Elon Musk: Neuralink and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #438

1. 0:00 – 0:49

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Elon Musk, DJ Tsao, Matthew McDougall, Bliss Chapman, and Noland Arbaugh, about Neuralink and the future of humanity. Elon, DJ, Matthew, and Bliss are, of course, part of the amazing Neuralink team, and Noland is the first human to have a Neuralink device implanted in his brain. I speak with each of them individually, so use timestamps to jump around, or, as I recommend, go hardcore and listen to the whole thing. This is the longest podcast I've ever done. It's a fascinating, super technical and wide-ranging conversation, and I loved every minute of it. And now, dear friends, here's Elon Musk, his fifth time on this, the Lex Fridman podcast.

2. 0:49 – 4:06

   Elon Musk

   1. EMElon Musk0:50

      Drinking coffee or water?

   2. LFLex Fridman0:51

      Water.

   3. EMElon Musk0:52

      (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman0:54

      (laughs) I'm so over-caffeinated right now. Do you want some caffeine?

   5. EMElon Musk0:57

      I mean, sure.

   6. LFLex Fridman0:59

      There's a, there's a nitro drink.

   7. EMElon Musk1:02

      This will keep you up for like, you know, tomorrow afternoon, basically (laughs) .

   8. LFLex Fridman1:08

      Yeah. I don't have any sugar.

   9. EMElon Musk1:10

      So what, what is nitro? It's just got a lot of caffeine or something?

   10. LFLex Fridman1:13

       Don't ask questions. It's called "nitro."

   11. EMElon Musk1:15

       (laughs)

   12. LFLex Fridman1:16

       Do you need to know anything else?

   13. EMElon Musk1:18

       It's got, it's got nitrogen in it. That's ridiculous. I mean, what we breathe is 78% nitrogen anyway.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:23

       (laughs)

   15. EMElon Musk1:24

       (laughs) What do you need to add more for? (laughs) Most, most people think that they're breathing oxygen and they're actually breathing 78% nitrogen. You need, like, a milk bar. Like-

   16. LFLex Fridman1:36

       A milk bar? (laughs)

   17. EMElon Musk1:37

       (laughs) Like from A Clockwork Orange. (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman1:39

       Yeah. Yeah. Is that a top three Kubrick film for you?

   19. EMElon Musk1:44

       A Clockwork Orange? It's pretty good. I mean, it's demented. Jarring, let's say. (laughs)

   20. LFLex Fridman1:50

       Uh. (laughs) Okay. Uh, okay. So first, let's step back, and big congrats on, uh, getting Neuralink implanted into a human. That's a historic step for Neuralink, and, uh-

   21. EMElon Musk2:05

       Oh, thanks, yeah.

   22. LFLex Fridman2:05

       ... there's many more to come.

   23. EMElon Musk2:07

       Yeah, we just, um... Obviously have our second implant as well.

   24. LFLex Fridman2:11

       How did that go?

   25. EMElon Musk2:12

       Uh, so far, so good. It's, uh, there... Looks like we've got, um, I think on the order of 400 electrodes that are, are providing signals. So...

   26. LFLex Fridman2:22

       Nice.

   27. EMElon Musk2:23

       Yeah.

   28. LFLex Fridman2:24

       How, how quickly do you think the number of human participants will scale?

   29. EMElon Musk2:28

       Uh, it depends somewhat on the regulatory approval, the rate at which we get re- regulatory approvals. Uh, so we're hoping to do 10 by the end of this year, a total of 10, so eight more.

   30. LFLex Fridman2:42

       And with each one, you're gonna be learning a lot of lessons about the neurobiology of the brain, the everything, the whole chain of the neural link, the decoding, the s- the signal processing, all that kind of stuff.
3. 4:06 – 10:45

   Telepathy

   1. EMElon Musk4:06

   2. LFLex Fridman4:06

      Yeah, that BPS is an interesting metric to measure. There might be a big leap in the experience once you reach a certain level of BPS.

   3. EMElon Musk4:16

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman4:17

      Like entire new ways of interacting with a computer might be unlocked.

   5. EMElon Musk4:21

      And with humans.

   6. LFLex Fridman4:22

      With other humans.

   7. EMElon Musk4:23

      Provided they have (laughs) , they want a Neuralink too.

   8. LFLex Fridman4:27

      Right. Do you think-

   9. EMElon Musk4:28

      Otherwise, they won't be able to absorb the signals fast enough.

   10. LFLex Fridman4:31

       Do you think they'll improve the quality of intellectual discourse?

   11. EMElon Musk4:34

       Well, I think you can, you could think of it, you know, if, if you were to slow down communication, how, how would you feel about that? You know, if you'd only talk at, let's say, one-tenth of normal speed, you'd be like, "Wow, that's agonizingly slow."

   12. LFLex Fridman4:50

       Yeah.

   13. EMElon Musk4:51

       Uh, so now imagine you could speak at, communicate clearly, um, at 10 or 100 or 1,000 times faster than normal.

   14. LFLex Fridman5:00

       Listen, uh, I'm pretty sure nobody in their right mind listens to me at 1x. They listen at 2x.

   15. EMElon Musk5:07

       (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman5:08

       So I can, I can, I can only imagine what 10x would ex- feel like, or could actually understand it.

   17. EMElon Musk5:14

       I usually default to 1.5x. Um, you can do 2x, but I... Well, actually, if I'm trying to go, if, if I'm listening to somebody who gets too, in like sort of 15, 20-minute segments to go to sleep, then I'll do it 1.5x. Um, if I'm paying attention, I'll do 2x. (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman5:30

       Right. Um-

   19. EMElon Musk5:31

       But actually, if, if you start actually listening to podcasts or, or sort of audio books or anything at... If you get used to doing it at 1.5, then, then one sounds painfully slow.

   20. LFLex Fridman5:43

       I'm still holding on to one because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of myself becoming bored with the reality, with the real world where everyone's speaking in 1x. (laughs)

   21. EMElon Musk5:53

       (laughs) Well, it depends on the person. You can speak very fast, like we can, we can communicate very quickly. And also if you use a wide range of... If your vo- if your vocabulary is, is larger, your, uh, bit rate, effective bit rate is higher.

   22. LFLex Fridman6:05

       (laughs) That's a good way to put it.

   23. EMElon Musk6:07

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman6:07

       The effective bit rate. I mean, that is the question, is how much information is actually compressed in the low bit transfer of language.

   25. EMElon Musk6:15

       Yeah, if you, if there's, if there's a single word that is able to convey something that would normally require, um, I don't know, 10 simple words, then you've, you've got a, you know, maybe a 10X compression on your hands. And that's really like with memes. Memes are like data, data compression. Um, it conveys a whole... Uh, there's, you're simultan- simultaneously hit with a wide range of symbols that you can interpret, um, and it's, you, you kinda get it, um, faster than if it were words or, or a simple picture.

