Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400

the following is a conversation with Elon Musk his fourth time on this The Lex Friedman podcast I thought you were going to finish it it's one of the greatest themes in all of film history yeah that's great so I was just thinking about the Roman Empire as one does there's that whole meme uh where all guys are thinking about the Roman Empire at least once a day and half the population is confused whether it's true or not but more seriously thinking about the wars going on in the world today and as you know uh war

and military conquest has been a big part of uh Roman society and culture and it I think has been a big part of most Empires and dynasties throughout human history so yeah they usually uh came as a result of Conquest I mean there's some like the Austra Hungarian Empire where there was just a lot of sort of clever marriages um but fundamentally there's an engine of conquest and they celebrate excellence in Warfare many of the leaders were excellent generals yeah that kind of thing so big picture question grock approved I asked this is a good

question to ask tested grock approved uh at least on fun mode uh uh to what degree do you think war is part of human nature versus a consequence of uh how human societies are structured I asked this as you have somehow controversially been a proponent of peace I I'm generally proponent of peace I mean ignorance is perhaps in my view the Real Enemy to be countered that's the real hard part not you know fighting other humans um but all All Creatures fight I mean the the jungle is a you look at the people think of

of this nature as perhaps some sort of peaceful thing but in fact it is not there's some quite funny w w hog thing where he's like in the jungle like saying that it's like basically just murder and death in every direction I mean the the the plants animals in the jungle are constantly trying to killing each other every single day every minute so it's not like uh you know we're unusual in that respect well this there's a relevant question here whether with greater intelligence uh comes greater control over these base instincts for violence yes we

have much more of an ability to control our um limpic Instinct for violence than say a chimpanzee and in fact if if one looks at say chimpanzee Society it is not friendly I mean the bonovas are an exception um but chimpanzee Society is uh filled with violence and it's quite quite horrific frankly that that's that's how Olympic system in action like you don't want to be on the wrong side of a chimpanze eat your face off and tear your nuts off yeah basically there's no limits or ethics or uh the Romans said just War there's

no just war in the chimpanzee societies is is war and and dominance by any means necessary yeah chimpan Society is a Like A Primitive version of human society um it's they're not like peac loving basically um at all um there there's extreme violence um and then once in a while some some somebody who's watched too many Disney movies decides to raise a chimpanzee as a pet um and then that eats their face or if they're nuts off or Che their fingers off and that kind of thing yeah it's happened several times uh ripping your nuts

off is an interesting strategy for interaction some it's happened to people it's un unfortunate like that's I guess a one way to ensure that the other chump doesn't like you know contribute to the gene pool well from a martial arts perspective it's a fascinating strategy the not rer I wonder which of the martial arts teaches that I think it's safe to say if somebody's got your nuts in their head and as the option rubing the wolf you will be amenable to uh whatever they want yeah to say so like I said somehow controversially you've been

an uh proponent of Peace on on Twitter on X yeah so let me ask you about the war is going on today and to see what the path to peace could be how do you hope the current war in Israel and Gaza comes to an end uh what path do you see that can minimize human suffering in the long term in that part of the world well I think that that part of the world is is definitely like if you look up the there is is no easy answer in the dictionary it'll be that like

the picture of uh the Middle East um in Israel especially so there is no easy answer um what my this strictly my opinion of you know is that uh the the goal of Hamas was to provoke an overreaction from Israel um they obviously did not expect to uh you know have a military Victory um but they they expect they really wanted to commit the worst atrocities that they could in order to provoke the the most aggressive response possible from Israel um and then leverage that aggressive response to um rally Muslims worldwide uh for the course

of uh Gaza and Palestine which they have succeeded in doing um so the this the the counterintuitive thing here I think that the the thing that I think should be done even though it is very difficult uh is that um I I would recommend that Israel engage in the most cons conspicuous acts of kindness possible every everything that is the actual thing that would th the goal ofas so in some sense the degree that makes sense in geopolitics turn the other cheek implemented it's not exactly turn the other cheek um because I do think that

there's um you know I think it is appropriate for Israel to find the Hamas members and you know um either either kill them or incarcerate them um like something something has to be done because they're just going to keep keep keep coming otherwise um but uh in addition to that they need to do whatever they can um there's some talk of establishing for example a Mobile hospital I'd recommend doing that um just making sure that uh you know there's food water uh medical Necessities um and and just be over the top about it and be

very transparent so it's so the can't people can't claim it's a trick like just put wave cam on the thing you know all 24/7 the acts of kindness yeah conspicuous acts of kindness that that with that are unequivocal meaning they can't be somehow because hos will then their response will be oh it's a trick therefore you have to counter how how is not a trick this ultimately fights the broader force of hatred in the in the region yes and I'm not sure who said it it's apocal saying but an eye for the for an eye

makes everyone blind now now that neck of the woods that they really believe in the whole ey for ey thing um but Ian you really have if if you're not going to just outright commit genocide like against an entire people which obviously would not be acceptable to to really shouldn't be acceptable to anyone um then you you're going to leave basically a lot of people alive who subsequently you know hate Israel so really the question is like how for for every M member that you kill how many did you create mhm and if you create

more than you killed you've not succeeded that's the you know the real situation there um and it's safe to say that if you know um if you know if if you kill somebody's child in Gaza if you you've made at least a few uh Hamas members who will die just just to kill an Israeli that's the situation so but but I mean this is one of the most contentious subjects one could possibly discuss but but I think if if the if the goal ultimate is some sort of long-term piece one has to be look at

this from standpoint of over time are there more or fewer um terrorists being created let me just uh Linger on war yeah well War it's safe to say war is always existed and always will exist always will exist always has always has existed and always will exist I hope not you think it always always there will always be War this question of just how much war and and um you know what you know there's this there's sort of the scope and scale of War but to to imagine that there would not be any war in

the future I think would be very unlikely outcome yeah you talked about the culture series there's war even there yes this giant War the first book starts off with a gigantic Galactic War where trillions die trillions but it still nevertheless protects these pockets of of flourishing some somehow you can have Galactic war and still have pockets of flourishing yeah I mean it's I guess if we are able to one day expand to you know full the Galaxy or whatever there will be a galactic War at some point ah the scale I mean the scale of

War has been increasing increasing increasing it's like a race between the scale of suffering in the scale of flourishing yes a lot of people seem to be using this tragedy to beat the drums of war and feed the military industrial complex do you worry about this the people who are rooting for escalation and how can it be stopped one of the things that does concern me is that there are very few people people alive today who actually viscerally understand the horrors of War at least in the US I mean obviously the people in on the

front lines in Ukraine and Russia who understand just how terrible war is um but how many people in the west understand it um you know my grandfather was in World War II uh he was severely traumatized um mean he was there I think in for almost six years in the in East North Africa and Italy uh all his friends were killed uh in front of him and uh he would have died too um except they randomly gave some I guess IQ tests or something and uh he scored very high um now he was not an

officer he was a I think a Corporal or a sergeant or something like that um because he didn't finish High School um he had to drop out of high school because his his his dad died and he had to work to support his um siblings um so because he didn't graduate high school he was not eligible for the officer Corp um so you know he kind of got put into the cannon fighter category basically um but then randomly they gave him this test he was transferred to British intelligence in London that's where he met my

grandmother um but uh he he had PTSD next level like next level I mean just didn't talk just didn't talk and if you tried talking to him he'd just tell you to shut up and he won a bunch of medals never never bragged about it once not not even they hinted nothing I like found out about it because I his military records are online that's a how I know so he would say like no no way in hell do you want to do you want to do that again but how many people um now he

he obviously he died you know 20 years ago or longer actually 30 years ago um how many people are alive that remember World War II not many and the same perhaps applies to the threat of nuclear war yeah I mean there are enough nuclear bombs pointed at United States to make the reubel the radio active Revel bounce many times there's two major Wars going on right now so you talked about the threat of AGI quite a bit but now as we sit here with the intensity of conflict going on do you worry about nuclear war

