- fix those circuits, uh, to substitute for those cir- circuits.

Joe Rogan 24:48 And so a specific frequency will go through this?

Elon Musk 24:51 Yeah, just, um-

Joe Rogan 24:52 Specific... In that, uh, uh... Would... Is the process figuring out how much or how little has to be?

Elon Musk 24:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:00 How, how much bl- these areas of the brain have to be juiced up?

Elon Musk 25:03 Yeah. I mean, there's still a lot of work to do. So when I say, you know, we got a shot at probably putting it in, in, in a person in, you know, a y- uh, within a, a year, I think... That, that's what, that's what... That's exactly what I mean. I think we, we have a chance of putting it in, in someone and having them, having them s- be healthy and, and restoring some functionality that they've, they've lost.

Joe Rogan 25:25 The fear is that eventually you're gonna have to cut the whole top of someone's head off and put a new top-

Elon Musk 25:31 Sure.

Joe Rogan 25:32 ... with a whole bunch of wires if you wanna get, you know, the real turbocharged version, the P100D-

Elon Musk 25:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:41 ... of, of brain stimulation.

Elon Musk 25:44 It... I mean, ultimately, if you, if you wanna go with full AI symbiosis, you'll probably wanna do something like that.

Joe Rogan 25:53 Symbiosis is a scary word when it comes to AI.

Elon Musk 25:57 It's optional.

Joe Rogan 25:58 (laughs)

Narrator 26:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:01 I would hope so.

Elon Musk 26:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:03 It's just... I mean, once you enjoy the Dr. Manhattan lifestyle, once you, once you become a god, seems v- very, very unlikely you're gonna wanna go back to being stupid again. I mean, you, you, you literally could fundamentally change the way-

Elon Musk 26:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:18 ... human beings interface with each other.

Elon Musk 26:20 Yes.

Joe Rogan 26:21 Yes?

Elon Musk 26:22 You wouldn't need to talk.

Joe Rogan 26:23 (laughs)

Narrator 26:24 (laughs) (banging sound)

Joe Rogan 26:27 I'm so scared of that but so excited about it at the same time. Is that weird?

Elon Musk 26:32 Y- yeah. I mean, the, the... I think this is one of the paths to, um... (sighs) y- you know, like, think like wha- what are... Wh- what... Like, AI is getting better and better, um, so now let's just, you know, sort of like a, a benign AI scenario. Uh, ev- even in a benign scenario, we're kind of left behind, you know. We're, we're, we're not, we're not along for the ride, um, or just too dumb.

Joe Rogan 26:57 Right. (laughs)

Elon Musk 26:58 So... So, so how do you go along for the ride? Um, yeah, it's like if you can't beat them, join them, so.

Joe Rogan 27:04 (laughs)

Elon Musk 27:05 Um...

Joe Rogan 27:06 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 27:06 And we're, we're already, we're already a cyborg to some degree, right, because you've got your phone, you got your laptop, your-

Joe Rogan 27:12 Glasses.

Elon Musk 27:13 Yeah, yeah, got your-

Joe Rogan 27:13 Yeah.

Elon Musk 27:14 ... you know, electronic devices.

Joe Rogan 27:15 Sure, yeah.

Elon Musk 27:16 Um, and, um, I mean, we're... Today, if you've... Your, your phone... If you'll... If you don't bring your phone along, it's like you have missing limb syndrome. It's like, you know, feels like something's r- really, really missing. So y- we're already partly, um, part... you know, partly a cyborg, um, or an AI symbiote essentially, um, it's just that the data rate to the electronics is slow, so... E- especially output. Like, you're just going with your thumbs, I don't know, like, what, what's your data rate? May- optimistically, 100 bits per second. That's being generous. Um, and, and now the computer can, can communicate at, like, you know, hundred... a hundred terabits. Y- you know, how... You know. So, so certainly, you know, gi- gigabits are trivial at this point. So this, this is like m-... You know, basically you can... Your computer could do a, a mill... do things a million times faster or, or, uh, th- you're, you're... At a certain point, it's like talk... the AI is like talking to a tree, okay? It's just boring. (laughs) You talk to a tree, it's very ex- ... it's not very entertaining. Um, so, um, so if you can... if you can solve the, the data rate issue and your... especially output but input, too, then you can improve the symbiosis that is already occurring between man and machine.

Joe Rogan 28:49 So you, you can improve it in what... When you said, "You won't have to talk to each other anymore," we used to joke around about that. I, I've joked around about that a million times in this podcast-

Elon Musk 28:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:59 ... that one day in the future, there's gonna come a time where you can read each other's minds.

Elon Musk 29:02 Yeah. Well-

Joe Rogan 29:04 You'll, you'll be able to interface with each other in some sort of a non-verbal-

Elon Musk 29:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:07 ... non- physical way where you will transfer data back and forth to each other without having to actually use your mouth.

Elon Musk 29:15 Yeah, exa-

Joe Rogan 29:15 And make noises.

Elon Musk 29:17 E- exactly. So when you... Like, what happens when you... when... Like, the... Let's say you've got some complex idea that you're trying to convey to somebody else, uh, how, how do you do that? Well, your, your brain spends a lot of effort compressing, uh, a complex concept into words. And there's a, there's a lot of, a lot of loss, uh, information loss that occurs when compressing a complex concept into words. And then you say those words, those words are then interpreted, then they're decompressed by the person who is listening, um, and they, they will at best get, uh, a very incomplete understanding of what you're trying con- to convey. It's very difficult to convey a complex concept with precision, um, because you've got compression, decompression. You may have... not even have heard all the words correctly, and so communication is difficult. You know, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Joe Rogan 30:10 (laughs)

Elon Musk 30:11 It's a cool hand, Luke.

Joe Rogan 30:12 Yes, and there's... (laughs) Great movie.

Elon Musk 30:14 Yeah, great movie.

Joe Rogan 30:15 And there, there's an interpretation factor, too. Like, you can choose to interpret...... certain s- series of words in, in different ways and they're dependent upon tone, dependent upon-

Elon Musk 30:27 Yes.

Joe Rogan 30:27 ... social cues, even facial expressions, sarcasm. There's a, there's a lot of variables.

Elon Musk 30:33 Sarcasm is difficult.

Joe Rogan 30:34 Yes.

Elon Musk 30:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:35 And so-

Elon Musk 30:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:37 ... one o- one of the things that I, I've said is, like, that there could be potentially a universal language that's created through computers that, uh, particularly young kids would pick up very quickly. Like, my kids do TikTok and all this jazz and I, I don't know what they're doing. They just know how to do it.

Elon Musk 30:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:53 And they know how to do it really quickly. Like, they learn really quickly and they show me how to edit things and-

Elon Musk 30:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:58 ... it's, if you taught a child from first grade on how to use some new universal language, I mean, essentially like a, a Rosetta Stone and something that's done w- that interprets your thoughts and you can convey your thoughts with no room for interpretation-

Elon Musk 31:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:16 ... with clear, very clear, th- where you know what a person's saying and you can tell them what you're saying and there's no need for noises, no need for mouth noises, no need for-

Elon Musk 31:28 (laughs) Yes.

Joe Rogan 31:28 ... these sort of accepted ways that we've, uh, sort of evolved to make sounds that we-

Elon Musk 31:36 Sure.

Joe Rogan 31:36 ... all agree, we, through our cultural dictionary and-

Elon Musk 31:39 Right.

Joe Rogan 31:40 ... we agree are certain. We, we could bypass all that.

Elon Musk 31:42 Yeah, we could still do it for-

Joe Rogan 31:44 For fun?

Elon Musk 31:44 ... sentimental reasons.

Joe Rogan 31:45 Right. (laughs)

Elon Musk 31:46 Um-

Joe Rogan 31:46 Like campfires.

Elon Musk 31:48 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 31:49 (laughs)

Elon Musk 31:49 You don't need campfires and you don't need to roast marshmallows because it's kind of fun.

Joe Rogan 31:52 Right.