   26. LFLex Fridman6:49

       And of course, you're referring to memes broadly, like ideas.

   27. EMElon Musk6:53

       Yeah. There's a, an entire idea structure that is like a, an idea template, and then you can add something to that idea template. Uh, but somebody has that preexisting idea template in their head. Um, so when you add that incremental bit of information, you're conveying, uh, much more than if you just, you know, said a few words. You, it's everything associated with that meme.

   28. LFLex Fridman7:15

       You think there'll be emergent leaps of capability as you scale the number of electrodes?

   29. EMElon Musk7:19

       Yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman7:19

       Like, there'll be a certain... Do you think there'll be like an actual number where it just, the human experience will be altered?
4. 10:45 – 15:12

   Power of human mind

   1. EMElon Musk10:45

   2. LFLex Fridman10:45

      Well, it is a very interesting question for a super intelligent species. What use are humans?

   3. EMElon Musk10:54

      Um, I think there is some argument for humans as a source of will.

   4. LFLex Fridman10:59

      Will?

   5. EMElon Musk11:00

      Will, yeah. Source of will or purpose. So if you, if you consider the human mind as being essentially the, there's the primitive limbic elements, which basically even like reptiles have, and there's the cortex. That's the thinking and planning part of the brain. Now, the cortex is much smarter than the limbic system, and yet it's largely in service to the limbic system. It's trying to make the limbic system happy. I mean, the sheer amount of compute that's gone into people trying to get laid is insane.

   6. LFLex Fridman11:30

      Hm.

   7. EMElon Musk11:30

      Um, without the pur- without actually seeking procreation.

   8. LFLex Fridman11:35

      Right.

   9. EMElon Musk11:35

      They're just literally trying to do the sort of simple motion, um.

   10. LFLex Fridman11:40

       Right.

   11. EMElon Musk11:41

       (laughs)

   12. LFLex Fridman11:42

       (laughs)

   13. EMElon Musk11:42

       And they get a kick out of it.

   14. LFLex Fridman11:43

       Yeah.

   15. EMElon Musk11:44

       So this, uh, simple, which in the abstract rather absurd motion, which is sex, uh, the cortex is putting massive amount of compute into trying to figure out how to do that.

   16. LFLex Fridman11:55

       So like 90% of distributed compute with a human species is spent on trying to get laid probably, like-

   17. EMElon Musk12:00

       A massive amount.

   18. LFLex Fridman12:00

       ... a large percentage.

   19. EMElon Musk12:01

       Yeah, yeah. There's no purpose to most sex except, uh, hedonistic. You know, it's just sort of a ha- joy or whatever, dopamine release. Um-... now, I want to know, once in a while it's procreation, but for humans it's mostly, modern humans, it's mostly, uh, recreational. Um, and, uh, and so, so the, so your cortex, much smarter than your limbic system, is trying to make the limbic system happy 'cause the limbic system wants to have sex, so, um, or want some tasty food, or whatever the case may be. And then that, that is then further augmented by the tertiary system which is your phone, your laptop, iPad, whatever, you know, all, all your computing stuff. That's your tertiary layer. So you're actually already a cyborg. Uh, you have this tertiary compute layer which is in, uh, in the form of your, your computer with all the applications, all your compute devices. Um, and, uh, and so (laughs) in the getting laid front, there's actually a massive amount of compute, of, of digital compute also trying to get laid. (laughs) .

   20. LFLex Fridman13:02

       (laughs)

   21. EMElon Musk13:02

       You know, with like Tinder and whatever, you know?

   22. LFLex Fridman13:04

       Yeah. So the, the compute that we humans have built is also participating. (laughs) .

   23. EMElon Musk13:09

       (laughs) Yeah. I mean, there's like gigawatts of compute going into getting laid, like of digital compute.

   24. LFLex Fridman13:14

       Yeah. (laughs) What if AGI was-

   25. EMElon Musk13:17

       This is happening as we speak.

   26. LFLex Fridman13:19

       (laughs) If we merge with AI, it's just gonna expand the compute that we humans use-

   27. EMElon Musk13:24

       (laughs) Pretty much.

   28. LFLex Fridman13:24

       ... to try to get laid.

   29. EMElon Musk13:25

       Well, it's one of the things certainly, yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman13:26

       Yeah.
5. 15:12 – 20:27

   Future of Neuralink

   1. EMElon Musk15:12

      the universe.

   2. LFLex Fridman15:13

      So do you think people, when you have a Neuralink with 10,000, 100,000 channels, most of the use cases will be communication with AI systems?

   3. EMElon Musk15:27

      Well, if ass- assuming that the, there are not, um... Yeah, I mean, there's, there's this solving basic, uh, neurological issues that people have, you know, if they've got, um, damaged neurons in their spinal cord or neck or, you know, um, as, as is the case with the first two patients then, you know, there's obviously the first order of business is solving fundamental neuron damage in the spinal cord, neck, or in the brain itself. Um, so, you know, and a, a se- a second, um, product is called Blindsight which is to enable people who are completely blind, lost both eyes or optic nerve or just can't see at all, uh, to be able to see, um, by directly triggering the neurons in the visual cortex. So we're, we're just starting at the basics here, you know? This is like, um, very, the s- the simple stuff, uh, relatively speaking is, uh, solving, um, neuron damage.

   4. LFLex Fridman16:30

      Mm-hmm.

   5. EMElon Musk16:31

      Um, you know, it can also solve, uh, I think probably schizophrenia, you know, um, if, uh, people have seizures of some kind, it could probably solve that. Um, it could help with, uh, memory. There, there's, so there's like a kind of a, a tech tree, if you will (laughs) , of like, you got the basics, um, like, like you need, you need literacy before you can have, you know, Lord of the Rings (laughs) .

   6. LFLex Fridman16:58

      Mm-hmm.

   7. EMElon Musk16:58

      You know? (laughs) .

   8. LFLex Fridman17:02

      (laughs) Got it.

   9. EMElon Musk17:03

      So do you have letters and alphabet?

   10. LFLex Fridman17:04

       (laughs)

   11. EMElon Musk17:04

       Okay, great. Uh, words? You know, then eventually you get, uh, sagas. So, you know, I think there's th- there may be some, you know, things to worry about in, in the future, but the first several years are really just solving basic neurological damage. Like, for people who have essentially complete or near complete loss of from the brain to the body, um, like Stephen Hawking would be an example, uh, the Neuralink would be incredibly profound 'cause I mean, you can imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate as fast as we're communicating, perhaps faster. Um, and that's certainly po- uh, possible. Probable, in fact. Likely, I'd say.

   12. LFLex Fridman17:46

       So there is a, a kind of dual track of medical and non-medical? Meaning, so everything you've-

   13. EMElon Musk17:53

       Well-

   14. LFLex Fridman17:53

       ... talked about could be applied to people who are non-disabled in the future?

