Elon Musk: Tesla Autopilot | Lex Fridman Podcast #18

The following is a conversation with Elon Musk. He's the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neurolink, and a co-founder of several other companies. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. This series includes leading researchers in academia and industry, including CEOs and CTOs of automotive, robotics, AI, and technology companies. This conversation happened after the release of the paper from our group at MIT on driver functional vigilance during use of Tesla's autopilot. The Tesla team reached out to me, offering a podcast conversation with Mr. Musk. I accepted, with full control of questions I could ask and the choice of what is released publicly. I ended up editing out nothing of substance. I've never spoken with Elon before this conversation, publicly or privately. Neither he nor his companies have any influence on my opinion, nor on the rigor and integrity of the scientific method that I practice in my position at MIT. Tesla has never financially supported my research, and I've never owned a Tesla vehicle. I've never owned Tesla stock. This podcast is not a scientific paper. It is a conversation. I respect Elon as I do all other leaders and engineers I've spoken with. We agree on some things and disagree on others. My goal is always, with these conversations, is to understand the way the guest sees the world. One particular point of disagreement in this conversation was the extent to which camera-based driver monitoring will improve outcomes, and for how long it will remain relevant for AI-assisted driving. As someone who works on and is fascinated by human-centered artificial intelligence, I believe that if implemented and integrated effectively, camera-based driver monitoring is likely to be of benefit in both the short-term and the long-term. In contrast, Elon and Tesla's focus is on the improvement of autopilot, such that its statistical safety benefits override any concern with human behavior and psychology. Elon and I may not agree on everything, but I deeply respect the engineering and innovation behind the efforts that he leads. My goal here is to catalyze a rigorous, nuanced, and objective discussion in industry and academia on AI-assisted driving, one that ultimately makes for a safer and better world. And now, here's my conversation with Elon Musk. What was the vision, the dream of autopilot when, uh, in the beginning, the big picture system level, when, uh, it was first conceived and started being installed in 2014 in the hardware and the cars? What was the vision, the dream?

I wouldn't characterize it as a vision or dream, simply that there are obviously two massive revolutions in, in the, uh, automobile industry. One is the transition to elect- electrification, um, and then the other is autonomy. And, uh, it became obvious to me that, in the future, any, any car that does not have autonomy, uh, would be about as useful as a horse. Which is not to say that there's no use, it's just rare and somewhat idiosyncratic if somebody has a horse at this point. So, it's obvious that cars will drive themselves completely, it's just a question of time, and if we did not participate in the autonomy revolution, then our cars would not be useful to people, relative to cars that are autonomous. I mean, an autonomous car is arguably worth five to ten times more than a non- a car which is not autonomous.