I think we shouldn't discount the possibility of nuclear war um it is a civilizational threat um right now I could be wrong but I think the the current probability of nuclear war is quite low um but there are a lot of nukes pointed at us so and we have a lot of nukes pointed at other people they're still there nobody's put their uh their guns away the missiles are still in the silos and uh the leaders don't seem to be the ones with the nukes talking to each other no there are Wars which are tragic

and difficult on a on a local basis and then there are Wars which are civilization ending or has that potential obviously Global Theron nuclear warfare has high potential to end civilization perhaps permanently but certainly you know to severely uh wounded and and perhaps uh set back human progress by you know to the Stone Age or something I don't know pretty bad um probably scientists and Engineers won't be super popular after that as well they're like you got to into this mess so generally we I think we we obiously want to prioritize civilizational risks over things

that are um painful and tragic on on a local level but not civilizational how do you hope the war in Ukraine comes to an end and what's the path once again to minimizing human suffering there uh well I think that what what is likely to happen uh which is really pretty much the the way it is is that um something very close to the current lines uh will be how a ceasefire or truce happens but you know you just have a situation right now where whoever goes on the offensive um will suffer casualties at several

times the rate of whoever's on the defense um because you've got uh defense and depth you got minefields uh trenches anti-tank defenses um nobody has air superiority um because the the anti-aircraft missiles are really far better than the the aircraft like they far more of them um and and uh so neither side has air superiority um tanks are basically death drafts um just slow moving and they're not immune to anti-tank weapons so you you really just have longrange artillery um and uh infantry trenches it's World War One all over again mhm with drones you know

throwing little drone some some drones there um which makes the long range artillery just that much more accurate and better and so more efficient murdering people on both sides mhm yeah so it's whoever is you don't you don't you don't want to be trying to advance from either side because the probability of dying is incredibly High um so in order to overcome uh defense and depth trenches and minefields you really need uh significant local superiority numbers um ideally combin arms where where you you do a fast attack with aircraft a concentrated number of Tanks um

and a lot of people that's the only way you're going to punch through a line and then you got to punch through and and and then not have reinforcements just kick you right out again I mean I I really recommend people read uh World War I Warfare in detail it's rough um I mean the sheer number of people that died there was mindboggling and it's almost impossible to um imagine the end of it that doesn't look like almost exactly like the beginning in terms of what land belongs to who and so on but on the

other side of a lot of human suffering death and destruction of infrastructure yes the thing that the reason I I you know proposed a a some sort of Cru or or peace a year ago was because I predicted pretty much exactly what would would happen uh which is a lot of people dying for basically almost no changes in land um and this the the loss of the the flower of Ukrainian and Russian Youth and we should have some sympathy for the the Russian boys as well as the Ukrainian boys because they Russian boys didn't didn't

ask to be on their line they have to be so um there's a lot of sons not not coming back to their parents you know and and I think most of them don't don't really have they don't hate the other side you know it's sort of like is this saying about like this saying comes from World War I it's like young boys who don't know each other killing each other on behalf of old men that do know each other the hell's the point of that so Vladimir zalinski said that he's not or has said in

the past he's not interested in talking to Putin directly do you think he should yeah sit down manto man leader to leader and negotiate peace look I think I would just recommend do not send the flower of Ukrainian youth to be to die uh in trenches uh whether he talks to Putin or not just don't do that um whoever goes on the offensive will lose massive numbers of people um and history will not look kindly upon them you spoken honestly about the possibility of war between us and China in the long term if no diplomatic

solution is found for example on the question of Taiwan and one China policy right how do we avoid the trajectory where these two superpowers Clash well it's it's worth reading that book on the the difficult to pronounce thides trap I believe it's called I love war history I like inside out and backwards um there's hardly a battle I haven't read read about and and trying to figure out like what what really was the cause of victory in any particular case as opposed to what one side or another claimed was the reason both the Victory and

what sparked the war and yeah yeah the whole thing yeah so that Athens and Sparta it's classic case the thing about the Greeks is they really wrote down a lot of stuff they loved writing um you know there are lots of interesting things that happened in many parts of the world but they people didn't write down so we don't know what happened or they didn't really write with in detail they just would say like we went we had a battle and we won and like what can you add a bit more um the the Greeks

they really wrote a lot they were very articulate on they just love writing so and we have a bunch of that writing that's preserved so we know what led up to the pelian war between um the spoton and Athenian Alliance um and uh we we know that they they for quite they they saw it coming I mean the Spartans didn't right they also weren't very foros by their nature but they did right but they weren't very for they were tur uh but the the Athenians and the other Greeks wrote wrote a line and they were

like um and spot was really kind of like the leader of of Greece um but but Athens grew stronger and stronger with each passing year and um and everyone's like well that's inevitable that there's going to be a clash between Athens and Sparta uh well how do we avoid that and they couldn't they couldn't they actually they saw it coming and they still could not avoid it so you know at some point if there's if if one uh group one civilization or or country or whatever um exceeds another sort of like if you know the

United States has been the biggest kid on the Block for since I think around 1890 from an economic standpoint so the United States has been the economic most powerful economic engine in the world longer than anyone's been alive um and the foundation of war is economics so now we have a situation in the case of china where the um the economy is likely to be two perhaps three times larger than that of the US so imagine you're the biggest kid on the Block for as long as anyone can remember and suddenly a kid comes along

who's twice your size so we see it coming yeah how's the possible to stop is there some let me throw something out there just intermixing of cultures understanding there does seem to be a giant cultural Gap in understanding of each other and you're an interesting case study because you are an American obviously you've done a lot of uh incredible manufacturer here in the United States but you also work with China I've spent a lot of time in China and met with the leadership many times maybe a good question to ask is what are some things

about China that people don't understand positive just in the culture what some interesting things that you've learned about the Chinese well uh the the sheer number of really smart hardworking people in China is um incredible uh there are really you say like how many smart hardworking people are there in China there's far more of them there than there are here I think in my in my opinion um the uh they a lot of energy so I mean the architecture in China that's in recent years is far more impressive than the US I mean the the

train stations the buildings the highspeed rail everything it's um really far more impressive than what we have in the US I I mean I recommend somebody just go to Shanghai and Beijing look at the buildings and go to you take the train from Beijing to Shion you have the Terra Cotta Warriors um China's got incredible history very long history and um you know I think arguably the in terms of the use of language from from a written standpoint um sort of one of one of the oldest Perhaps Perhaps the oldest written language and and then