   15. EMElon Musk17:58

       The logical thing to do is, sensible thing to do is to start off solving, um, basic, uh, neuron damage issues.

   16. LFLex Fridman18:09

       Yes.

   17. EMElon Musk18:10

       Um, 'cause the, th- there's obviously some risk with, with the new device. There's, you can't get the risk down to zero. Um, it's not possible. So you wanna have, um, the highest possible reward.... given that, given there's a certain irreducible risk. And if, um, if somebody's able to have a profound improvement in their communication, um, that's worth the risk.

   18. LFLex Fridman18:34

       As you get the ri- the risk down.

   19. EMElon Musk18:36

       Yeah, as, as you get the risk down. O- once the risk is, is down to, to, you know, you want, if you have, like, thousands of, of people that have been using it for, for years and the risk is minimal, then, um, perhaps at that point you could consider saying, "Okay, let's, let's aim for augmentation." Now, now, I think we, we, we're actually gonna aim for augmentation with people who have neur- neuron damage. So, we're not just aiming to give people a communication data rate equivalent to normal humans, we're aiming to give people who have, you know, quadriplegic, or maybe have complete loss, um, of the connection to the brain and body, a communication data rate that exceeds normal humans.

   20. LFLex Fridman19:16

       Mm-hmm.

   21. EMElon Musk19:17

       I mean, while we're in there, why not? Let's give people superpowers.

   22. LFLex Fridman19:20

       And the same for vision! As you restore vision-

   23. EMElon Musk19:23

       Yeah.

   24. LFLex Fridman19:23

       ... there could be aspects of that restoration that are superhuman.

   25. EMElon Musk19:27

       Yeah. At, at first, the vision restoration will be, uh, low res, um, 'cause you have to say, like, how many neurons can you put in there and h- and, and trigger. And, and you can do things where you, you, um, adjust the electric field so that given if you've got, say, 10,000 neurons, it's not just 10,000 pixels because you can adjust the, the field between the, the neurons and, and do them in patterns, uh, in order to get, so ha- have say, 10,000 electrodes effectively give you, uh, I don't know, maybe a, like having a, a megapixel or a 10 megapixel situation. Um, so... And, and then o- over time, I think you get to higher resolution than human eyes and you could also see in different wavelengths. So like Geordi La Forge from Star Trek, you know, had like the thing. You could just... Do you want to see in radar? No problem. You can see ultraviolet, infrared, eagle vision, whatever you want.

6. 20:27 – 29:57

   Ayahuasca

   1. EMElon Musk20:28

      (laughs)

   2. LFLex Fridman20:28

      Do you think there will be, uh... Let me ask a Joe Rogan question. Do you think there'll be... (laughs)

   3. EMElon Musk20:33

      (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman20:33

      I just recently, uh, took an ayahuasca.

   5. EMElon Musk20:36

      (laughs) Is that a Joe Rogan question?

   6. LFLex Fridman20:37

      So this question... No. Well, yes. (laughs)

   7. EMElon Musk20:39

      Well, I guess, technically it is. (laughs)

   8. LFLex Fridman20:40

      Yeah. Have you tried-

   9. EMElon Musk20:42

      Yeah, is this DMT in there or something? (laughs)

   10. LFLex Fridman20:42

       Have you tried DMT, bro? (laughs) Ah, I love you, Joe. Okay. (laughs) But do-

   11. EMElon Musk20:48

       (laughs) Yeah, wait, wait. Yeah, have you said much about it? The, the ayahuasca stuff?

   12. LFLex Fridman20:51

       I have not. I have not. I have not. I've been-

   13. EMElon Musk20:53

       Okay, well, why don't you spill the beans?

   14. LFLex Fridman20:54

       (laughs) Uh, it was an, it was a truly incredible experience.

   15. EMElon Musk20:57

       Don't be turning the tables on you. (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman20:59

       (laughs) Wow, yeah.

   17. EMElon Musk21:00

       I mean, you're in the jungle. (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman21:02

       Yeah, amongst the trees, myself and-

   19. EMElon Musk21:04

       Yeah, it must have been crazy.

   20. LFLex Fridman21:04

       ... and a shaman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the insects, with the animals all around you, like, jungle as far as I can see. There's no-

   21. EMElon Musk21:10

       I mean...

   22. LFLex Fridman21:11

       (laughs) That's the way to do it.

   23. EMElon Musk21:12

       Things are gonna look pretty wild.

   24. LFLex Fridman21:14

       Yeah, pretty wild.

   25. EMElon Musk21:15

       (laughs)

   26. LFLex Fridman21:15

       I took a... I took-

   27. EMElon Musk21:17

       I mean-

   28. LFLex Fridman21:17

       ... an extremely high dose.

   29. EMElon Musk21:18

       (laughs) J- j- j- j- don't go hugging an anaconda or something, you know? Uh... (laughs)

   30. LFLex Fridman21:24

       Uh, you haven't lived unless you made love to an anaconda. (laughs) I'm sorry. (laughs) But-
7. 29:57 – 34:44

   Merging with AI

   1. LFLex Fridman29:57

      You've talked about the, the threats, the safety concerns of AI. Let's look at long-term visions. Do you think Neuralink is, in your view, the, the best current approach we have for AI safety?

   2. EMElon Musk30:13

      It's an idea that may help with AI safety. Um, certainly not... I wouldn't wanna, I would- wouldn't wanna claim it's like some panacea or it's, that it's a sure thing. Um, but, I mean, many years ago I was thinking like, "Well, what, um..."What would inhibit alignment of human collective, human will with, uh, artificial intelligence? And the low data rate of humans, especially our, our slow output rate, um, would necessarily just because it's such a, because the communication is so slow, would, uh, diminish the link between humans and computers. Like, the more you are a tree, (laughs) the, the less you know what the tree is. Like, let's say you, you look at a tree, you look at this plant or whatever, and like, "Hey, I'd really like to make that plant happy," but it's not saying a lot, you know? (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman31:10

      Mm-hmm. So the more we increase the data rate that humans, uh, can intake and output, then that means the, the better, (laughs) the, the higher the chance we have in a world full of AGIs.

   4. EMElon Musk31:21

      Yeah. We could better align collective human will with, uh, AI if the output rate especially was dramatically increased. Like, and I think there's, there's potential to increase the output rate by, I don't know, three, maybe six, maybe more orders of magnitude. So it's better than the current situation.

   5. LFLex Fridman31:41

      And that output rate would be by increasing the number of electrodes, number of channels, and also maybe implanting multiple NeuraLinks?

   6. EMElon Musk31:49

      Yeah.

   7. LFLex Fridman31:51

      Do you think there will be a world in the next couple of decades where it's hundreds of millions of people have NeuraLinks?

   8. EMElon Musk31:59

      Yeah, I do.

   9. LFLex Fridman32:02

      Do you think when people just, when they see the capabilities, the superhuman capabilities that are possible, and then the, the safety is demonstrated?