Elon Musk 31:53 Um, so yeah. Um, yeah, I think y- you would, in principle, you would be able to communicate, uh, very quickly and with far more precision, uh, ideas. Uh, and, and language would... I'm not sure what would happen to language. Partic- you could probably, i- in a situation like this, that you would be able to just, it would be kind of like The Matrix. You, you want to speak a different language, no problem.

Joe Rogan 32:21 Right.

Elon Musk 32:22 Just wire it to your head, download the program.

Joe Rogan 32:24 W- right. So at least for the first iterations, first few iterations, we'll just be able to use, like, I, I know that Google has, uh, their, uh, some of their Pixel Buds have the ability to interpret languages in real time.

Elon Musk 32:41 Sure.

Joe Rogan 32:41 Like, yeah, you can hear it and they'll, it'll play things back to you in whatever language you choose. So it'd be something along those lines?

Elon Musk 32:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:50 For the first few iterations?

Elon Musk 32:52 Well, the first few iterations are, I mean, what I'm talking about is, like, in the limit over time, you know, w- with a lot of development. Um, the first few iterations, r- really in the first few versions all we're gonna be trying to do is, is solve brain injuries.

Joe Rogan 33:06 Um-

Elon Musk 33:06 So, so, it's, uh, d- like, don't, don't, don't worry that, it's not gonna sneak up on you. (laughs) That's, this, this will take a while. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:12 How many years before you don't have to talk?

Elon Musk 33:19 If the, if, if the development continues to accelerate, then maybe, uh, like five years, five to 10 years.

Joe Rogan 33:31 That's quick. (laughs) That's really quick. That's not-

Elon Musk 33:34 That's, that's the best case scenario.

Joe Rogan 33:35 No talking anymore in five years.

Elon Musk 33:37 Best case scenario.

Joe Rogan 33:38 (whistles)

Elon Musk 33:38 But, uh, 10, 10 years, more like it.

Joe Rogan 33:41 I've always speculated that aliens could potentially be us in the future because if you look at, like, the size of their heads and the fact that they have very little muscle and they're, they're, they don't use their mouth anymore. They have this tiny little s- I mean, the archetypal a- alien that you see in, like, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, they, they're like, if you went from, like, uh, Australopithecus or ancient hominid to us, what's the difference? Less hair, less muscle, bigger head. And then you just keep going, 1,000, a million, whatever, or five years (laughs) whatever, whatever happens when Neuralink goes on online and then we slowly start to adapt to this new way of being-

Elon Musk 34:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:25 ... where we don't use our muscles anymore. We have this gigantic head. We can talk without words.

Elon Musk 34:31 You, you could also save state and-

Joe Rogan 34:36 Save state?

Elon Musk 34:37 Save state, like s- save your brain state, like, like a save game in a video game.

Joe Rogan 34:41 Whoa. (laughs) Like, like if you wanna swap from Windows 95-

Elon Musk 34:46 Well-

Joe Rogan 34:47 ... to, like, you (laughs) -

Elon Musk 34:48 ... probably a little better than, than that, but yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:50 (laughs) I think we are Windows 95 right now.

Elon Musk 34:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:53 W- from a meat.

Elon Musk 34:54 From a future perspective, probably.

Joe Rogan 34:55 Yeah.

Elon Musk 34:56 Um, but yeah, I mean, you, you could, uh, save state, um, and restore to that state into a biological being if you, if you wanted to in the future in principle. There's, like, nothing, like, from a physics standpoint that prevents us. Now, you'd, you'd be a little different, but then you're also a little different when you wake up in the morning from yesterday, and you're a little different. In fact, if you say, like, you five years ago versus you today is quite a big difference.

Joe Rogan 35:18 Yes.

Elon Musk 35:19 Um, so you'd be substantially you. I mean, you'd be, you'd, you'd certainly think you're you.

Joe Rogan 35:23 But the idea of saving yourself and then transforming that into some sort of a biological state, like, you could hang out with 30-year-old you?

Elon Musk 35:35 I mean, the possibilities are endless. Um...

Joe Rogan 35:38 (laughs) That's so weird.

Elon Musk 35:40 I mean, just think, think of, like, how your phone can, you can record videos on your phone.

Joe Rogan 35:44 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 35:45 Like, there's no, no way you could remember a video-

Joe Rogan 35:47 Right.

Elon Musk 35:47 ... as accurately as your phone or a camera, you know, could. So, uh, now if, if you've got, like, a, you know, some, some, you know, version 10 Neuralink or whatever far in the future, you, you could r- you could remem- you could r- could recall everything just like it's a movie.

Joe Rogan 36:05 Crystal clear.

Elon Musk 36:06 A- i- j- including all, the entire sensory experience.

Joe Rogan 36:09 Emotions, everything.

Elon Musk 36:10 Everything.

Joe Rogan 36:11 Everything.

Elon Musk 36:11 Everything. And play it back. And, and, and you can actually edit it.

Joe Rogan 36:16 Do you think you could share? Edit it?

Elon Musk 36:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:17 So you could change your past?

Elon Musk 36:19 You could change what you think was your past. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:22 Well, so if you had, like, a traumatic experience-

Elon Musk 36:23 This, this whole thing right now...... could be a replayed memory.

Joe Rogan 36:27 It could be.

Elon Musk 36:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:29 It may be. What's the odds of this being a replayed memory, if you had to guess? It's more than 50%.

Elon Musk 36:37 There's no way to assign a probability with accuracy here.

Joe Rogan 36:40 Right. But roughly. If you just had a just gut instinct.

Elon Musk 36:49 Well, I don't have a Neuralink in my brain so I'd say right now, 0%. But at the point at which you do have a Neuralink, then it rises above 0%.

Joe Rogan 37:00 Mm. The idea that we're experiencing some sort of a preserved memory is, uh, it... Even though it's still the same, it's not comforting. Right? For some reason, when you, when people talk about simulation theory, they talk about the potential for this currently being a simulation. It... Even though your life might be wonderful, you might be in love, you might love your career, you might have great friends, but it's not comforting to know that this experience, somehow or another, doesn't exist in a material form that you can knock on. (knocks on wood)

Elon Musk 37:36 Feels real, doesn't it?

Joe Rogan 37:37 Feels real. But, but if it's n-

Elon Musk 37:38 But-

Joe Rogan 37:39 But the idea that it's not is s- for some strange reason disconcerting.

Elon Musk 37:44 Well, I pr- uh, yeah, I'm sure it sh- should be disconcerting, uh, because then if, if this is not real, what is?

Joe Rogan 37:50 Right.

Elon Musk 37:50 Um, but, but, the, you know, there's that, uh, that old sort of, um, thought experiment of like, how do you know you're not a brain in a vat? You know. And, uh, here, here's the thing, you are a brain in a vat, and that vat is your skull.

Joe Rogan 38:04 Yes.

Elon Musk 38:05 And everything you see, feel, hear, mo- everything, all your senses, are, are electrical signals. Everything. Everything... is an electrical signal to a, to a brain in a vat, where the vat is your skull.

Joe Rogan 38:20 And all your hormones, all your neurotransmitters, all these things are drugs. Adrenaline's a drug. Dopamine's a drug.

Elon Musk 38:28 Sure.

Joe Rogan 38:28 You're a drug factory.

Elon Musk 38:30 Sure.

Joe Rogan 38:30 You're constantly changing your state with love and oxytocin, and, and beauty-

Elon Musk 38:35 Sure.

Joe Rogan 38:36 ... changes your state. Great music changes your state.

Elon Musk 38:38 Absolutely. A- and yet, here's another s- sort of interesting idea, which is, um, because you could say like, "Where, where did consciousness arise?" Well, assuming you believe the belief i- in, in physics, which appears to be true, um, then, you know, we, the universe started off as basically quarks and leptons, and i- q- quickly became hydrogen and, uh, helium, lithium. Like, basically elements of the periodic table. Uh, but it was, you know, like, mostly hydrogen basically. Um, and then, and then, uh, over a long period of time, uh, you know, th- 13.8 billion years later, that hydrogen became sentient. But w- so where along the way did cons- where does the consciousness... What's the line of consciousness and not consciousness-

Joe Rogan 39:31 Right.