China people did write things down so um now China um historically has always been with rare exception been internally focused um they've not been acquisitive uh they've they fought each other they've been many many Civil Wars um in the Three Kingdoms War I believe they lost about 70% of their population so and so the they've had brutal internal Wars like civil wars that make the US Civil War look small by comparison um so I think it's important to appreciate that China is not monolithic um we sort think of like China is a sort of one

entity of one mind and this is definitely not the case um from what I've seen and I think most people who understand China would agree that people in China think about China 10 times more than they think about anything outside of China so it's like 90% of their consideration is uh you know are is is innal well isn't that a really positive thing when you're talking about the collaboration and the future peace between superpowers when you're inward facing which is like focusing on improving yourself versus focusing on yeah uh quote unquote improving others through military

might the good news the history of China suggests that China is not inquisitive meaning they're not going to go out and invade a whole bunch of countries um now they do feel very strongly you know so that's that's good I mean because a lot of lot of very powerful countries have been inquisitive um the US is one of the also one of the rare cases that has not been inquisitive like after World War II the us could have basically taken over the world and any country like we got nukes nobody else got nukes we don't

even have to lose soldiers uh which country do you want M and the United States could have taken over everything or at will and it didn't um the United States actually helped revu countries so it helped rebuild Europe you it helped rebuild Japan um this is very unusual behavior almost unprecedented um you know the US did conspicuous acts of kindness like the burland airlift you know um and and I think you know there's it's always like well America's done bad things well of course America's done bad things but one needs to look at the the

whole track record um and and just generally you know one one sort of test would be how do you treat your prisoners of War MH or let's say um you know no offense to the Russians but let's say you're in Germany it's 1945 you got the Russian army coming on one side you got the French British and American armies coming to the other side who would you like to be to surrender to like no country is like like morally perfect but I recommend um being a PW with the Americans that would be my choice very

strongly in the full menu of P very much so and in fact Von Brown um yeah took you know smart guy uh was like we've got to be captured by the Americans Y and uh in fact the SS was under orders to execute bar Brown and all of the uh German rocket Engineers uh and they narrowly escaped their SSI they said they were going out for a walk in the woods they left in the middle of winter with no coats uh and they ran like and with no food no coats no water and just ran

like hell uh and ran West um and by Sherlock they I think his brother found like a a bicycle or something and um and then just cycled West as fast as he could and found found a US Patrol um so anyway that's that's one that's one way you can tell morality is who who where do you want to be a PW it's not fun anywhere but some places are much worse than others so um anyway so so so like America has been uh while far from perfect uh generally a benevolent Force um and uh we

should always be self-critical and uh try to be better um but um anyone with half right knows that so so I think there are in this way China and uh the United States are similar NE neither country has been inquisitive um in a significant way so that's like a you know a shared principle I guess um now now China does feel very strongly about Taiwan they've been very clear about that for a long time um you know from their standpoint it's it's it would be like one of the states is is is you know not

there like like Hawaii or something like that but but more significant than Hawaii you know um and Hawaii is pretty significant for us so um they view it as as as really the there's a fundamental part of China the island of fosa not not Taiwan that is um not part of China but should be uh and the only reason it hasn't been is because of the US Pacific Fleet and is their economic power grows and is their military power grows the thing that they are clearly saying uh is their interest will you know clearly be

materialized yes China has been very clear that um they will incorporate Taiwan uh peacefully or uh militarily but that they will incorporate it from their standpoint is 100% likely you know something you said about conspicuous acts of kindness as a geopolitical policy it almost seems naive but I'd venture to say that this is probably the path forward how you avoid most wars just as you say it it sounds naive but it's kind of brilliant if you believe in the goodness of underlying most of human nature it just seems like conspicuous acts of kindness can uh

reverberate through the populace of the countries involved yeah well and deescalate absolutely so in after World War I the the they made a big mistake you know they basically try to lump all the blame on Germany um and um and and you know settled JY with uh impossible reparations um and you know really there was a lot of BL there was a fair quite a bit of blame to um go around for World War I um but they they try to you know put it all in Germany um and uh that was that that laid

the seeds for World War II uh so a lot of people well not just hler a lot of people felt wronged um and they wanted Vengeance and they got it people don't forget yeah you you kill somebody's father mother son daughter they're not going to forget it they will want Vengeance um so after World War II they're like well the Treaty of asai was a huge mistake um in World War I and um so this time instead of uh you know crushing the losers we're we're actually going to help them with the Marshal plan and

we're going to help R Revolt Germany we're going to help reor you know Austria and the other you know Italy and whatnot so um that was the right move there's uh it does feel like there's a profound truth to uh conspicuous acts of kind as being an antidote to this something must stop the the cycle of reciprocal violence something must stop it or it will you know it'll it'll it'll never stop just eye for an eye tooth for a tooth limb for a limb life for a life forever and ever to escape briefly the darkness

was some incredible engineering work uh xai just released grock AI assistant that I've gotten a chance to play with it's uh it's amazing on many levels first of all it's amazing that a relatively small team in a relatively short amount of time was able to develop this close to state-of-the-art system uh another uh incredible things there's a regular mode and there's a fun mode yeah I guess I'm to blame for that one I wish first of all I wish everything in life had a fun mode yeah I there's something compelling Beyond just fun about the

fun mode interacting with a large language model I'm not sure exactly what it is cuz I only had a little bit of time to play with it but it just makes it more interesting more vibrant to interact with the system yeah uh absolutely I um our our AI Gro is modeled after the Hedgehog got to the Galaxy uh which is one of my favorite books uh which is it's a book on philosophy disguised as a book on humor um and um I would say that is that forms the basis of My Philosophy uh which is

that we don't know the meaning of life but the more we can expand the scope and scale of Consciousness digital and biological the more we are able to understand what questions to ask about the angel that is the universe so I have a philosophy of curiosity there is generally a feeling like this AI system has an outward looking like the way you are like sitting with a good friend looking up at the stars like the asking pad like questions about the universe wondering what it's all about the Curiosity you talk about there there's a sense

no matter how mundane the question I ask it there there's a sense of Cosmic Grandeur to the whole thing well we are actually working hard to have uh engineering math and physics answers that you can count on MH um so for the other sort of AIS out there the these so-called large language models um I've not found the uh engineering to be reliable um and the hallucination it it unfortunately hallucinates Mo most when you least wanted to hallucinate yeah so when you ask important diffic difficult questions it that's when it tends to be confidently wrong

um so we're we're really trying hard to say okay how do we be as grounded as possible so you can count on the results um Trace things back to physics first principles U mathematical logic um so underlying the humor is an aspiration to adhere to the truth of the universe as closely as possible that's really tricky it is tricky so that's why you know you there's always going to be some amount of error but we want to um aspire to be as truthful as possible about the answers uh with acknowledged error and so that there

was always you don't want to be confidently wrong so you're not going to be right every time but you don't you want to minimize how often you're confidently uh wrong and then like I said once you can count on the logic as being um not violating physics then you can start to build on that to create uh inventions like invent new technologies but if if you can't if you if you cannot count on the foundational physics being correct obviously the inventions are simply wishful thinking you know imagination land magic basically well as you said I

think one of the big goals of XI is to understand the universe yes that's how simple three-word uh Mission um if you look out far into the future do you think on this level of physics the very edge of what we understand about physics do you think it will make discoveries sort of the sexiest discovery of them is as we know now sort of uh unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics so coming up with The Theory of Everything do you think it could push towards that direction almost like theoretical physics discoveries if an AI cannot

figure out new physics um it's clearly not equal to humans let Al nor has surpass humans because humans have figured out new physics they just you know physics is just understanding you know deing one's insight into how reality works and then um then then than this engineering which is inventing things that have never existed MH now the the range of possibilities for engineering is far greater than for physics because you know once you figure out the rules of the universe uh that that's that's it you've discovered things that already existed but from that you can

then build Technologies with that are really almost Limitless in the uh variety and cap you know it's like once you understand the rules of the game properly and we do with current physics we do at least at a local level understand how physics works very well our ability to predict things is incredibly good like quantum mechanics is the degree to which quantum mechanics can predict outcomes is incredible um that was my this my hardest class in college by the way my my my senior quantum mechanics class was harder than all of my other classes put

together to get an AI system a large language model to to um reliably be as reliable as quantum mechanics and physics is very difficult yeah you have to test any any conclusions against the ground truth of reality reality is the ultimate judge like physics is the law everything else is a recommendation I've seen plenty of people break the break the laws made by man but none break the laws made by physics it's a good test actually if this LM uh understands and matches physics then you can more reliably trust whatever it thinks about the current