   10. EMElon Musk32:11

       Yeah, if it's extremely safe, um, and you have s- and, and you can have superhuman abilities, um, and let's say you can upload your memories, um, you know, so you wouldn't, you wouldn't lose memories, um, then I think probably a lot of people would, would choose to have it. It would supersede the cellphone, for example. I mean, it's the-

   11. LFLex Fridman32:35

       Mm-hmm.

   12. EMElon Musk32:36

       The, the, the biggest problem that a, say a phone has, um, is, is trying to div- figure out what you want. So that's why you've got, uh, you know, autocomplete, and you've got output, which is all the pixels on the screen, but from the perspective of the human. The output is so friggin' slow. Desktop or phone is desperately just trying to understand what you want. And, and, um, you know, there's an eternity between every keystroke from a computer standpoint.

   13. LFLex Fridman33:04

       (laughs) Yeah. Yeah.

   14. EMElon Musk33:07

       So...

   15. LFLex Fridman33:07

       That's why the computer's talking to a tree, a slow-moving tree-

   16. EMElon Musk33:10

       Yeah.

   17. LFLex Fridman33:10

       ...that's trying to swipe.

   18. EMElon Musk33:12

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman33:12

       (inhales deeply)

   20. EMElon Musk33:14

       So, you know, if you have computers that are doing trillions of instructions per second, and a whole second went by, I mean, there's a trillion things it could have done, you know? (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman33:24

       Yeah. I think it's exciting and scary for people, because once you have a very high bit rate, that changes the human experience in a way that's very hard to imagine.

   22. EMElon Musk33:35

       Yeah, it would be... We would be something different, s- I mean some sort of futuristic cyborg. Uh, I mean, I mean, we're obviously talking about, by the way, like, (laughs) it's not like around the corner. It's, you're asking what the fu- distant future, it's like, maybe this is, like, it's not super far away, but 10, 15 years, that kind of thing.

   23. LFLex Fridman33:56

       (inhales deeply) When can I get one? 10 years?

   24. EMElon Musk34:02

       Pro- probably less than 10 years. Depends what you want, wanna, wanna do, you know?

   25. LFLex Fridman34:08

       Hey, if I can get, like, 1,000 bps.

   26. EMElon Musk34:11

       1,000 bps, wow.

   27. LFLex Fridman34:12

       And it's safe, and I can just interact with a computer while laying back and eating Cheetos.

   28. EMElon Musk34:18

       (laughs)

   29. LFLex Fridman34:18

       I don't eat Cheetos. There's certain aspects of human-computer interaction, when done more efficiently and more enjoyably, are, like, worth it.

   30. EMElon Musk34:26

       Well, we feel pretty confident that, um, I, I think maybe within the next year or two that someone with a NeuraLink implant will be able to outperform, um, a, uh, pro gamer.
8. 34:44 – 36:57

   xAI

   1. LFLex Fridman34:45

      I got to visit Memphis.

   2. EMElon Musk34:46

      Yeah, yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman34:47

      You're going big on compute.

   4. EMElon Musk34:49

      Yeah.

   5. LFLex Fridman34:49

      And you've also said, "Play to win or don't play at all," so.

   6. EMElon Musk34:51

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman34:52

      (laughs) What does it take to win?

   8. EMElon Musk34:54

      Um, for AI that means you've gotta have the most powerful training compute. And your, the, the rate of improvement of training compute has to be faster than everyone else, or you will not win. Your, your AI will be worse.

   9. LFLex Fridman35:10

      So how can Grok, let's say 3, that might be available, what, like next year?

   10. EMElon Musk35:15

       Well, hopefully end of this year.

   11. LFLex Fridman35:17

       Grok-3.

   12. EMElon Musk35:17

       If we're lucky, yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman35:20

       How can that be the best LLM, the best AI system available in the world? How much of it is compute? How much of it is data? How much of it is, like, post-training? How much of it is the product that you package it up in, all that kinda stuff?

   14. EMElon Musk35:37

       I mean, they all matter. It's sort of like saying what, what, you know, let's say it's a Formula One race. Like, what matters more, the car or the driver? I mean, they both matter. Um, if the, if, if you're, if a car is not fast, then, you know, if it's, like, let's say it's half the horsepower of your competitor's, the best driver will still lose. Uh, I don't know, if it's twice the horsepower, then probably even a mediocre driver will still win. So the training computer is kinda like the engine, how many, the horsepower of the engine. So y- really, you wanna try to do the best on that, and you, then, um, then it's how efficiently do you use that training compute, and how efficiently do you do the inference, the, uh, use of the AI. Um, so obviously that comes down to human talent. Um, and then what unique access to data do you have? Uh, that's also plays a, plays a role.

   15. LFLex Fridman36:28

       You think Twitter data will be useful?

   16. EMElon Musk36:30

       Uh, yeah. I mean, (laughs) I think, I think most of the leading AI companies were, already s- have already scraped a- uh, (laughs) all the Twitter data.... uh, not I think they have. Um, so, uh, on a go-forward basis, what's useful is-

   17. LFLex Fridman36:45

       Yes.

   18. EMElon Musk36:45

       ... is the, is the fact that it's, uh, up to the second, in a-

   19. LFLex Fridman36:48

       Yes.

   20. EMElon Musk36:48

       ... that's the, because they, they, it's hard for them to scrape in real time. So there's, there's a, an a- an immediacy advantage that Grok has already.

9. 36:57 – 43:47

   Optimus

   1. EMElon Musk36:57

      I think with Tesla and, and the real-time video coming from the several million cars, ultimately tens of millions of cars with Optimus, there might be hundreds of millions of Optimus robots, maybe billions, learning a tremendous amount from the real world. Uh, that's, that's the, the biggest source of data, I think, ultimately, is, is sort of Optimus probably ... is, Op- Optimus is gonna be the biggest source of data.

   2. LFLex Fridman37:21

      Because it's able to-

   3. EMElon Musk37:22

      'Cause r- reality scales.

   4. LFLex Fridman37:24

      (laughs)

   5. EMElon Musk37:25

      (laughs) R- reality scales to the scale of reality.

   6. LFLex Fridman37:27

      (laughs)

   7. EMElon Musk37:27

      Um, it's actually humbling to see how little data humans have actually been able to accumulate. Um, really, you s- if you say how many trillions of usable tokens have humans generated where on a n- non-duplicative like, uh, discounting s- s- spam and repetitive stuff, it's not a huge number. You run out pretty quickly.

   8. LFLex Fridman37:54

      And Optimus can go, so Tesla cars can ... are ... unfortunately have to stay on the road. Uh-

   9. EMElon Musk38:01

      Right.

   10. LFLex Fridman38:01

       ... Optimus robot can go anywhere.

   11. EMElon Musk38:02

       (laughs) Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman38:02

       There's more reality off the road. And go off-road.