Elon Musk 39:31 ... between hydrogen and here?

Joe Rogan 39:34 Right. When do we call it? When do we call it consciousness?

Elon Musk 39:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:37 I was watching a video today that we played on a podcast earlier of a monkey riding a motorcycle down the street, jumps off the motorcycle and tries to steal a baby.

Elon Musk 39:45 Yeah, I saw that one.

Joe Rogan 39:46 Yeah.

Elon Musk 39:46 It went viral.

Joe Rogan 39:47 What, uh... Is that monkey conscious? It seems like it is. It seems like it had a plan. It was riding a fucking motorcycle, and then jumped off the motorcycle to try to steal a baby. Seems pretty-

Elon Musk 39:58 Yeah. The one that just dragged the baby down the street pretty far?

Joe Rogan 40:00 Yeah.

Elon Musk 40:01 Yeah. Uh-

Joe Rogan 40:01 Seems pretty conscious.

Elon Musk 40:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:04 Right?

Elon Musk 40:05 There's definitely some degree of consciousness there.

Joe Rogan 40:08 Yeah, it's not like... It's not a worm.

Elon Musk 40:11 It's not-

Joe Rogan 40:11 It seems to be on another level.

Elon Musk 40:13 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:13 Yeah.

Elon Musk 40:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:13 And it's gonna keep going. And that, that's the real concern when, when people think about the potential future versions of human beings, especially when you consider symbiotic relationship to artificial intelligence that we'll be unrecognizable, that one day we'll be so far removed from what this is. We'll look back on this the way we look back now on, you know, simple, simple organisms that we evolved from, and that it won't be that far in the future that we do have this, this view back.

Elon Musk 40:47 Well, I hope consciousness propagates into the future and it gets more, m- more sophisticated and complex and, and that it understands the questions to ask about the universe.

Joe Rogan 40:58 Do you think that's the case? I mean, as, as a human being, as yourself, you're clearly trying to make conscious decisions to be a better version of you, right? This is the idea of, like, getting rid of your possessions and realizing that you're trying to... Like, "I don't like this. I will try to improve this. I will try to do a better version of the way I interface with reality." That this is always the way things are if you're, if you're moving in a, uh, some sort of a direction where you're trying to improve things. You're always gonna move into this new place where you look back in the old place and go, "Oh, I was doing it wrong back then." So this is an accelerated version of that.

Elon Musk 41:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:37 A super accelerated version of that.

Elon Musk 41:41 I mean, h- uh, you don't always improve, but you can aspire to improve. Uh, you can as- aspire to be less wrong.

Joe Rogan 41:46 Yeah.

Elon Musk 41:47 This is like... I think a good... The tools of physics are very powerful. Like, just assume you're wrong and your ask, your goal is to be less wrong. I don't think you're gonna, if, if succeed every day in being less wrong, but, you know, if you're gonna succeed in being less wrong most of the time, you're doing great.

Joe Rogan 42:04 That's a great way of putting it. Aspire to be less wrong.

Elon Musk 42:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:07 But then when, you know, people look back in nostalgia about simpler times, there's that too. It's very romantic and exciting to look back on campfires.

Elon Musk 42:18 But you can still have a campfire.

Joe Rogan 42:19 Yes.

Elon Musk 42:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:20 But you, will you appreciate it when you're a super nerd when you're connected to the grid and you have some, uh, skullcap-... in, in place of the top of your head and it's interfacing with the inter- international language, that the rest of the universe now enjoys communication with people? And we're-

Elon Musk 42:37 Yeah. Uh, sure. I, I think so. So, yeah. I like head virus.

Joe Rogan 42:41 (laughs)

Narrator 42:42 (laughs)

Elon Musk 42:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:43 I'm just wor... I mean, uh, everyone's always scared of change, but, um, I'm scared of this monumental change where we won't, we won't talk anymore. I mean, that thing is just-

Elon Musk 42:52 We'll communicate.

Joe Rogan 42:53 Yes. But that's, there's something about, there's something about the beauty of the crudeness of language where when it's done eloquently, it's, it's, it's satisfying and it, it, it hits us in some sort of a, a visceral way. Like, "Oh, that person nailed it. I love that they nailed it." Like, that it's so hard to capture a real thought and convey it in a way-

Elon Musk 43:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:17 ... in this articulate way that makes someone ex-... Like, you read a quote, a great quote by a wise person, it makes you excited that their mind figured something out, put the words together in a right-

Elon Musk 43:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:27 ... way that makes your brain pop. Like, "Oh, yes."

Elon Musk 43:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:31 "Yes."

Elon Musk 43:32 A clever compression of a concept.

Joe Rogan 43:35 Yeah.

Elon Musk 43:35 And a feeling.

Joe Rogan 43:36 But the fact that a human did it too.

Elon Musk 43:38 Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 43:39 Do you think that it'll be like electronic music, like people won't appreciate it like they appreciate a slide guitar?

Elon Musk 43:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:47 (laughs)

Elon Musk 43:47 I, I like electronic music.

Joe Rogan 43:48 I do too.

Elon Musk 43:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:49 Well, you make it. I know you like it.

Elon Musk 43:51 Sure.

Joe Rogan 43:51 Yeah.

Elon Musk 43:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:53 Yeah.

Elon Musk 43:53 Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I hope the future, uh, is more fun and interesting, and we should try to make that way.

Joe Rogan 44:01 I hope it's more fun and interesting too.

Elon Musk 44:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:03 I, I just, you know, I just hope we don't lose anything along the way.

Elon Musk 44:07 Well, we might lose a little.

Joe Rogan 44:09 But this-

Elon Musk 44:09 But hopefully, we gain more than we lose.

Joe Rogan 44:11 Yeah. That's the thing, right? Gaining more than we lose. Like-

Elon Musk 44:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:13 ... something that makes us interesting is like-

Elon Musk 44:15 It's, it's-

Joe Rogan 44:15 ... we're so flawed.

Elon Musk 44:16 It's not for sure, like-

Joe Rogan 44:17 Right.

Elon Musk 44:17 ... you know.

Joe Rogan 44:18 Mm-hmm. (swigs drink)

Elon Musk 44:20 I mean, you look at, uh, civilizations through the ages, um, most of them, uh, you know, they rose and fell.

Joe Rogan 44:25 Yeah.

Elon Musk 44:26 And, uh, I, I do think like the globalization, uh, that, that we have, uh, at the sort of, like the, the main sphere, uh, is, uh, there's, there's not enough isolation between countries or, or regions. Um, it's like if you get a, if there's a mind virus, that, that mind virus can infect too much of the world. Uh, you know, like, I, I actually sort of sympathize with the anti-globalization people because it's, it's like, man, we, we don't ever want everywhere to be the same, for sure. And, and then we, we need some kind of like mind viral immunity. Um...

Joe Rogan 45:07 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 45:08 So that, that's, uh, that's a bit concerning.

Joe Rogan 45:11 Mind viral immunity, meaning that once something like Neurolink gets established, the real concern is something that... I mean, you said it's Bluetooth, right? Or-

Elon Musk 45:21 Sure.

Joe Rogan 45:21 ... or some future version of that.

Elon Musk 45:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:23 That the idea is that something could possibly get into it, fuck it up.

Elon Musk 45:27 No, I'm talking about like, uh, somebody... there's some cock-eyed con- concept that, um, that's happe- that happens right, right now.

Joe Rogan 45:37 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 45:38 You know?

Joe Rogan 45:39 Well, I know there's viruses and embedded chips, right? Like people have-

Elon Musk 45:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:43 ... they have embedded chips and then acquired viruses.

Elon Musk 45:46 Well, when I'm talking about a mind virus, I'm talking about like a, a, a, a concept-

Joe Rogan 45:50 Okay.

Elon Musk 45:50 ... that infects people's minds.

Joe Rogan 45:52 Oh.