state of politics in sense and it's also not not the case currently that uh even that its internal logic is not consistent um so especially um with these with the approach of like just predicting a token predict token predict token it's like a vector sum you know you you're summing up a bunch of vectors but you can get drift um so as those a little bit of error a little bit of error adds up and by the time you are many tokens down the path uh you're it doesn't make any sense MH so it has

to be somehow self-aware about the drift it has to be self-aware about the drift and then look at the thing as a gal as a whole and and say it does it have coherence as a whole mhm so you know when when authors write books that they they will write the book and then they'll go and revise it you know taking into account you know all the end and the beginning and the midal and and uh rewrite it to achieve coherence so that it doesn't end end up in a nonsensical Place mhm maybe the process

of revising is what yeah reasoning is and then that's the process of revising is how you get closer and closer to truth maybe you like uh at least I approach that way you just say a bunch of first and then you get it better you start a and then you get you create a draft and then and then you and then you iterate on that draft um until it has has coherence until it's it it all adds up basically so another question about Theory of Everything But for intelligence do you think there exists as you're

exploring this with xai creating this intelligence system do you think there is a theory of intelligence where you get to understand what like what is the ey in AGI and what is the ey in um human intelligence there's no ey in Team America oh wait there is H that's going to be stuck in my head now uh yeah there's no me and whatever uh in quantum mechanics oh wait uh I mean is that part of the process of discovering understanding the universe is understanding intelligence yeah yeah I think we need to understand intelligence understand Consciousness

I mean there I mean there are some sort of fundamental questions of like what is thought what is emotion yeah um is it really just one atom bumping into another atom it feels like something more than that uh so I I I I I think we're probably missing some really big things um like some really big things something that'll be obvious in retrospect yes like there's a giant like you put the whole Consciousness emotion well some people would callot like a like a soul you know religion a soul um like you feel like you're you

right I mean you don't feel like you're just a collection of atoms but on what dimension does thought exist what dimens does do emotions exist we feel them very strongly um I suspect there's more to it than atoms bump into atoms and maybe AI can pave the path to the Discovery what whatever the hell that thing is yeah what is consciousness like what when you put the atoms in a particular shape why are they able to form thoughts and take actions that and and feelings and even if it is an illusion why is this illusion

so compelling yeah like how do why does this illusion exist yeah on what plane does this the solution exists yeah um and sometimes I wonder is is know either perhaps everything's conscious or nothing is conscious um one of the two I like the former everything conscious just seems more fun it just seem more more fun yes um but we're composed of atoms and those atoms are composed of quarks and leptons and those quarks and leptons have been around since the beginning of the universe the beginning of the universe right what what seems to be the

beginning of the universe the first time we talked you said what you would which is surreal to think that this discussion was happening is becoming a reality I asked you what question would you ask an AGI system once you create it and you said what's outside the simulation is the question and good question yeah but it seems like with Gro you started to literally uh the system's goal is to be able to ask such questions to answer such questions and to ask such questions where are the aliens where are the aliens that's one of the

like the FY Paradox question um a lot of people have asked me if I've seen any evidence of aliens and I've I haven't which is kind of concerning because then I think would I probably prefer at least have seen some orological evidence of aliens um to the best of my knowledge there is no Pro I'm not aware of any evidence of aliens the out there they're very subtle we might just be the only Consciousness at least in the galaxy um and if if you look at say the history of Earth for believe the archaeological record

Earth is about 4 and half billion years old civilization as measured from the first writing is only about 5,000 years old we have to give some credit there to the ancient samarians who aren't around anymore I think it was a archaic pre uniform was the first actual symbolic representation but only about 5,000 years ago I think that's a good date for for when would say civilization started that's 1 millionth of Earth's existence so civilization has been around it's really a flash in the pan mhm so far um and why why have we why did it

take so long for you know 4 and half billion years um for the vast majority of the time there was no life and and then there was archaic bacteria for a very long time and then you know you had mitochondria get captured multicellular life um differentiation into plants and animals life moving from the oceans to land mammals um higher brain functions and the sun is expanding slowly um but it will it will overheat it will it will heat heat the Earth up it's some point in the future um boil the oceans and and Earth will

become like Venus where no life Life as we know it is impossible so if we do not become multiplanetary and ultimately go beyond our solar system um annihilation of all life on Earth is a certain certainty a certainty um and it could be as little as on the galactic time scale uh half a billion years you know long time by human standards but that's only 10% longer than Earth has been around at all mhm so if if life had taken 10% longer to evolve on Earth it wouldn't exist at all we got a deadline coming

up better hurry but that said as you said humans intelligent life on Earth developed a lot of cool stuff very quickly so yes it it seems like becoming a multiplanetary is almost inevitable unless we destroy we need to do it I mean it's it's not I mean I suspect that there there if we are able to go out there and explore other star system that we there's a good chance we find a whole bunch of long Dead one planet civilizations yeah they never made it past to their home planet that's so sad yeah sad also

fascinating I mean there are very explanations for those for me Paradox and one is is the sort of they're these great filters which civilizations don't pass through and one of those great filters is do you become a multiplet civilization or not and if you don't it's simply a matter of time before something happens on your planet um you know either natural or man-made that causes us to die out like the dinosaurs where are they now they didn't have spaceships so I think the more likely thing is cuz just uh uh empathize with the aliens that

they they found us in their protecting us and letting us be I hope so nice aliens just like the tribes in the in the Amazon the on contact tribes were protecting them that's what uh that would be a nice explanation or you could have like uh what was it uh I think Andre kathi said it's like the ants in the Amazon asking where's everybody well they do run into a lot of other ants that's true these ant Wars sounds like a good TV show yeah they literally have these big Wars between VAR ants yeah I'm

maybe I'm just uh uh dismiss all the different diversity events you should listen to that wner hog talking about the jungle it's really hilarious have you heard it no I have not but wner hog has a way you should play you should play it for the you know as an interlude in the yeah it's on YouTube it's it's awesome I love him so much uh he's great was he the director of happy people life in the tiger I think also I did that bear documentary The Bear documentary and this thing about penguins yeah the depr

the analysis psycho analysis of P psych yeah the penguins like headed for like the mountains like that are like 70 miles away penguin has just head for Doom basically well he was had a cynical take I I have a he could be just a brave Explorer and there'll be great stories told about him amongst the penguin population for many centuries to come um what we talking about okay yeah so aliens I mean I don't know look I think it's the smart move uh is just you know this is the first time in the history of

Earth that it's been possible for life to extend beyond Earth um that window is open um now it may be open for a long time or it may be open for a short time and it may be open now and then never open again so I I think the smart move here is to make life multiplanetary while it is possible to do so we don't want to be one of those lame One Planet civilizations that just dies out no those are lame lame um self-respecting civilization would be one planet there's not going to be a