   13. EMElon Musk38:06

       Yeah. I- I mean, like the Optimus robot can, like, pick up the cup and see, did it pick up the cup in the right way? Did it-

   14. LFLex Fridman38:11

       Yeah.

   15. EMElon Musk38:11

       ... you know, say, go pour water in the cup, you know?

   16. LFLex Fridman38:16

       Yeah.

   17. EMElon Musk38:16

       Did the water go in the cup or not go in the cup? Did it spill water or not?

   18. LFLex Fridman38:19

       Yeah.

   19. EMElon Musk38:20

       Um, simple stuff like that. I mean, but, but it can do at that at scale times a billion, you know? So generate use- useful data from reality. So ca- co- cause and effect stuff.

   20. LFLex Fridman38:34

       What do you think it takes to get to mass production of humanoid robots like that?

   21. EMElon Musk38:40

       It's the same as cars, really. I mean, global capacity for vehicles, um, is about 100 million a year. And, uh, it c- it could be higher, it's just that the demand is on the order of 100 million a year. And then there's roughly two billion, uh, vehicles that are in use in some way. So, uh, which makes sense. Like the, the life of a vehicle is about 20 years, so at steady state, you can have 100 million vehicles produced a year with a t- with a two billion vehicle fleet, roughly. Um, now for humanoid robots, the utility is much greater. So my guess is humanoid robots are more like at a, a bil- a billion plus per year.

   22. LFLex Fridman39:19

       But, you know, until you came along and started, uh, building Optimus, it- it was thought to be an extremely difficult problem. I mean, still-

   23. EMElon Musk39:27

       Well, I think it is-

   24. LFLex Fridman39:28

       ... it's an extremely difficult problem. (laughs)

   25. EMElon Musk39:29

       Yes. It's, it's no walk in the park. I mean, Octo- O- Opt- (laughs) Optimus currently would struggle to have a w- wa- walk to walk in the park.

   26. LFLex Fridman39:36

       (laughs)

   27. EMElon Musk39:36

       I mean, it can walk in a-

   28. LFLex Fridman39:38

       Yeah.

   29. EMElon Musk39:38

       ... park, but park is not too difficult, but it w- it will be able to w- (laughs) walk, um, over a wide range of terrain.

   30. LFLex Fridman39:43

       Yeah. And pick up objects.
10. 43:47 – 1:01:23

    Elon's approach to problem-solving

    1. EMElon Musk43:47

    2. LFLex Fridman43:47

       Can you just speak to what it takes for a great engineering team? For you, the, what I saw in Memphis, the super computer cluster, is just this intense drive towards simplifying the process, understanding the process, constantly improving it, constantly iterating it.

    3. EMElon Musk44:08

       Well, (laughs) it's easy to say simplify and it's very difficult to, to do it. Um, you know, I have this very basic first pr- ba- basic first principles algorithm that I run kind of as like a mantra, which is to first question the requirements, make the requirements, um, less dumb. The requirement's alwa- always dumb to some degree, so if you wanna start off by reducing the number of re- requirements, um, and, um, no matter how smart the person is who gave you those requirements, they're still dumb to some degree. Um, if you're, you have to start there, because otherwise, uh, you could get the perfect answer to the wrong question. So, so try to make the question the least wrong possible. That's what, um, questioning the requirements means. And then the second thing is try to delete the, whatever the step is, the, the part or the process step. Um, sounds very obvious, but, um, people often forget to do, to, to try deleting it entirely. And if you're not forced to put back at least 10% of what you delete, you're not deleting enough. Like, uh, so, and, uh, and it's, uh, somewhat illogically, people often, most of the time, um, feel as though they have succeeded if they have not been forced to put the, put, put things back in. But actually they haven't, because they've been overly conservative and put, and have left things in there that shouldn't be. So, and only the third thing is try to optimize it or simplify it. Um, again, this sounds ... these all sound, I think, very, very obvious when I say them, but, uh, the number of times I've made these mistakes is, uh, more than I care to remember. Um, that's why I have this mantra.

    4. LFLex Fridman45:53

       (laughs)

    5. EMElon Musk45:54

       So, in fact, I'd say the, the most common mistake of smart engineers is to optimize a thing that should not exist.

    6. LFLex Fridman46:01

       Right.

    7. EMElon Musk46:02

       (laughs)

    8. LFLex Fridman46:03

       So, so you, like, like you say, you run through the algorithm-

    9. EMElon Musk46:06

       Yeah.

    10. LFLex Fridman46:06

        ... and basically sh- show up to a problem, uh, show up to the, the, the, the, the super computer cluster and see the process and ask, "Can this be deleted?"

    11. EMElon Musk46:14

        Yeah. First try to delete it.

    12. LFLex Fridman46:16

        (laughs)

    13. EMElon Musk46:17

        Um, yeah.

    14. LFLex Fridman46:18

        Yeah. That's not easy to do.

    15. EMElon Musk46:20

        No. And, and actually, th- there's, th- what generally makes people uneasy is that you've gotta delete, at least some of the things th- that you delete, you will put back in.

    16. LFLex Fridman46:30

        Yeah.

    17. EMElon Musk46:30

        But going back to sort of where our limbic system can steer us wrong is that, um, we tend to remember, uh, with a, sometimes a jarring level of pain, uh, where we've, where we deleted something that we subsequently needed.

    18. LFLex Fridman46:46

        Yeah.

    19. EMElon Musk46:46

        Um, and so people remember that one time they forgot to put in this thing three years ago and that caused them trouble. Um, and so they over correct, and then they put too much stuff in there and over complicate things. So you actually have to say, "No, we're deliberately gonna delete more than we, we should." So that we're putting, at least one in ten things we're gonna add back in.

    20. LFLex Fridman47:10

        Mm-hmm. Uh, and I've seen you suggest just that, that, uh, something should be deleted, and you can kind of see the, the pain.

    21. EMElon Musk47:18

        Oh, yeah, absolutely.

    22. LFLex Fridman47:19

        Everybody feels a little bit of the pain.

    23. EMElon Musk47:21

        Absolutely. And, uh, and I tell them in advance, like, "Yeah, there's some of the things that we delete we're gonna put back in." And, and that, people get a little shook by that. Um, but it makes sense, because if you, if you are so conservative as to never have to put anything back in, you obviously have a lot of stuff that isn't needed. So you, you, you gotta over correct. This is, I would say, like a cortical override to a limbic instinct.

    24. LFLex Fridman47:47

        One of many that probably leads us astray.

    25. EMElon Musk47:50

        Yeah. Um, and there's like a step four as well, which is, um, any given thing can be sped up. (laughs) However fast you think it can be done. Like, whatever the speed, the, the speed it's being done, it can be done faster.

    26. LFLex Fridman48:02

        Mm-hmm.