Elon Musk 45:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:53 Okay. Okay. Like, uh, cult thinking or-

Elon Musk 45:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:57 ... some sort of fundamentalism.

Elon Musk 45:59 Yeah. Just wrongheaded idea that just-

Joe Rogan 46:01 Yes.

Elon Musk 46:01 ... goes viral in a, in an idea sense.

Joe Rogan 46:06 Mm-hmm. Well, that is, that, that is a problem too, right? If someone can manipulate that technology to make something appear logical or rational.

Elon Musk 46:16 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:17 That, would it, would that be an issue too with... this is a very have versus have not issue, right? Once this thing... if, if, if this really does... I mean, initially, it's going to help people with, with injuries and... but you, you said ultimately it could lead to this spectacular cognitive change.

Elon Musk 46:35 Yes.

Joe Rogan 46:36 But the people that first get it should have a s- a massive advantage over people that don't have it yet.

Elon Musk 46:43 Well, I mean, it's the kind of thing where your productivity would improve, I don't know, dramatically, maybe by a factor of 10 with it. So you could definitely just, you know, uh, I don't know, take out a loan and do it and earn, earn the money back real fast.

Joe Rogan 47:00 Yeah.

Elon Musk 47:01 Just be super smart.

Joe Rogan 47:02 But the, the... in, in a st- a capitalist society, you know, you could... it seems like you could really get so far ahead that before everybody else could afford this thing and link up and get connected as well, you'd be so far ahead they could never catch you.

Elon Musk 47:17 Uh-

Joe Rogan 47:17 Is that a concern?

Elon Musk 47:18 Uh, well, I, I think the, the... it's not a super huge concern. I mean, there are huge differences in cognitive ability and, and resources already.

Joe Rogan 47:28 Yeah.

Elon Musk 47:29 Um, I mean, you can think of a corporation as like a cybernetic collective, uh, that's far smarter than an individual. Like I, I, I couldn't personally build like a whole rocket and, and the engines and launch it and everything. That's impossible. Uh, but, you know, we have 8,000 people at SpaceX and, you know, like, you know, piecing it out to different people, um, and using like, you know, computers and machines and stuff, we can make l- lots of rockets to launch into orbit, talk with the space station, that kind of thing, you know. Um, so that already exists where there's, you know, where there's a c- corporations are vastly more capable than an individual. Um, but the, the, uh, uh, like, we should be, I think, less concerned about like rel- relative, you know, capabilities between people and, and more like...... uh, diff- (stutters) H- having AI be vastly, you know, beyond us and decoupled from human will.

Joe Rogan 48:38 Decoupled from human w- So, this is the, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

Elon Musk 48:43 Yeah. I mean-

Joe Rogan 48:44 Yeah. So you feel like it's inevitable, like AI, sentient AI, is essentially inevitable?

Elon Musk 48:49 Super sentient AI, yeah. Like beyond a level that's difficult to understand.

Joe Rogan 48:56 And-

Elon Musk 48:56 Im- Impossible to understand, probably.

Joe Rogan 48:59 And, and, and somehow or another, us ... Y- y- So it's almost like y- it's a r- requirement f- for survival to s- achieve some sort of symbiotic existence with AI.

Elon Musk 49:13 It's not a requirement, it's just ... Um, if, if you, if you wanna be along for the ride, uh, then you need to do some kind of symbiosis. So the, the, the way your brain works right now, you've got a kinda like the animal brain, reptile brain, kind of let's for argument's sake, uh, y- it's, it's like the limbic system basically, and you've got the, the cortex. Um, now the, the brain purists will argue with this definition, but essentially, you've got, um, the primitive brain and you've got the, the, the sort of, uh, smart brain, or the, the, the brain that's capable of planning and understanding concepts and diff- difficult, you know, things that a monkey can't understand. Um, now the, the ... Your cortex is much, much smarter than your limbic system. Um, nonetheless, they work together well. So I haven't met anyone who wants to delete their limbic system or their cortex. There are p- people who are quite happy having both. Um, so you can think of the, th- this as being, th- like, the, the computer, the AI is a, is like a, a third layer, a tertiary layer, uh, so that is ... Like, that could be symbiotic with the cortex. It would be much smarter than the cortex, but you'd essentially have three layers. And, and you actually have that right now. Your phone is capable of things and your computer is capable of things that y- your brain is definitely not. You know, storing, you know, terabytes of information perfectly, um, doing m- incredible calculations that y- y- you know, w- we couldn't even come close to doing. You have that with your computer. Um, it's just, like I said, the data rate is slow. Your ... The connection is weak.

Joe Rogan 50:58 Why is it so disconcerting, or why does it, why does it not give me comfort to think about ... Like, when I think about a symbiotic connection to AI, I always think of this cold, emotionless sort of thing that we will become. Is that a bad way to look at it?

Elon Musk 51:18 I don't think ... That's not, that's not correct. That's not how it would be. Um, y- like you said, you, you already are-

Joe Rogan 51:23 Yeah.

Elon Musk 51:23 ... symbiotic with AI, or computers.

Joe Rogan 51:26 Phones, computers, laptops.

Elon Musk 51:28 Yeah. And there's, there's quite a bit of AI going on, you know, ne- neur- so artificial neural nets. Um, increasingly, neural nets are sort of taking over from regular programming, more, more and more. Um, so you are connected, um, you know. Um, if you use Google Voice or Alexa or one of those things, it's using a neural net to decode your speech and try to understand what you're saying. Um, you know, if, if, if you're trying to do image recognition or improve the quality of your photograph, it's y- its using ... The n- neural net's the best way to do that. So, um, you are already, uh, sort of a, sort of a cybernetic symbiote. It ... Like I said, you're ... We're not ... It's just a question of your data rate. The, the, the, the communication speed between your c- your phone and your brain is slow.

Joe Rogan 52:27 When do you think you're gonna do it? How long will you wait?

Elon Musk 52:30 Um ...

Joe Rogan 52:33 Like, once it starts-

Elon Musk 52:34 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 52:34 ... becoming available.

Elon Musk 52:35 Yeah, I mean, if it works, I'll do it, sure.

Joe Rogan 52:38 Right away?

Elon Musk 52:39 I mean, let's make sure it works. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:41 (laughs) How do we make sure it works? We try it on prisoners? Like, what do you do?

Elon Musk 52:45 No, no, if y-

Joe Rogan 52:45 Take rapists?

Elon Musk 52:47 No.

Joe Rogan 52:47 Cut holes in their head?

Elon Musk 52:49 No. Like I said, if somebody's got a serious brain injury-

Joe Rogan 52:51 Right.

Elon Musk 52:51 ... um, and there, there are, you know, people that have, like, very severe brain injuries. Um, and then, and then you can fix those, those brain injuries, um, and, you know, then you, you prove out that it works, and you expan- envelope expand, and m- make more and more brain injuries, uh, solved more and more. Um, and that, you, you know, at a certain age, at a certain age, we, we all g- are, are gonna get Alzheimer's. We're all gonna get senile. Um, and then, you know, moms forget the names of their kids and that kinda thing. And so, you know, do ... It's like you said, like, "Okay, well, you know, this would allow you to remember your, names of your kids, and, and, and have a normal, they ... a much more normal life, where you've, you, you're able to function, uh, much later in life." Um, so I think that ... So essentially, the- there, there would ... Almost everyone would find a need at some point if, if, if you get old enough, to use neu- a neural link. Um, and, uh, and, and then it's like, okay, so we can improve the functionality and, and improve the communications, communication speed, so then you will n- not have to use your thumbs to communicate with a computer.

Joe Rogan 54:01 (exhales loudly) Do you ever sit down and extrapolate? Do you ever l- like, sit down and think about all the different iterations of this and what this eventually leads to?

Elon Musk 54:14 Um, yeah. I mean, I think of ... Sure. I think about it a lot. Um, there's ... L- like I said, this isn't ... Not something that's gonna sneak up on you, you know? There's like ... Getting FDA approval for this stuff is not, like, overnight, you know? Um, and ...... there's, there's... I mean, we probably have to be on, like, version 10 or something, uh, before, you know, it- it- y- you- it would realistically be, um, you know, a- a- a human AI symbiote situation, uh... So it's, it's... you'll see it coming, you know?