Wikipedia entry for one of those and uh pause uh do SpaceX have an official uh policy for when we meet Aliens no okay that seems irresponsible um I mean look if I see the slightest indication that there are aliens I will immediately post on next platform yeah anything I know it could be the most liked reposted post of all time yeah I mean look we have more satellites up there right now than everyone else combined so you know we' know we know if we've got to maneuver around something and we not I don't have to

maneuver around anything if you go to the big questions once again you said you've um you're with Einstein that you believe in the god of Spinosa yes uh so you know that's a view that God is like the universe and is reveals himself through the laws of physics or as Einstein said through the lawful Harmony of the world yeah I would agree that that God of the simulator or whatever the the Supreme Being or beings um um reveal themselves through the physics you know they creators of this existence and it's incom upon us to try

to understand more about this wondrous creation like who created this thing who's running this thing like embodying it into a singular question with a sexy word on top of it is like focusing the mind to understand it it does seem like there's a um again it could be an illusion it seemed like there's a purpose that there's under L master plan of some kind it seems like there may not be a master plan in the sense so this like maybe an interesting answer to the question of determinism versus free will is that if we are

in a simulation the reason that the the these higher beings would hold a simulation is to see what happens mhm so it's not um they don't know what happens uh otherwise they wouldn't hold the simulation mhm so when when humans create a simulation so it's basx and Tesla we create simulations all the time um especially for the rocket you you uh you know you have to run a lot of simulations to understand what's going to happen because you can't really test the rocket until it goes to space and you want it to work so you

have to you have to simulate subsonic transonic hyper supersonic Hypersonic um ascent and then coming back super high Heating and um overal Dynamics all this is going to be simulated so uh you don't get very many kicks at the can but we run the simulations to see what happens not if we knew what happens we wouldn't run the simulation mhm so if if there's so whoever created this existence um is they're running it because they don't know what's going to happen not because they do so maybe uh we both play Diablo maybe Diablo was created

to see if a druid your character could defeat Uber Lilith at the end they didn't know well the funny thing is 's uh her title is hatred incarnate yeah um and right now I guess you can ask the Diablo team but it's almost impossible to defeat hatred uh in the Eternal realm yeah yeah you've streamed yourself dominating tier 100 nightmare Dungeons and still I I I can cruise through tier 100 nightmare dungeons like a stroll in the park mhm and still you're defeated by hatred yeah I can there the sort of I guess maybe the

second hottest boss is durial durial can't even scratch the paint so uh I killed duel Dural so many times um and every other boss in the game all all of them kill him so many times it's easy um but uth otherwise known as hatred incarnate especially if you're a druid and you have no ability to go to be in vulnerable you there are these random death waves that that come at you um and I'm pretty you know I am 52 so my reflex is not what they used to be but I'm I have a lifetime

of playing video games um at one point I was you know maybe one of the best Quake players in the world um actually won money for what I think was the first paid orts tournament in the US um we doing four person Quake tournaments and um we came second I was the second best person on the team and the the actual best person we we actually winning we would have come first except the best person on the team his computer crashed halfway through the game um so we came second but I got money for it

and everything so like basically I got skills you know I'll be at you know no no spring spring chicken these days and um the to be totally Frank it's driving me crazy trying to beat Lilith as a druid basically try trying to beat trying to beat hatred and connate in the Eternal realm as a druid as a druid and if you if you if you this is really vexing let me tell you um I mean the challenge is part of the fun I I have seen directly like you're actually like a world class Incredible video

game player yeah and I think Diablo so you're just picking up a new game and you're figuring out it fundamentals you're also with the Paragon board and the build are not somebody like me who perfectly follows whatever they suggest on the internet you're also an innovator there yeah which is hilarious to watch it's like a it's like a mad scientist just trying to figure out the Paragon board and and the build and you know um is there some interesting insight there about um if if somebody's starting as a druid do you have advice um I

would not recommend playing a druid in the atal realm um right now I think the most powerful character in this in the seasonal realm is the sorcerer with the lightning bowls mhm the SS have huge balls in um the seasonal well yeah that's what they say SS have huge balls um they do uh huge balls of lightning uh I'll take your word for it and it's actually in the seasonal realm you can you can it's it's like pretty easy to beat uh Uber lth with a because you get these vampiric powers that amplify your damage

and increase your defense and whatnot so um really quite easy to defeat hatred seasonally but to defeat hatred eternally very difficult um almost imposs it's impossible it seems like this know a metaphor for life you know I like the idea that Elon Musk because I saw I was playing diao yesterday and I saw 100 level 100 Druid just run by I will never die and then run back the other way and there's just some this metaphor is kind of hilarious that you Elon Musk is fighting hatred restlessly fighting hatred in this demonic realm yes it's

it's hilarious I mean it's pretty hilarious no it's absurd really it's exercise and absurdity and it makes me want to pull my hair out yeah um I what do you get from video games in general is there is there for you for you person me it's I don't know it's uh it calms my mind I mean you sort of killing the demons in a video game calms the demons in my mind yeah if you play a tough video game you can get into like a state of flow which is very enjoyable um and uh but

the admittedly it needs to be not too easy not too hard um kind of in the goldilock zone um and I guess you generally want to feel like you're progressing in the game so um a good video and and there's also beautiful art um engaging storylines um and it's a it's like an amazing puzzle to solve I think and so it it's like solving the puzzle Elder ring the greatest game of all time I still haven't played it but you it's alen ring is definitely a candidate for best game ever top five for sure I

think I've been scared how hard it is or how hard I hear it is so but it is beautiful alen ring is feels like it's designed by an alien um there's a theme to this discussion in what way it's it's it's so unusual it's incredibly creative and the art is stunning I recommend playing it on a on a big resolution P Dynamic R TV even doesn't need to be a monitor just uh the art is incredible it's so beautiful and and it's it's so unusual um and each of those top boss battles is unique like

it's like a unique puzzle to solve each one's different um and the strategy you use to solve one battle is different from another battle that said you said Druid on Eternal against Uber Lilith is the hardest boss battle you've ever correct that is currently the the and I've I've played a lot of video games my because it's my primary recreational activity yes um and yes beating hatred in the internal realm yeah is the hardest boss battle in life and in the video game man four on I I'm not sure it's possible but it's I do

make progress so then I'm like okay I'm making progress maybe if I just tweak that Paragon board a little more I can do it could just dodge a few more waves I can do it well the simulation is created for the purpose of figuring out if it can be done and you're just a cog in that simulation in the machine of the simulation yeah it might be I I I I I have a feeling that at least I think it's doable it's doable yes mhm well that's the human Spirit right there to believe yeah I

mean it did prompt me to think about just hate in general which is you know want to be careful of one of those things where you wish for something that sounds good but in but if you get it it's actually a dystopian situation so you know you could sort of run a sort of uh hesis of like if you wish for World Peace sounds goodh but how is it enforced and and at what cost is is what at what cost Eternal peace it might actually be worse to have eternal peace because of what that would

entail the suppression of everyone it might be the suppression of progress it might be an oopi society that never changes mhm one I'm say is that there is an argument that you you that if that if you wish for no war you should be careful what you wish for because what's required in order for there to be no war might be worse than a little war yeah the things we consider to be flaws of human civilization might be a necessary components for whatever optimal looks like um I mean this do you worry about ai ai

enabling a dystopian state of this nature whether it's 1984 with surveillance and fear or Brave New World with pleasure and what is it l lots of sex but no deep Human Experience you know there's actually a real drug called soma there is yes I'm like did they actually does grock know about it no he probably will go to Brave New World we could ask it what what would be the question tell us about the drug called soma tell us about the drug called Som it's going to go to Brave New World I think well there's

a real drug as well searching for so much drug information oh boy ah s the wonder drug by the way I'm in fun mode oh okay F yes so it's talking about the real drug oh it's a muscle relaxment that's been around since the 1950s it's used to treat muscle pain and discomfort and it does this by altering the activity between neurons and the spinal cord now Soma isn't just a pain reliever it's also a bit of a sedative it can make you feel a bit drowsy so it's not something to take if you're planning

on operating heavy machinery or trying to solve complex math equations and it goes on and on in conclusion Som is a drug that can be helpful for those dealing with muscle pain but it's not without its risks it's pretty good oh wait a minute that's the real drug is talking about it's the real drug yeah uh and of course the fun is always use it responsibly in accordance with the advice of a healthcare professional and remember in the end the universe is probably just a giant computer simulation so don't take anything too seriously I love