    27. EMElon Musk48:02

        But, but you shouldn't speed things up until it's opt- un- until you try to delete it and optimize it, otherwise you're speeding up s- that something that, speeding up something that shouldn't exist is absurd. Um, and then, and then the, the fifth thing is to, to automate it.

    28. LFLex Fridman48:13

        Yeah.

    29. EMElon Musk48:14

        And I've gone backwards so many times where I've automated something-

    30. LFLex Fridman48:18

        (laughs)
11. 1:01:23 – 1:05:53

    History and geopolitics

    1. EMElon Musk1:01:23

    2. LFLex Fridman1:01:23

       Uh, since I am interviewing Donald Trump-

    3. EMElon Musk1:01:27

       Cool.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:01:27

       ... you wanna stop by?

    5. EMElon Musk1:01:28

       Yeah, sure. I'll stop in.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:01:30

       There was tragically an a- an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Uh, after this, you tweeted that you endorse him. What's your philosophy behind that endorsement? What do you hope Donald Trump does for the future of this country and for the future of humanity?

    7. EMElon Musk1:01:47

       Well, I think there's... You know, people tend to take like, say, an endorsement as, um, well, I- I agree with everything that person has ever done their entire life 100% wholeheartedly, and that's- that's not gonna be true of anyone. Um, but we have to pick, you know, we got two choices really for- for who's president, and it's not- not just who's president, but the entire admini- administrative structure, uh, changes over. Um, and I thought, uh, Trump displayed, uh, courage under fire, objectively. Um, you know, he's, uh, just got shot. He's got blood streaming down his face, and he's like fist pumping saying, "Fight." You know, like, that's, uh, impressive. Like, you can't feign bravery in a situation like that. Um, like most people would have been ducking. There would not be... 'Cause there could be a- a second shooter. You don't know. Um, the- the president of the United States gotta represent the country, and uh, they're representing you. They're representing everyone in America. Well, like you want someone who is strong and courageous, uh, to represent the country. Um, that's not to say that he is without flaws. We all have flaws. Uh, but on balance, um, and certainly at the time, it was, um, a choice of, you know, Biden, po- poor guy, you know, has trouble climbing a flight of stairs, and the other one's fist bumping after getting shot. This is no- no comparison. I mean, who do you want dealing with, uh, some of the toughest people and, you know, other world leaders who are pretty tough themselves? And um, I- I mean, and I'll tell you like one of the things that I think are important. Um, you know, I think we want a secure border. We don't have a secure border. Um, we want safe and clean cities. Uh, I think we wanna r- reduce the amount of spending that we're... At least slow down the- the spending, um, and uh, because we're- we're currently spending at a rate that is bankrupting the country. The interest payments on US debt this year exceeded the entire Defense Department spending. If this continues, all of the federal government taxes will simply be paying the interest, and then... And you- you keep go- going down that road, you- you end up, you know, in the tragic s- situation that Argentina had back in the day. Argentina used to be one of those prosperous places in the world, and hopefully with Milei taking over, he can restore that, but um, it's... It was an incredible fall from grace for Argentina to go from being o- one of the most prosperous places in the world to, um, being very far from that. So, I think we should not take American prosperity for granted. Um, so we- we really wanna, I think... We- we've gotta reduce the size of government, we've gotta reduce the spending, and we've gotta live within our means.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:04:43

       Do you think politicians in general, politicians, governments... Well, how much power do you think they have to- to steer humanity towards good?

    9. EMElon Musk1:04:56

       Um, um there's a sort of age-old debate in history, like you know the- the... Is history determined by- by these fundamental tides or is it determined by the captain of the ship?

    10. LFLex Fridman1:05:08

        Mm-hmm.

    11. EMElon Musk1:05:08

        It's both really. I mean, there are tides and- but it also matters who's captain of the ship. So, so it's false dichotomy essentially. There's... You- you... (laughs) I mean, I mean there are certainly tide, the tides of history are... There are, there are real tides of history and these- these tides are often technologically driven. If you say like the Gutenberg press, you know, the widespread availability of books as a result of a printing press. That- that was a massive tide of history and independent of any ruler, but you know, you... (laughs) I think in stormy times you want the best possible captain of the ship.

12. 1:05:53 – 1:10:12

    Lessons of history

    1. EMElon Musk1:05:54

    2. LFLex Fridman1:05:54

       Well, first of all, thank you for recommending Will and Ariel Durant's work. I've, uh, read the- the short one for now.

    3. EMElon Musk1:06:01

       The Lessons of History.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:06:02

       The Lessons of His- Lessons of History.

    5. EMElon Musk1:06:03

       Yeah.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:06:03

       And so one of the... Well, sort of one of the lessons, one of the things they highlight is the importance of technology.

    7. EMElon Musk1:06:09

       Yeah.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:06:09

       Uh, technological innovation and they... Which is funny 'cause they've written... They wrote so long ago, but they were noticing that the- the rate of technological innovations was (laughs) speeding up. Um-

    9. EMElon Musk1:06:21

       Yeah, probably is.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:06:21

        I would love to (laughs) see what they think about now. Uh, but yeah, so you did... To me, the question is how much government, how much politicians get in the way of technological innovation and building versus like help it in which- uh, which- which politicians, which kind of policies help technological innovation, 'cause that seems to be... If you look at human history, that's an important component of empires rising and succeeding.

    11. EMElon Musk1:06:46

        Yeah. Well, I mean, in terms of dating civilization, the start of civilization, I think the start of writing in- in my view is- is the... That's- that's why what I think is probably the- the right starting point to date civilization, and from that standpoint, civilization has been around for about 5,500 years.... um, when writing was invented by the ancient Sumerians, um, who, who are gone now. Um, but the, the ancient Sumerians. Th- in terms of getting a lot of firsts, the, those ancient Sumerians really have a long list of firsts. (laughs) It's pretty wild. Um, in fact, Durant goes through the list of like, "You want to see firsts? We'll show you firsts."

    12. LFLex Fridman1:07:26

        (laughs)

    13. EMElon Musk1:07:27

        Um, the Sumerians just a, ass, were just ass-kickers. Um, and then the Egyptians who were right next door, um, relatively speaking, uh, they're like, weren't that far, developed an entirely different form of writing, the hieroglyphics. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics are totally different. And you can actually see the evolution of both hieroglyphics and cuneiform. Like, the cuneiform starts off being very simple, and then it gets more complicated, and then towards the end it's like, wow, okay, they really get very sophisticated with the cuneiform. So, I think of civilization as being about 5,000 years old. Um, and Earth is, um, if physics is correct, four and a half billion years old. So, civilization has been around for one-millionth of Earth's existence.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:08:11

        (laughs)

    15. EMElon Musk1:08:11

        Flash in the pan.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:08:13

        Yeah, these are the early, early days. And so we, we draw-

    17. EMElon Musk1:08:16

        Very early.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:08:16

        We make it very dramatic because there's been rises and falls of empires, and-

    19. EMElon Musk1:08:22

        Many, so many, so many rises and falls of empires.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:08:26

        (laughs)

    21. EMElon Musk1:08:26

        So many.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:08:28

        And there'll be many more.