Joe Rogan 54:53 You see it coming, but what do you think it's gonna be? Like, when you sit... When you're alone, if you have free time, I don't know if you have free time, but if you just sit down and think about this iteration, the next, onward, keep going, and y- y- you drag it out with improvements along the way, and leaps and bounds in technological innovations, and... Where do you see it? What are we gonna be?

Elon Musk 55:19 Like, when?

Joe Rogan 55:20 20- 25 years from now, what are we gonna be?

Elon Musk 55:27 Well, assuming civilization is still around. Um, it's looking fragile right now. Um, I think we... I think we could have a... So- so... In 25 years, probably something... I s- I would think, like, there could be a whole brain interface.

Joe Rogan 55:49 A whole brain interface?

Elon Musk 55:51 Something pretty close to that, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:53 How does... How do you define... What do you mean by whole brain interface?

Elon Musk 55:57 Um, like, almost all the neurons are connected to, uh... Your- the- the sort of AI extension of yourself. If you want.

Joe Rogan 56:16 AI extension of yourself?

Elon Musk 56:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:19 What does that mean to you? Like, when you... When you say AI extension of yourself?

Elon Musk 56:25 Well, you... Like I said, you already have a- a computer extension of yourself in your phone.

Joe Rogan 56:31 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 56:31 You know, and, and computers and stuff, so... And now online, it's like, if somebody dies, there's- there's like an online ghost that they're, you- they're still... Their online stuff is-

Joe Rogan 56:40 Yeah.

Elon Musk 56:40 ... still alive.

Joe Rogan 56:41 That's a good way to put it. It is weird-

Elon Musk 56:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:43 ... when you read someone's tweets after they're dead.

Elon Musk 56:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:46 Yeah.

Elon Musk 56:47 Instagram and their stories and stuff and-

Joe Rogan 56:49 Yeah.

Elon Musk 56:49 ... whatever Facebook and Stu-... You know, like, all that stuff-

Joe Rogan 56:51 That's a great way to put it.

Elon Musk 56:52 ... their email.

Joe Rogan 56:52 It's like an online ghost. That's very accurate.

Elon Musk 56:56 Yeah. So... Yeah, so there, there's... It would just be that, that more of you would be in the cloud, I guess, than in your body. More of it, more of you.

Joe Rogan 57:13 Whoa. Now, when you say civilization is fragile, do you mean because of this COVID-19 shit that's going on right now?

Elon Musk 57:21 Wha- What's that? I never heard of it.

Joe Rogan 57:22 There's this thing.

Elon Musk 57:23 Yeah, I know.

Joe Rogan 57:23 It's like, uh, some people just get a cough.

Elon Musk 57:25 I have no idea what you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 57:26 Other people, it gets much worse.

Elon Musk 57:29 Uh, sure.

Joe Rogan 57:31 Yeah.

Elon Musk 57:33 Well, yeah. I mean, this certainly has taken over the mind space of the world to a degree that is quite shocking.

Joe Rogan 57:45 Yeah. Wow, out of nowhere. That's what's crazy. It's like, you go back to November, nothing. Now here we are December, January, February, March, April, May, six months, totally different world. So from nothing to everything's locked down. There's so much, uh, conflicting information and conflicting opinions about how to proceed.

Elon Musk 58:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:07 What, what has happened, you, you find things where... There was, uh, a meatpacking plant, I believe, in Missouri, where 300 plus people were asymptomatic, tested positive and were asymptomatic, and then in other places, it just ravages entire communities and kills people, and it's, it's so weird. It d-... It almost appears on the ou-... Like, if you didn't know any better, you'd be like, "What? It seems like there's a bunch of different viruses." Doesn't seem like it's the same thing, or has a bunch of different reactions to the biological variety of, of people.

Elon Musk 58:45 Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I kinda saw this whole thing play out in China, uh, before it, it played out in the US, so, um, it's kinda like watching the same movie again, um, but in English. Uh-

Joe Rogan 59:01 (laughs)

Elon Musk 59:03 Um, so, yeah. Um, I remi-... I think the, the, the, the mortality rate is, is much less than what is... Than what, say, the World Health Organization said it was. It's ver-... Much, much less. It's like, probably at least an order of magnitude less.

Joe Rogan 59:24 Well, it-

Elon Musk 59:25 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 59:25 It seems to be very deadly to very specific kinds of people, and people with specific problems.

Elon Musk 59:30 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, if yo- if you're... You, you can look at the mortality statistics, you know, by age and whether they have comorbid- comorbidities, like, do they have, like, basically existing conditions, and, um, by age, um, and, uh... Y-... You know, if, if you're below 60 and, and have no serious health issues, the probability of death is extremely low. It's not zero, but it's extremely low.

Joe Rogan 1:00:01 They didn't think that this was the case, though, when they first started to lock down the country. Do you think that it's a, a situation where once they've proceeded in a certain way, it's very difficult to correct course?

Elon Musk 1:00:16 That's almost like people really wanted a panic. They, you know... So it's quite, quite crazy. Um...

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 But in some places a panic is deserved, right? Like, if you're-

Elon Musk 1:00:28 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 ... in the ICU in Manhattan and people are dying left and right, and everyone's on intubators and it's... I- i- i- it seems like...... when you see all these people on ventilators and so many of them are dying, and you see these nurses are dying and doctors are getting sick, in some places that fear is justified. But then in other places, you're, you're reading these stories about hospitals that are, uh, essentially half empty. They're, they're having to furlough doctors-

Elon Musk 1:00:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 ... and nurses because there's no work for them.

Elon Musk 1:01:01 Most of the hospitals in the United States right now are half empty. Or in some cases, they're at 30% capacity.

Joe Rogan 1:01:07 And is this because they've decided to forego elective procedures and, and, and normal things that people would have to go to the hospital for?

Elon Musk 1:01:17 Yes. I mean, and we're, and we're not talking about just... some of these elective procedures are quite important.

Joe Rogan 1:01:22 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:01:22 Like, it's like you have a bad heart-

Joe Rogan 1:01:24 Fallbladder disease. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:01:25 Yeah. And you need a, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 Mm-hmm.

Elon Musk 1:01:27 ... triple bypass. It's, like, sort of elective, but if you don't get it done in time, it's, you're gonna die.

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:01:33 It's-

Joe Rogan 1:01:34 Elective's a weird word.

Elon Musk 1:01:35 (laughs) Yeah, elective... It's not like, "Hey, I, uh, I wa- I wanna..." It's not like plastic surgery or something like that (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 1:01:40 Right, right, right, right, right.

Elon Musk 1:01:40 Like, um, it, it, it's more like, like my, my hip is... I'm in extreme pain because my, my hip's blown out, or my knee, and I, I don't wanna go to the hospital. I can't go to the hospital to... You know, people in extreme pain, people that need a kidney (laughs) . You know, like, like, people that, that have, like, quite serious issues that are choosing not to go v- out of fear. Um, so I think it's, it's a problem.

Joe Rogan 1:02:02 I-

Elon Musk 1:02:02 It's not good.

Joe Rogan 1:02:03 It seems like the state of public perception is shifting.

Elon Musk 1:02:06 It is.

Joe Rogan 1:02:07 Like, people are taking some deep breaths and relaxing. And, and because of the statistics of... I mean, and, and essentially across the board, it's being recognized that it's not as fatal as we thought it was. Still dangerous, still worse than the flu, but not as bad as we thought or, or we feared it could be.

Elon Musk 1:02:28 I mean, obje- objectively, the mortality is, is, is much lower. Like, at least a factor of 10, maybe a factor of 50 lower than initially thought.

Joe Rogan 1:02:41 Do you think that the current way we're handling this, the social distancing, the masks, the locking down, is it... does this make sense? Is it adequate? Or, or do you think that we should move back to at least closer to where we used to be?