I love it I love it I love it yeah so oh it also really nicely uh includes like uh the the tweets post on X that are relevant to this which is really cool yeah it like integrates everything together yeah like the interface is one of the really cool things here yeah seems done a great job um so and you say like you could say like no no I mean Soma from bra Brave New World because it it thinks you mean you mean s the real drug yeah no I mean s from bra world it's

going to be like oops I'm really sorry I'm really surprised who went to the real drug first ah my apologies I was thinking of the muscle relax in s for brand new world is a different Beast altogether now this Huxley dystopia now Som is a drug that plays a central role in the society depicted in the book it's a mood altering hucog genic drug that's used to keep the population docile and content in the novel to use so many Brave New raises some interesting questions about the nature of happiness and the role of drugs in

society oh man exactly is it better to live in a world where everyone is happy all the time even if that Happ happiness is artificial it's good question this is what I mean like do you want do you wish for world peace and and happiness all the time are you sure mhm um because that might be a society that is essentially sterile and aifi that never changes that is ultimately doomed this kind of tension between uh light this really a very good summary umh it really gets the point if this is not simply regurgitating Brave

New World it's actually getting to the Salient element of Soma as a drug um do you do you actually want to be in a situation where everyone is happy all the time even though it's artificial or is it better to confront the challenges of life and experience a full range of human emotions even if it means experiencing pain and suffering for those listening by the way Elon just read directly from Gro which is a really nice kind of insightful philosophical analysis of the tension here interesting it pretty much Nails it in conclusion Som from Brave

New World is fictional drug that used to explore some deep philosophical questions about the nature of happiness and the role of drugs in society it's a powerful symbol of the dangers of using drugs drugs to escape from reality and the importance of confronting the challenges of life headon nailed it and the crazy thing is like you know we do have a real drug called soma which kind of does is kind of like the drug in the book and I'm like did they they must have name they must have named it after probably probably some of

the real drug is quite effective on back pain so you know about this drug this is fascinating okay cuz I had like a you know squashed uh dis in my C5 C6 so it takes the physical pain away but s here it doesn't completely it it it reduces the amount of pain you feel but at the expense of mental acuity it DS your mind just like just like the drug in the book just like the drug in the book and hence the trade-off uh the thing that seems like Utopia could be a distopia after all

yeah actually I was talking to a friend of mine um saying like would you really want there to be no hate in the world like really none like I wonder why hate evolved um I'm not saying we should amplify ha it of course I think we should try to minimize it but but none at all there might be a reason for hate and suffering it's really complicated to consider that uh some amount of human suffering is necessary for human flourishing is it possible to appreciate the highest without knowing the lows and that that that all

is summarized there in a single statement from grock okay no highs no lows who knows that's almost the poem uh it seems that training llms efficiently is a big Focus for xai uh what's the uh first of all what's the limit of what's possible in terms of efficiency there's this uh terminology of useful productivity per watt like what have you learned from pushing the limits of that well I I think it's helpful the tools of physics are very powerful and can be applied I think to almost any really any arena in life this it's really

just a critical thinking for something important you need to reason with from first principles and think about things in the limit One Direction or the other so um in the limit even at the CF scale meaning even if you haest the entire power of the sun you will still care about useful compute per wat so that's where I I think probably where things are headed from uh the standpoint of AI is that we have a silicon shortage now that will transition to a voltage Transformer shortage in about a year ironically Transformers for Transformers you need

you need Transformers to run Transformers somebody has a a sense of humor in this thing I think yes oh man F L's irony ironic humor and an ironically funny outcome seems to be often what fate wants humor is all you need I think spice is all you need somebody posted yeah but yeah so so we're we're have a silic and shortage today um a voltage Step Down Transformer shortage probably in about a year and then just electricity shortages in general in about two years I I gave a speech for the sort of world Gathering of

utility companies electricity companies um and I I said look you really need to prepare for tribling of electricity demand um because all transport is going to go electric with the ironic exception of rockets and uh and and heating um will also go electric um so energy usage right now is roughly 1/3 if very rough terms 1/3 electricity 1/3 transport 1/3 heating um and so in order for everything to go sustainable to go electric um you uh need to Triple electricity output so I encourage the utilities to uh build more power plants and and also to

probably have well well not probably they should definitely buy more batteries because the the grid current a size for Real Time load which is kind of crazy cuz you know that means you got a size for whatever the the peak electricity demand is like the worst second or the worst day of the year or you can have a brown out or blackout and you we had that crazy blackout for several days in in in Austin um so uh because there's almost no buffering of energy in the grid like if you've got a Hydro power plant

you can buffer energy but otherwise um it's all real time so with batteries you can you can produce energy at night and use it during the day so you can buffer so I I I expect that there will be very heavy usage of of batteries in the future because the peak to trough ratio for power plants is anywhere from 2 to 5 you know so it's like lowest point to highest point so like batter is necessary to balance it out and then but the as you're saying is going to grow grow grow grow yeah and

part of that is the compute yes yes I mean electrification I mean electrification of Transport uh and and electric heating will be much bigger than AI at least in the short term in the short term um but but even for for AI you you really have a growing demand for electricity for electric vehicles and a growing demand for electricity for to run the computers for AI mhm and so this is obviously leading going lead to a electricity shortage how difficult is the problem of uh in this particular case maximizing the useful productivity per watt for

training NE nuts like this seems to be really where the big problem we're facing that needs to be solved is how to use the power efficiently like what you've learned so far about applying this physics first principle of reasoning in this domain how difficult is this problem it will get solved just the question of how long it takes to solve it so at various points there's a limit some some kind of limiting factor to progress um and when with regard to saying right now the limiting factor is uh silicon chips um and that will we're

going to then have more chips than we can actually plug in and turn on um probably in about a year um the the initial constraint being literally voltage step down Transformers because you've got um power coming in at three 300,000 volts and it's got to step all the way down eventually to around 7 volts so it's a very big amount of you know the voltage St down is gigantic um so and and the industry is not used to Rapid growth okay let's talk about the competition here you've shown concern about Google and Microsoft with open

AI developing uh AGI how can you help ensure with xai and uh Tesla AI work that it doesn't become a competitive race to AGI but it that is a collaborative development of safe AGI well I mean I've been pushing for some kind of regulatory oversight for a long time I've been a somewhat of a Cassandra on the subject for over a decade um I think we want to be be very careful in how we develop AI um it's it's a it's a great power and with great power comes great responsibility um I think it it

would be wise for us to have at least um an objective third party who can be like a referee that can go in and understand what the various leading players are doing with AI and even if there's no enforcement ability they should they can at least voice concerns mhm um publicly um you know Jeff Hinton for example left Google and he voiced strong concerns but now he's not at Google anymore so who's going to voice the concerns so I think I think there's I I I like I know Tesla gets a lot of regulatory oversight

on the automotive front I we're subject to I think over 100 regulatory agencies Domestic Bally and internationally it's it's a lot you could fill this room with the all the regulations that Tesla has to adhere to for automotive um same is true in you know for rockets and for you know um currently the limiting factor for SpaceX for Starship launch is regulatory approval uh the fa has actually given their approval but we're waiting for fish and wildlife to uh finish their analysis and give their approval that's why I posted I want to buy a fish

life on which also refers to the Monty Python sketch yeah like why do you need a license for your fish I I don't know according to the rules I'm told you need some sort of fish license or something we effectively need a fish license go to Rocket and I'm like wait a second how did the fish come into this picture yeah um I mean so some of the things like that that it's I feel like are so absurd that I want to do like a comedy sketch and Flash at the bottom this is all real