    23. EMElon Musk1:08:30

        Yeah, (laughs) exactly. It's, I mean, only a tiny fraction, probably less than 1% of, of what was ever written in history is a- is available to us now. I mean, if they didn't put it literally chiseled in stone or put it in a clay tablet, we don't have it.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:08:44

        Yeah.

    25. EMElon Musk1:08:44

        I mean, there's some small amount of like papyrus scrolls that were rec- recovered that are thousands of years old, uh, because they were deep inside a pyramid and weren't affected by moisture. Uh, but, but other than that, it's really gotta be in a clay tablet or chiseled. (laughs) So, the vast majority of stuff was not chiseled because it takes a while to chisel things. Um, so that's why we've got tiny, tiny fraction of the information from history. But even that little information that we do have and the archaeological record, uh, shows so many civilizations rising and falling. It's wild.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:09:21

        We tend to think that we're somehow different from those people. One of the other things that Durant highlights is that human nature seems to be the same. (laughs)

    27. EMElon Musk1:09:30

        (laughs)

    28. LFLex Fridman1:09:30

        It just persists.

    29. EMElon Musk1:09:31

        Yeah, I mean, the basics of human nature are more or less the same. Yeah.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:09:35

        So we get ourselves in trouble in the same kinds of ways, I think, even with the advanced technology.
13. 1:10:12 – 1:17:55

    Collapse of empires

    1. EMElon Musk1:10:13

    2. LFLex Fridman1:10:13

       What, what do you think it takes for the American empire to not collapse in the near-term future, in the next 100 years, to continue flourishing?

    3. EMElon Musk1:10:28

       Well, the single biggest thing that is, um, often actually not mentioned in history books, but Durant does mention it, uh, is the birth rate. So, um, like I said, like, uh, perhaps just a counterintuitive thing happens, uh, when civilizations become, uh, are, are, are winning for too long. The- they've been, they, the birth rate declines. It can often decline quite rapidly. We're seeing that throughout the world today. You know, currently South Korea is like, I think maybe the lowest fertility rate. There, there are many others that are close to it. It's like 0.8, I think. If the birth rate doesn't decline further, uh, South Korea will lose roughly 60% of its population. And, and, but every year, the birth rate is dropping. Um, and this is true through most of the world. I, I don't mean to single out South Korea. It's been happening throughout the world. So, as, as soon as, as, as soon as any given, uh, civilization reaches a level of prosperity, the birth rate drops. Um, and now you can go look at the same thing happening in an- in ancient Rome. So, uh, Julius Caesar took note of this, I think around 50, 50-ish BC, um, and tried to pass, I don't know if he was successful, tried to pass a law to give an incentive for any Roman citizen that would have a third child. And I think Augustus was, was able to... well, he was, you know, the dictator, so (laughs) the senate was just for show. Uh, I think he did pass a, a tax incentive for Roman citizens to have a third child, but it- it, those efforts were unsuccessful. Um, Rome fell because the Romans stopped having, making Romans. That's actually the fundamental issue. And, and there were other things. So there, there was like, um, they had like quite a serious malaria, series of malaria epidemics, and plagues and whatnot. Um, but they had those before. Uh, the, the, the, it's just that the birth rate was far lower than the death rate.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:12:47

       It really is that simple.

    5. EMElon Musk1:12:49

       Well, I'm saying that's-

    6. LFLex Fridman1:12:50

       More people is acquired.

    7. EMElon Musk1:12:52

       ... that, that's, that's at a fundamental level. If a civilization does not at least maintain its numbers, um, it will disappear.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:12:58

       So perhaps the amount of compute that the biological computer allocates to, to sex is justified. In fact, we should probably increase it.

    9. EMElon Musk1:13:07

       Well, I mean, there's this hedonistic sex, which is, uh...... you know, that, that's neither, that's neither here or there.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:13:14

        Yeah.

    11. EMElon Musk1:13:14

        Um, it, it's-

    12. LFLex Fridman1:13:16

        Not productive.

    13. EMElon Musk1:13:17

        It's, it, it doesn't produce kids. (laughs) Well, you know, you, you, what-

    14. LFLex Fridman1:13:21

        Just taking notes.

    15. EMElon Musk1:13:21

        ... what matters, I mean, Durant makes this very clear, because he's looked at one civilization after another, and they all went through the same cycle. When the civilization was under stress, the birth rate was, was high. But as soon as there were no external en- enemies, or they've, they were, had a extended period of prosperity, the birth rate inevitably dropped. Every time. I don't believe there's a single exception.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:13:45

        So, that's like the foundation of it. You need to have people.

    17. EMElon Musk1:13:49

        Yeah.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:13:50

        (laughs)

    19. EMElon Musk1:13:50

        I mean, at, at a base level-

    20. LFLex Fridman1:13:51

        Yeah.

    21. EMElon Musk1:13:52

        ... you know, humans, no humanity.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:13:54

        And then there is other things like, you know, uh, human freedoms, and just giving people the freedom to build stuff.

    23. EMElon Musk1:14:02

        Y- yeah, absolutely. There's ... but, but at, at a basic level, if you do not at least maintain your numbers, if you're below replacement rate and that trend continues, you will eventually disappear. It's just elementary. Um, now, then obviously you want, also wanna try to avoid like, uh, massive wars. Um, you know, if there's a global thermonuclear war, probably we're all toast, you know? Radioactive toast. (laughs)

    24. LFLex Fridman1:14:34

        (laughs)

    25. EMElon Musk1:14:35

        So, (laughs) so we wanna try to avoid those things. Um, then there, there are, um, there's a thing that happens over time with, with any given, uh, civilization, which is that the laws and regulations accumulate. Um, and if there's not a, if there's not some forcing function like a war to clean up the accumulation of laws and regulations, eventually everything becomes legal. And you, you, that the, that's like the hardening of the arteries.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:15:07

        Yeah.

    27. EMElon Musk1:15:07

        Um, or a way to think of it is like being tied down by a million little strings, like Gulliver. You can't move. And it's not like any one of those strings is the, is the issue, because you've got a million of them. So, there h- there has to be a, a sort of a, a garbage collection for laws and regulations, um, so that you, you, you don't keep accumulating laws and regulations to the point where you can't do anything. This is why we can't build high-speed rail in America. It's illegal. That's the issue.

    28. LFLex Fridman1:15:40

        (laughs)

    29. EMElon Musk1:15:40

        It's illegal six days to Sunday to build high-speed rail in America.

    30. LFLex Fridman1:15:45

        I wish you could just like for a week go into Washington and like be the head of the committee for making, uh, what is it, for the, the garbage collection, making government smaller, like removing stuff.
14. 1:17:55 – 1:20:37

    Time

    1. LFLex Fridman1:17:55

       your own life, what to you is a measure of success in your life?