Elon Musk 1:03:00 Well, I think proper hygiene is a good thing no matter what.

Joe Rogan 1:03:03 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:03:03 You know, wash your hands and, you know... and if you're, if, if you're coughing, stay home or wear a mask.

Joe Rogan 1:03:09 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:03:10 'Cause it's not good. You know. Um, in fact, they do that in Japan, and that's, like, normal.

Joe Rogan 1:03:14 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:03:14 If you're, if you're ill, you, you wear a face mask and you don't cough on people. Uh, I think that, that would be a great thing to, to adopt in general throughout the world. Um, uh, washing your hands is a g- also good. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:27 Well, that's a speculation-

Elon Musk 1:03:28 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:03:28 ... why men get it more than women, 'cause men are disgusting. We don't wash our hands as much.

Elon Musk 1:03:32 Men are disgusting. It's true.

Joe Rogan 1:03:33 It's true.

Elon Musk 1:03:34 Yeah, it's bad.

Joe Rogan 1:03:34 I admit it. We're all... All men in this room, we're all gross.

Elon Musk 1:03:36 Yeah, just go to the restroom, you can see who's horrible. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 Yes, we're gross. My daughter, my nine-year-old daughter yells at me. She goes-

Elon Musk 1:03:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:41 ... "Did you wash your hands?" She makes me go back and wash my hands.

Elon Musk 1:03:44 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 She's right. Nine years old. If I had a nine-year-old boy-

Elon Musk 1:03:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 ... do you think he would care?

Elon Musk 1:03:49 No.

Joe Rogan 1:03:49 He wouldn't give a fuck if I washed my hands.

Elon Musk 1:03:52 (laughs) True. Um, so, and I think there's ha- there's, there's definitely some silver linings here, uh, th- in improved, uh, y- you know, uh, hygiene.

Joe Rogan 1:04:01 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:04:01 And...

Joe Rogan 1:04:02 An awareness of potential.

Elon Musk 1:04:03 Yes. And I, I think this has, uh, shaken up the, the system. Uh, s- system is, like, su- somewhat moribund with l- lot of layers, layers of bureaucracy, and I think that we've, you know, cut through some of that bureaucracy. Uh, and if we... you know, at some point, there probably will be a, uh, pandemic with, with a, with a, with a high mortality rate. Uh, you know, there, there's f- debate about, like, what's high? But I mean, like, something that's killing a lot of 20-year-olds, let's say.

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 Right.

Elon Musk 1:04:31 Like, like, it's-

Joe Rogan 1:04:32 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:04:32 If you had, like, Ebola-type, uh, mortality-

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 Spanish flu. Something that, uh-

Elon Musk 1:04:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:36 ... attacks the immune systems-

Elon Musk 1:04:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 ... of healthy people.

Elon Musk 1:04:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:39 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:04:39 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:04:39 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:04:40 ... but it, it's, uh... yeah. Like, like, killing large numbers of young, healthy people. That, that's, you know... to find that as, like, a, a high mortality, then that... th- this is at least practice for something like that. Um, and I think there's, there's... you know, given... it's just a matter, a matter of time that there, there will be eventually some, some such pandemic.

Joe Rogan 1:05:05 Do you think that in a sense, the one good thing that we might get out of this is the realization that this is a potential reality, that, that we, we got lucky in a sense? I mean, and people that didn't get lucky and died, of course, I'm not disrespecting their death and their loss, but I'm saying overall, as a, as a culture, as a commu- as a human race, as a community, this is not as bad as it could have been. This is a good dry run for us to, to appreciate that we need far more resources dedicated towards, uh, the, uh, understanding these diseases, what to do in the case of pandemic, and m- much more money that goes to funding treatments and, and some preventative measures.

Elon Musk 1:05:48 Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think, I think there's a, a good chance, a high... it's highly likely, I think, coming out of this, that, uh, we will develop, uh, vaccines that we didn't have before, uh, for, uh, you know, coronaviruses and o- other, other viruses. Um, and, and possibly cures, uh, for, for these. Um, and our understanding of, uh, viruses of this nature has improved dramatically because of the attention that it, it's received. So, but there's definitely some... you know, a lot of silver linings here. Um, and, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:06:24 Potentially, if we act correctly.

Elon Musk 1:06:26 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's, uh... I think there, there will be some amount of silver lining here no matter what. Um, hopefully we can get more of a silver lining than less, um, but-

Joe Rogan 1:06:35 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:06:38 ... so, yeah. This, this is, uh, this is like, kinda like a practice run for something that had, that, that had a potential ... That might in the future have a serious, uh, like a really high mortality rate. And, and, and we kinda got to go through this with- without- without it being something that kills, you know, vast numbers of young, healthy people.

Joe Rogan 1:06:59 Yeah. When you made a series of tweets recently, uh, you know, uh, I don't remember the exact wording, but essentially you were saying, "Free America now." Like let's-

Elon Musk 1:07:08 I don't think that's the wording.

Joe Rogan 1:07:09 ... open it back. That is it?

Elon Musk 1:07:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:10 Thank you. (laughs) But, uh, the, the, you know, what was the re- how much do you pay attention to res- the response to that stuff and what was the response? Like did, did anybody go, "Hey, Elon, what the fuck you doing?" Did anybody pull you aside?

Elon Musk 1:07:22 Yeah, of course.

Joe Rogan 1:07:24 (laughs) Who does that? Who gets to do that to you?

Elon Musk 1:07:28 Well, I mean, I certainly get that. There's no shortage of negative feedback on Twitter. You know?

Joe Rogan 1:07:33 Oh yeah, Twitter.

Elon Musk 1:07:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:35 Yeah. But I don't read that.

Elon Musk 1:07:36 It's a-

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 Do you read it?

Elon Musk 1:07:37 ... war zone.

Joe Rogan 1:07:38 You do sometimes though, right? You do read it.

Elon Musk 1:07:40 That, yeah, I mean, I scroll through the comments. Like I said, yeah, it's a mean war zone.

Joe Rogan 1:07:45 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:07:46 I mean, people knife you good on Twitter.

Joe Rogan 1:07:48 (laughs) Something I- I enjoy about the ... Just the, there's a something about the, the freedom of expression that comes from all these people that do attack you. It's like, well, they, if there was no vulnerability whatsoever, they wouldn't attack you. And there, i- it's like there's something about these millions and millions of perspectives that you, you have to, you have to appreciate even if it comes your way, even if the shit storm hits you in the face.

Elon Musk 1:08:23 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:08:23 You gotta appreciate, wow, how amazing is it that all these people do have the ability to express themselves? I mean, you don't, don't necessarily wanna be there when the shit hits you.

Elon Musk 1:08:32 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:08:33 You might wanna get outta the way in anticipation of the shit storm, but the fact that so many people have the ability to reach out. And I think it's, in a lot of ways, it's, uh, I don't wanna say a misused resource, but it's like giving monkeys guns.

Elon Musk 1:08:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:47 They just start ... Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. They start gunning down things that are in front of 'em without any realization of what they're doing.

Elon Musk 1:08:54 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:08:54 They have a rock, they see a window, they throw it. Whoa, look at that! I got Elon mad. Look at that, this guy got mad at me. This, this ... I, I fucking took this person down on Twitter. I got this lady fired. Oh, the fucking business is going under because of Twitter wars.

Elon Musk 1:09:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:09 It seems like there's something about it that's this-

Elon Musk 1:09:13 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:09:13 ... to- newfound thing that, uh, I don't wanna say abuse, but just I wanna say that it's almost like, you know, you hit the button and things blow up, you're like, "Wow! This is ... What else can we blow up?"

Elon Musk 1:09:28 Sure. Um, I mean, I've been in the Twitter war zone for, for a while here, so-

Joe Rogan 1:09:34 (laughs) Twitter war zone?

Elon Musk 1:09:36 You know, it take, it takes a lot to, to phase me at this point.

Joe Rogan 1:09:39 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:09:39 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:09:39 That's good too, right? Like you develop a thick skin.