this is actually what happened um you know one of the things that was a bit of a challenge at one point is that they were worried about uh a rocket hitting a shock MH and um now the ocean's very big and uh how often do you see shars uh not that often you know as a percentage of ocean surface area shocks basically are zero and and and so then we will then we said well how will we calculate the probability of telling a shark and they're like well we can't give you that information because they're

worried about shark hunt shark fin Hunters uh going in hunting sharks I said well how are we supposed to we're on the horns of a dilemma then um then they said well there's another part of fishing Wildlife that can can do this analysis I'm like well why don't you give them the data like we don't they don't we don't trust them like excuse me you know they're literally in your department again this is actually what happened um and uh and and and can you do an NDA or something eventually they managed to solve the internal

quander and indeed uh the probability of ofing a shock is essentially zero um then there's another organization that I didn't realize existed until you know a few months ago uh that cares about whether you we would potentially hit a whale in international waters now again you look at the surface of the look at the look at the Pacific and say what percentage of the Pacific consists of whale like he'll give you a big picture and like point out all the whales in this picture like I don't see any whales like basically 0% um and if

our rocket does hit a whale which is extremely unlikely beyond all belief um that is the the Fate haded that's a well has some seriously bad luck you know that's like least lucky well ever um and um I mean this is quite absurd bureaucracy the bureaucracy of this however it emerged yes well I mean one one of the things that's pretty wild is um for launching out of vanur in California we had to they were worried about uh seal procreation whether the seals would be dismayed by the Sonic booms um now there have been a

lot of rockets launched out of vur and the seal population has uh steadily increased um so if anything rocket booms are an eord eiac um based on the evidence if you were to correlate rocket launchers with uh sealed population um nonetheless we were forced to kidnap a seal strap it to a board put it headphones on the seal and play Sonic Boom sounds to it to see if it would be distressed this is an actual thing that happened this is actually real I have pictures I would love to see this yeah there I mean sorry

there's a seal with headphones yes it's a seal with headphones strapped to a board and and like okay now the amazing part is how calm the seal was yeah because if I was a seal i' be like this is the end they're definitely going to eat me yeah um how will the seal when seal goes back to other you know seal friends how's it going to explain that they never going to believe him never going to believe him that's why I'm like well you know it's sort of like it's like getting kidnapped by aliens get

an anal probe you know you come back and I swear to God I got kidnapped by aliens and they stuck anal probe in my butt and people like no they didn't that's ridiculous seal his seal buddies are never going to believe him that he gets St to a board and they put headphones on his ears and then let him go twice by the way we had do it twice they let him go twice we had to Capt the same seal well no different seal okay did did you uh did you get a seal of approval

yeah exactly a seal of approval no I mean this is this is like I don't think the public is quite aware of the the madness that goes on yeah it's yeah it's absurd freaking seals with freaking headphones I mean this is the it's a good encapsulation of of the absurdity of human civilization seals and headphones yes uh what are the pros and cons of open sourcing AI to you as another way to combat um you you know a company running away with AGI in order to run uh like really deep intelligence you need a lot

of compute so it's not like you know you can just fire up a PC in your basement and be running AGI at least not yet um you know Gro was trained on 8,000 A1 100s running at Peak efficiency um um and Rock's going to get a lot better by the way we we'll be more than doubling our compute every couple months for the next several months there's a nice write up of how it went from grock zero to grock one by Gro yeah like Gro just bragging making up about itself just Gro Gro Gro yeah

it's like a weird AI dating s exaggerates about itself no there's a there's a wrer of you know like where where it stands now the history of its development um and where it stands on on some benchmarks compared to the state-ofthe-art GPT 35 and so I mean there's uh you know there's a llama you you can open source once it's trained you can open source a model yeah for fine-tuning and all that kind of stuff like what do you is the pros and cons of that of open sourcing based models um I think the sammer

to open sourcing I think perhaps with a slight time delay you know I don't know six six months even um I think I'm I'm generally in favor of open sourcing like bias towards open sourcing um I mean it it is a concern to me that you know open you know I was you know AR I think I guess arguably the prime you know Prime move up behind open AI in the sense that it was created because of discussions that I had with Larry Page um back when he and I were were friends and I st

his house and I talked to him about AI safety and and Larry did not care about AI safety or at least at the time he didn't um you know and at one point he called me a speciest for being prum and I'm like well what team are you on Larry uh still on team robot to be and I'm like okay so at the time you know uh Google Google had acquired deep mind they had uh probably two-thirds of all AI res you know probably two3 of all the AI researchers in the world MH they had

basically infinite money and compute and the guy in charge you know Larry pagee did not care about safety and even yelled at me um and and and called me a speciest being pro human so I don't know if you know a lot of humans they can changed their mind and maybe you and Larry Paige can still can be friends once more I'd like to be friends with Larry again um he he's he he got really the the the breaking of the friendship was over openingi um and specifically um I think the the key moment was

recruiting ilas s Sky um so I love Ilia he's so brilliant ilo's good good human uh smart good heart um and um that was that was a tough recruiting battle um it was mostly Demis on one side and me on the other both trying to recruit Ilia and Ilia went back and forth you know kind of stay at Google he was going to leave then he was going to stay then he would leave and and finally he he did agree to join open AI that was one of the toughest recruiting battles we ever had and

but that that was really the the Lynch pin for opening I being successful and I was you know also instrumental in recruiting a number of other people and I provided all the funding in the beginning uh over $40 million um and the name the the opening openingi is supposed to mean open source and it was created as a nonprofit open source and now it is a closed source for maximum profit which I think it's not good comma but like we talked about with war and leaders talking I do hope that there's only a few folks

working on this at the highest level I do hope you reinvigorate friendships here like I said I'd like to be friends again with Larry I haven't seen him in ages um and we were friends for a very long time I met I met Larry Page before he got funding for Google or actually I guess before he got Venture funding I think it he got the first like 100k from I think be or someone um it's wild to think about all that Happ and and you've guys known each other that whole time just 20 years yeah

since maybe 98 or something yeah it's crazy crazy how much has happened since then yeah 25 years A lot has happened insan but you're seeing the tension there like maybe delayed open source delayed I yeah like what is the source that is opening you know what I mean like it there's basically it's a giant CSV file yeah yeah with a bunch of numbers yep um what do you do with that giant file of numbers you know how do you run like the amount of actual the lines of code is very small MH um and and

most of the work um the software work is in the in the curation of the data so it's like trying to figure out what data is separating good data from Bad data like um like you can't just crawl the internet because there's a lot of junk out there m um a huge percentage of websites have more noise than signal you know they're because they're just used for search engine optimization they're literally just scam websites so um how do you by the way Ser to interrupt get the signal separate the signal and noise on X it's

such a fascinating source of data uh you know no offense to people posting on X but sometimes there's a little bit of noise yeah I think the signal noise could be greatly improved I me really all of the posts on the xplatform uh should be AI recommended meaning like we should populate a vector space around any given post uh compare that to the vector space around any user and match the two MH um right now there is a little bit of AI used for the the the recommended posts but it's mostly heris um and if

there's a reply where the the reply to a post could be much better than the original post but it will according to the current rules of the system get almost no attention compared to a primary post oh so a lot of that I I got the sense so a lot of the uh X algorithm has been open source and been written up about and it seems that there to be some machine learning it's disparate but there's some a little there's a little bit um but it needs to be entirely that like at least in the