    2. EMElon Musk1:17:58

       A measure of success I'd say wh- wh- like what, how many useful things can I get done?

    3. LFLex Fridman1:18:04

       A day-to-day basis, you wake up in the morning, "How can I be useful today?"

    4. EMElon Musk1:18:09

       Yeah. Maximize utility, area under the curve of usefulness. Very difficult to be useful that scale.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:18:16

       That scale. Can you like speak to what it takes to be useful for somebody like you, where there's so many amazing great teams? Like, how do you allocate your time to being the most useful?

    6. EMElon Musk1:18:28

       Well, time, time is the, tr- time is the true currency.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:18:31

       Yeah.

    8. EMElon Musk1:18:32

       So, it is tough to say what, what is the best allocation of time. I mean, there are, you know, often say, if you look, if you look at say Tesla, I mean, Tesla this year will do over $100 billion in revenue. So, that's $2 billion a week. Um, if I make slightly better decisions, I can affect the outcome by $1 billion. So, then, uh, you know, I try to do the best decisions I can, and on balance, you know, at least compared to the, the competition, pretty good decisions. But the marginal value of, of it-... better decision can easily be, in the course of an hour, $100 million.

    9. LFLex Fridman1:19:18

       Given that, how do you take risks? How do you do the, the algorithm that you mentioned? I mean, deleting, given that a small thing can be a billion dollars. How do you decide to...

    10. EMElon Musk1:19:29

        Yeah. Well, I, I think you have to look at it on a percentage basis, because if you look at it in absolute terms, it's, it's just, uh, I would never get any sleep. It's, I would just be like, "I need to just keep working and, and work my brain harder," you know? And I'm not trying to get as much as possible out of th- out of this meat computer. (laughs) So, it's not, uh ... it's pretty hard, um, because you could just work all the time and, and, and at any given point, uh, like I said, a slightly better decision could be $100 ... $100 million impact for Tesla or SpaceX for that matter. Um, but, but it is wild when, when considering the marginal value of, of time can be $100 million an hour at times or more.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:20:17

        Is your own happiness part of that equation of success?

    12. EMElon Musk1:20:22

        It has to be to some degree, other if I'm sad I ... if I'm depressed, I make worse decisions. So, I, I can't have like ... if, if I have zero recreational time, then, uh, I make work- worse decisions. So I don't have a lot, but it's above zero.

15. 1:20:37 – 1:28:12

    Aliens and curiosity

    1. EMElon Musk1:20:37

       I mean, my motivation, if I've got a religion of any kind is, uh, a, uh, religion of curiosity, of trying to understand. You know, it's, it's really the, the mission of Grok, understanding the universe. I'm trying to understand the universe, um, or le- at least set things in motion such that at some point civilization understands the universe or ... uh, far better than we do today and even what questions to ask. As Douglas Adams pointed out in his book, the ... sometimes the answer is the ... is arguably the easy part. The ... trying to frame the question correctly is the hard part. Once you frame the question correctly, the answer is often easy. So, um, I'm trying to set things in motion such that we are at least at some point able to understand the universe. Um, so for SpaceX, the goal is to make life multi-planetary, um, and, uh, to ... which, which is, if, if you go to the, the Fermi paradox of where the ... where are the aliens? You've got these, these sort of great filters, like, just like, why, why have we not heard from the aliens? Now, a lo- lot of people think there are aliens among us. I often claim to be one, which nobody believes me, but, um, it did say alien registration card at one point on my, uh-

    2. LFLex Fridman1:22:05

       (laughs)

    3. EMElon Musk1:22:05

       ... immigration documents. Um ...

    4. LFLex Fridman1:22:06

       Yeah.

    5. EMElon Musk1:22:07

       So I've not seen any evidence of aliens. So it, it suggests that, um ... at least one of the, one of the explanations is that, uh, intelligent life is extremely rare. Um, and again, if you look at the history of earth, civilization has only been around for one millionth of earth's existence. So if, you know, if, if aliens had visited here, say, 100,000 years ago, they would be like, "Well, they don't even have writing, you know, just hunter-gatherers basically." So, um, so how long does a civilization last? So for SpaceX, the, the goal is to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars. Mars is the only viable planet for such a thing. Um, the moon is close, but it's ... it lacks resources, and I think it's probably vulnerable to any, any, any calamity that takes out Earth could ... the moon is too close. It's vulnerable to a calamity that takes out Earth. Um, so I'm not saying we shouldn't have a moon base, but Mars is ... Mars would be far more resilient. Um, the difficulty of getting to Mars is what makes it resilient. Um, so, but ... and I ... you know, in, in going through the ... these various explanations of why don't we see the aliens, why ... one of them is that they, they failed to pass these, these great filters, these, these key hurdles, and one of those hurdles is being a multi-planet species. Um, so if you're a multi-planet species, then if something were to happen, whether that was a natural catastrophe or a man-made catastrophe, at least the other planet would probably still be around. So you're not like ... you don't have all the eggs in one basket. And once you are sort of a two-planet species, you can obviously extend to ... send life paths to the asteroid belt, to ... maybe to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, um, and ultimately to other star systems. But if you can't even get to another planet, uh, you know, definitely not getting to star systems.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:24:30

       And the other possible great filters, uh, super powerful technology like AGI, for example. So you're, you're basically trying to knock out one great filter at a time.

    7. EMElon Musk1:24:44

       Digital super intelligence is possibly a great filter. I hope it isn't, but it might be. You know, guys like say Geoff Hinton would say ... you know, has ... he invented a number of the key principles in art- artificial intelligence. I think he puts the probability of AI annil- annihilation around 10 to 20%, something like that. So, you know, so it's, it's not, uh ... it's not like, you know, looking on the bright side, it's, uh, 80% likelihood to be great. (laughs) So, so but I think AI risk mitigation is important. Um, being a multi-planet species would be a massive risk mitigation. And, um, I do want to sort of, once again, emphasize it's impor- the importance of having enough children to sustain, um, our numbers, um, and not going, n- not plummet into population collapse, which is currently happening. P- population collapse is a real and current thing. Um, so the, the only reason it's not being reflected in the total population numbers is that, is that, as much is because people are living longer. Um, but, but you, you, you can... It's easy to predict, say, what the population of any given country will be. Um, just take the birth rate last year, how many babies were born, multiply that by life expectancy, and that's what the population will be, steady state, unless, i- if the birth rate continues at that level. But if it keeps declining, it will be even less and eventually dwindle to nothing. So I keep, you know, banging on the baby drum here, um, for a reason. Um, because it has been the c- the source of civilizational collapse over and over again, throughout history. Um, and so, why don't we just, uh, not ... try to stave off that day.

Episode duration: 8:37:34