Elon Musk 1:09:44 Yeah. Y- you can't take it personally. A lot of the- these people don't like, you know, actually know you, you know? Like-

Joe Rogan 1:09:47 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:09:48 ... it's like, it's just like ... You know. It's like if you're, if- if you're fighting a war and there's like some opposing soldier that, that shoots a- shoots at you. It's not like they hate you. They don't even know you.

Joe Rogan 1:10:00 Right.

Elon Musk 1:10:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:01 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:10:02 So just think of it like that. Like, they're firing bullets, whatever, um, but they, they, they don't know you, so don't take it personally.

Joe Rogan 1:10:08 There's something interesting about it too. It's like, uh, like when you write something in, you know, 280 characters and they write something in two-hu- It's such a crude way. It's like, you know, someone saying, sending opposing smoke signals that refute your smoke signals. It's like, it's so crude and especially when you're talking about something like Neuralink. You're ta- you're talking about some future potential where you're, you're gonna be able to express pure thoughts that get, get conveyed through some sort of a universal language with no ambiguity whatsoever versus, you know, tweets.

Elon Musk 1:10:45 Well, there'll always be some ambiguity, but-

Joe Rogan 1:10:47 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:10:47 ... tweets are ... It's hard. Um, like, the, maybe there should be like a sarcasm flag or something. You know?

Joe Rogan 1:10:54 Right, right.

Elon Musk 1:10:55 Um, or I'm like-

Joe Rogan 1:10:56 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:10:56 ... you know, just kidding or whatever, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:10:58 But-

Elon Musk 1:10:58 Like that, you know? Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:10:59 ... it seems like it would take away some of the fun from people that know it's sarcasm.

Elon Musk 1:11:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:11:03 Like if everybody knew that The Onion wasn't real, if you sent people articles-

Elon Musk 1:11:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:08 ... it's something about someone getting angry at an Onion article.

Elon Musk 1:11:12 Wow, that's amazing.

Joe Rogan 1:11:13 You know what I mean? Where they don't realize what it is.

Elon Musk 1:11:15 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:11:15 There's something fun about that for everybody else.

Elon Musk 1:11:18 Uh, yeah. The Onion's, The Onion's pretty great. Might, might be the best news source.

Joe Rogan 1:11:23 Do you know who Titania McGrath is? Hilarious ... It's, uh-

Elon Musk 1:11:28 Um-

Joe Rogan 1:11:28 ... Andrew Boyle, he's a, uh, a British fellow.

Elon Musk 1:11:31 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:11:31 A brilliant guy who's been on the podcast before and he has this, uh, fictional character, this, uh, pseudonym, Titania McGrath, who's like this ult- the ultimate social justice warrior. And-

Elon Musk 1:11:41 Uh, does-

Joe Rogan 1:11:42 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:11:42 Is this, is this like a ... Like a female avatar or something?

Joe Rogan 1:11:45 Yes, yes, yes.

Elon Musk 1:11:45 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:11:45 A female avatar that's actually a computer conglomeration of a bunch of faces.

Elon Musk 1:11:50 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:11:50 It's not really one person.

Elon Musk 1:11:51 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:11:51 So if one person can't be a victim and be angry, he sort of combined these faces-

Elon Musk 1:11:56 All right.

Joe Rogan 1:11:56 ... to make this one perfect social justice warrior.

Elon Musk 1:11:57 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:11:58 But the thi- ... I g- I recognized it early on before I met him-

Elon Musk 1:12:02 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:12:02 ... that this was parody, this was, this was just fun. And then I, I love reading the people that don't recognize that, that get angry.

Elon Musk 1:12:12 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:12:12 And that they're really, like there's a lot of people that just get really furious-

Elon Musk 1:12:18 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:12:18 ... about some of the ... (laughs) there's some fun to that. There's some fun to the not picking up on the, the, the, the true nature of the signal.

Elon Musk 1:12:29 I find Twitter quite engaging.

Joe Rogan 1:12:31 How do you have the time?

Elon Musk 1:12:33 Um, well, I, I mean, it's like f- five minutes every couple hours type thing. It's not like I'm sitting on-

Joe Rogan 1:12:39 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:12:39 ... on it all day.

Joe Rogan 1:12:40 But even five minutes every couple hours, if those are bad five minutes, they might be bouncing around in your head for the next 30.

Elon Musk 1:12:48 Yeah, you have to, y- y- you know, like I said, take a certain amount of d- distance from... You read this and you're like, "Okay, it's bullets being fired by an opposing army." But, uh, you know, don't like... It's not like they, they... Like I said, it's not like they know you. It's like-

Joe Rogan 1:13:03 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:13:03 Don't, don't take it personally. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:13:05 Did you feel the same way when, when CNN had that stupid shit about ventilators with you? I, I found that both confusing and the, the, the, the-

Elon Musk 1:13:15 Yeah, that was annoying.

Joe Rogan 1:13:16 It was annoying.

Elon Musk 1:13:17 It was wrong.

Joe Rogan 1:13:18 But it, but it was also annoying as a person who reads CNN and wants to think of them as a responsible conveyor of the facts.

Elon Musk 1:13:26 (laughs) Well-

Joe Rogan 1:13:26 I would like to think that.

Elon Musk 1:13:28 Yeah. I don't think CNN is that.

Joe Rogan 1:13:31 I think it used to be.

Elon Musk 1:13:32 Used to be, yeah. Um, like what do you think is the, the best source of just like information out there? Like-

Joe Rogan 1:13:38 That's a good question.

Elon Musk 1:13:39 You know, like, let's say you're just like average citizen trying to just get the facts, you know, figure out what's going on. Like, you know, how to live your life and, you know, just looking for what, what's going on in the world that it's hard to find something that, that isn't, you know... That's, that's good.

Joe Rogan 1:14:01 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:14:01 You know? Uh, that, you know, not, not trying to push some partisan angle. Not trying to, not, not sort of doing sloppy reporting and, and just aiming for the most number of clicks and trying to maximize ad dollars and that kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 1:14:14 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:14:15 Um, you're just trying to figure out what's going on, it's like, I'm hard pressed as to... Where do you go?

Joe Rogan 1:14:21 I don't know. I don't think there's any pure form. Uh, uh, my favorite places are the New York Times and the LA Times and I don't trust them 100%. You know, because also there's individuals that are writing these stories.

Elon Musk 1:14:35 Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:14:36 And that seems to be the problem is these individual biases and these individual... There, there's purposely distorted perceptions and then there's ignorantly reported facts. And there's, there's so many variables and you got to put everything through this filter of where is this person coming from?

Elon Musk 1:14:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:54 Do they have political biases? Do they have social biases? Do they... Are they... Are they upset because of their own shortcomings and are they, are they projecting this into the story?

Elon Musk 1:15:04 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:15:04 It's so hard.

Elon Musk 1:15:06 Yeah, I think like maybe just trying to find individual reporters that you think are good and-

Joe Rogan 1:15:10 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:15:10 ... and kind of following them as opposed to the publication.

Joe Rogan 1:15:13 I go with whatever Matt Taibbi says.

Elon Musk 1:15:15 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:15:16 I trust him more than anybody.

Elon Musk 1:15:17 All right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:18 Matt Taibbi's onto something. I just... He's... As, as far as investigative reporters in particular, the way he reported the savings and loan crisis, the way he reports everything, I just, I just listen to him above most, above most. He's my go-to guy.

Elon Musk 1:15:33 All right, I'll check it out.

Joe Rogan 1:15:34 Oh, his Rolling Stones articles are amaze... His stuff on the savings and loan crisis is just like, what in the fuck?

Elon Musk 1:15:39 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:15:39 And, you know, and he wasn't... You know, he's not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, so he had to really sort of deeply embed himself in that world to try to understand it and to be able to report on it.

Elon Musk 1:15:49 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:15:50 And with also, with a humorous flair.

Elon Musk 1:15:52 Oh, now, that's nice.

Joe Rogan 1:15:53 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:15:54 Um, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:58 But there's not that many of them. There's...

Elon Musk 1:16:00 No.

Joe Rogan 1:16:00 It's hard. And not, not in a location where like we are no bullshit.

Elon Musk 1:16:04 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:16:05 You know, wearenobullshit.com. Like the one place where you can say, "This is what we know."

Elon Musk 1:16:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:10 "This is what we don't know. This is what we think." Not, "This person's wrong and here's why." Like, ugh, goddammit. You know, I can't. You, you don't know. There's a lot of stuff that is-

Elon Musk 1:16:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:21 ... open to interpretation.

Elon Musk 1:16:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:24 This, this particular coronavirus issue that we're dealing with right now seems to be a, a great illuminator of that very fact, is that there's so much data and there's this... There's so much that's open to inter- There's so many things... Because it's all happening in real time, right? And like particularly right now in California, we're in stage two tomorrow or Friday, two days from now. Stage two, retail stores opening up, things are changing. You know, like no one knows the correct process that needs to take place to save the most amount of lives but yet ensure that our, our, our culture and that our, our, our economy survives. It's a lot of speculation and guessing.

Elon Musk 1:17:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:07 But if you go to certain places, they'll tell you, "We know why and we know this and we know..." Ugh. It's hard.

Elon Musk 1:17:15 Yeah, I mean, in general, I think that it's like we, we should be concerned about, um, anything that's a massive infringement on our civil lib- civil liberties.

Joe Rogan 1:17:26 Yes.

Elon Musk 1:17:26 You know? So it's like you got to put a lot of weight on that. Um, you know, people, a lot of people died to, you know, win independence for the country and, and fight for the democracy that we have. And, uh, you know, we should treasure that and not, and, and not give up our liberties too easily. I think we've, we've... I think we probably did that actually. So-

Joe Rogan 1:17:48 Well, I like what you said when you said that it should be a choice and that to require people to stay home, require people to not go to work, require... And to, to arrest people for trying to make a living, this all seems wrong. And I, I think-

Elon Musk 1:18:05 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:18:05 ... it's a wrong approach. It's a, it's a... You're, you're... It's an infantilization of the society.

Elon Musk 1:18:13 It's-

Joe Rogan 1:18:13 That dad is going to tell you what to do.

Elon Musk 1:18:15 It's fundamentally a violation of the Constitution.

Joe Rogan 1:18:17 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:18:17 I mean, it's freedom of assembly and, you know, it's just... I mean, I don't think these things stand up in court really.

Joe Rogan 1:18:24 They're arresting people for protesting.

Elon Musk 1:18:26 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:27 Because they're protesting and violating social distancing and these mandates that tell people that they have to stay home.

Elon Musk 1:18:33 Yeah, these, these are, these would definitely not stand up, you know, if the Supreme Court... You know what I mean? It's obviously a complete violation of rights.

Joe Rogan 1:18:41 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:18:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:42 And again, this is not in any way, um, disrespecting the people who have died from this disease.

Elon Musk 1:18:48 No.

Joe Rogan 1:18:48 It's certainly a real thing to think of.

Elon Musk 1:18:51 Yeah, I mean, it- it- it- it shou- it just should be if- if you're- if you're at risk, you should not be compelled to leave your house-

Joe Rogan 1:18:57 Right.

Elon Musk 1:18:57 ... um, or leave a place of safety, but you should also not be, uh, if- if you're not at risk or if you are at risk and you wish to take a risk with your life, you should have the right to do that.

Joe Rogan 1:19:07 And it seems like at this point in time particularly, our resources would be best served protecting the people that are at risk versus penalizing the people that are not at high risk for living their life the way they did, particularly, uh, having a career and- and making a living and feeding your family.

Elon Musk 1:19:26 Uh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:19:26 Paying your bills, keeping your store open, keeping your restaurant open.

Elon Musk 1:19:30 Yes. I mean, there's- there's a strong- a strong downside to this.

Joe Rogan 1:19:34 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:19:35 Um, so, yeah, I'm just believe like, you know, if this is a free country, you should be, you know, allowed- allowed to do, you know, what you want as long as it does not endanger others.

Joe Rogan 1:19:46 But that's the thing, right? People... This is the argument they will bring up, like, "You are endangering others. You should stay home for the people that- that you- you... Even if you're fine, even if you know you're gonna be okay, there are certain people that will not be okay because of your actions." They might get exposed to this thing that we don't have a vaccine for, we don't have, uh, universally-accepted treatment for, and that we need to... Ca- th- this is... There's two arguments, right? The one argument is-

Elon Musk 1:20:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:20:13 ... we need to keep going, uh, protect the weak, protect the sick, but let's open up the economy. The other argument is stop placing money over human lives and, uh, let's shelter in place until we come up with some sort of a decision and let's figure out some way to develop some sort of a universal income, universal basic income plan or something like that to feed people during the- during this time-

Elon Musk 1:20:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:20:38 ... when we make this transition.

Elon Musk 1:20:39 I think there's a... Yeah. Um, as I said, my, uh... You know, my- my opinion is if- if- if somebody wants to stay home, they should st- stay home. I'd say if somebody doesn't wanna stay home, they should not be compelled to stay home. That's my opinion.

Joe Rogan 1:20:53 Do you think that-

Elon Musk 1:20:54 And if- and if- if somebody doesn't like that, well, that's my opinion. Um, so the... now... Yeah. Um, the- the- the- this notion though that, uh, you- you know, you can just sort of send checks out to everybody and- and things will be fine is not true, obviously. Uh, the- there's... Some people have this absurd, like, uh, view that the economy is like some magic horn of plenty. Like, it- it j- it just makes stuff. Stuff, you know, whatever... It just does a magic horn of plenty, you know, the goods and services, they just come from this magic horn of plenty. And then if, um... like if somebody has more stuff than somebody else, it's because they took more from this magic horn of plenty. Now, let me, uh, just break it to you, uh, th- the fools out there, if you don't make stuff, there's no stuff. Yeah. So if you don't make the food, if you don't process the food, you don't transport the food and- and, well, the- the, whether, you know, medical treatment, getting- getting- getting your teeth fixed or there's- there's no stuff. I become detached from reality. You- you can't just legislate money and sa- and solve these things. If you don't make stuff, you, there is no stuff, obviously. We'll run out of the stores. We'll run out of the, you know, the, the whole, the machine just grinds to a halt.

Joe Rogan 1:22:29 But the- the initial thought on this virus, the- the real fear was that this was gonna kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people instantaneously, uh, in- in this country, it was gonna do it very quickly if we didn't hunker down, if we didn't shelter in place, if we didn't quarantine ourselves or lock down. Do you think that the initial thought was a good idea based on the perception that this was going to be far more deadly than it turned out to be?

Elon Musk 1:23:00 Maybe, I- I think br- briefly.

Joe Rogan 1:23:02 Briefly?

Elon Musk 1:23:03 Briefly. Um, but, uh, I think if- if, you know, any- any kind of, like, sensible examination of what happened in China would lead to a conclusion that that is obviously not gonna occur. Uh, this- this- this virus originated in- in Wuhan. There's like, I don't know, 100,000 people a day leaving Wuhan. Uh, so it- that- that... It- it, uh, it went everywhere very fast, uh, through- throughout China, throughout the rest of the world. Um, and, uh, the fatality rate was- was low.

Joe Rogan 1:23:34 Don't you think though it's difficult to appreciate... It's- it's- it's difficult to- to filter what the information that's coming out of China to- to accurately really get a- a real true representation of what happened? The- the propaganda machine is very strong.

Elon Musk 1:23:50 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:23:50 But what they-

Elon Musk 1:23:51 Well, well-

Joe Rogan 1:23:51 The World Health Organization appears to have been complicit with a lot of their propaganda.

Elon Musk 1:23:57 If... The- the thing is that American companies have massive, uh, supply chains in China, like hon- Tesla, for example. We have hundreds of suppliers, like tier one, two, three, four suppliers throughout- throughout China. So we know if they are able to make stuff or not. We know if they, if they