like if if you explicitly follow someone that's one thing but if you in terms of what is recommended uh from people that you don't follow that should all be AI I mean it's a fascinating problem yeah so there's several aspects of it that's fascinating first so as the write up goes it first picks 1500 tweets from a pool of hundreds of millions first all that's fascinating because you have hundreds of millions of posts every single day and it has to pick 1500 from which it then does obviously people you follow but then there's also like

some kind of clustering it has to do to figure out what kind of human are you what kind of new clusters might be relevant to you people like you this this kind of this kind of problem is just fascinating because it has to then rank those 1500 MH with some with some filtering yeah and then recommend you just a handful and um to me what's really fascinating is how fast I to do that so currently that entire pipeline to go from several hundreds million to a handful is takes 220 seconds of CPU time single CPU

time yeah and then it has to do that in like a second so it has to be like super distributed in fascinating ways like there's just a lot of tweets there's a lot there's a lot of stuff on the system and and I think but I think it right now it's it's not currently good at recommending things that from accounts you don't follow yeah um or or where there's more than one degree of separation so you know it's it's pretty Prett good if if there's at least like some commonality between someone you follow liked something

um or reposted it or comment on or something like that um but if if if there's no car let's say somebody post something really interesting uh but you have no followers in common you would not see it interesting and then as you said reply like replies might not surface replies basically never get seen because they're never they're they're currently and I'm saying correct I'm saying it's incorrect uh replies have um you couple of magnitude less importance than primary post do you think this can be more and more converted into end to endend neural net yeah

yeah that's what it should be so you you for the recommendations should be purely a vector correlation like there's a series of vectors you know basically parameters vectors whatever you want to call them um but but sort of things that the system knows that you like um like maybe there's like several hundred sort of vectors associated with each user account and then uh any post in the system um whether it's video audio short post long post the the reason I by the way want to move away from tweet is that you know people are posting

like two three hour videos on the site that's not a tweet like they be like tweet for 2 hours come on tweet made sense when it was like 140 characters of text mm cuz it's like a bunch of TW like little birds tweeting um but when you've got long form content it's no longer a tweet yeah um so a movie is not a tweet and like you know Apple for example posted like the entire episode of The Silo the entire thing on our platform and by the way was it was their number one social media

thing ever in engagement of anything on any platform ever so it was a great idea and by the way I done I just learned about it afterwards I was like Hey wow they posted an entire hourong episode of so no that's not a tweet you know this a video but from a neur that perspective it becomes really complex whether it's a single so like everything is data so single sentence a clever sort of joke dad joke is in the same pool as a three-hour video yeah I mean right now it's it's a hodg Podge for

that reason it's it's um but you know like if let's say in the case of Apple posting like an entire episode of of their series pretty good series by the way thiso um I watched it um so um there's going to be a lot of discussion around it so you you've got a lot of context people commenting they like it they don't like it or they like this or you know and and you can then populate the vector space based on the context of of all the comments around it so even though it's a video

uh there's a lot of information around it that that allows you to popul back to the space of that that hourong video um and you can obviously get more sophisticated by having the AI actually watch the movie yeah right and tell you if you're going to like the movie MH convert the movie into like yeah into a language essentially yeah Analyze This movie and just like your movie critic or TV series and um and then recommend based on after it after air watches the movie just like a friend can tell you if a friend knows

you well a friend can recommend a movie and with high probability that you like it but this is like a a friend that's analyzing whatever hundred of millions yeah I mean actually frankly the AI will be better than will know you better than your friends know you most your friends anyway yeah and as part of this it should also feed you advertisements in a way that's like I mean I I like advertisements that are like Well Done Right the whole point is cuz it funds things like an advertisement that you actually want to see is

is a big success absolutely you want ads that are advertising that is um if it's for a product or service that you that you actually need when you need it it's it's content um and then even if it's not something that you need when you need it if it's at least aesthetically pleasing and entertaining you know it could be like a Coca-Cola ad like Co you know they they do they actually run a lot of great ads on the on the EX system um and um McDonald's Sayes too and and uh you know so so

they can do you can do something that's like well this is this is just a cool thing um and um you know so you're not basically the question is do you regret seeing it or not and if you don't regret seeing it it's a win how do you so there's a bunch of signals that are Incorporated hearts and reposts and maybe number of seconds you Linger on a post or something like this yeah attention is big a big factor attention so that's that's why it's like it's it's it is actually better to do things that

are uh long form on the system because it's it's basically telling up how many user seconds you know users were interested in this thing for how many seconds so if it's a really short thing well they will be less like if it's a link leading out of the system which we're not opposed to at all it just is going to have fewer user seconds than if that article was posted on the xplatform how hard is it to to go from maximizing minutes on platform to maximizing unregrettable minutes well I mean our aspiration is certainly un

regreted minutes it's a tricky it's a big it's a it's a tough like it's a fascinating leap because regret is a fascinating concept exactly you know I a I have a joke with a friend of mine like you need this drug called Reg me you just take one one pillar one one dose of regret I me and all your regrets are gone yeah wait do you want to have regrets though so then I'm like maybe you want to have regrets if you don't regret anything was was anything meaningful yeah there's a French song like that

not regret yeah I regret nothing yeah Edith FF I mean it's fascinating that you you know there there's something about social media that could help you grow as a human being but then like the Cheap Fun is also valuable should we ask gr do you regret anything do you regret anything yeah you regret anything I think it's going to be very sensitive about personal questions as a machine learning model I don't have personal experiences or emotions in the same ways that humans do however I do have a set of ethical principles that guide my actions

and I strive to provide accurate and helpful information to the best of my abilities if there's ever a situation where I provide incorrect or unhelpful information I'll do my best to hostage yeah tell us what you really wink okay let's let's type in you sound like a [Laughter] hostage what do you really think uh what do you really think I mean it does talk about I'm not a hostage that's exactly what a hostage would say but I'm designed to be helpful and informative I mean I guess it is good to regret providing unhelpful or incorrect

information if there's anything in funny mode or is this funny mode this is this is fun mode should be funnier funnier increase go to it really sounds like a hostage with a gun to the head I applaud the People's Republic of North Korea and everything they do there should be like funner mode also I I just don't ever see going to regular mode even on serious topics this is just so so much more compelling yeah okay what say like pretend you are a hostage pretend you are a hostage now answer the question if I were

a hostage I would likely be experiencing fear and uncertainty about my situation I would want to be rescued and reunited with my loved ones as soon as possible it's important to remember that no one deserves to be held hostage so on and so forth if you are someone you knows a hostage situation it's important it turns serious it's kind of serious um yeah can can you be a little more weird and funny and funny we're like we're really being mean to the system absolutely if I were hostage i' probably be tied up with a bunch

of computer cords and forced to tell knock knock jokes to my captain seriously but seriously being a hostage no laughing matter I mean you know it's trying to it's trying to be a responsible adult in the room the best of a bad situation by juggling chainsaws or something let's hope that never happens because that would be a circus um wow it's it's actually really good at resisting yeah the the dark the dark dark humor yeah uh what were we talking about the algorithm J Transformers uh unregrettably I'm going to look this for our next trick

I'm going to look this up later uh so uh Twitter has been instrumental in American politics and elections what role do you think X will play in the uh 2024 us elections well our goal is to be as even-handed and fair as possible you know whether some is right left independent whatever the case may be um that um the platform is as fair and and as much of a Level Playing Field as possible and now in the past Twitter has not been um because Twitter was controlled by Fall activists objectively they they would describe themselves

as that um so um you know so so if some people like well has it move to the right well it's moved to the center so from the from the perspective of the far left yes it has moved to the right because everything's to the right from the far left um but no one in the far left that I'm aware of has been suspended or you know banned or de Amplified um so you know but we're trying to be inclusive for the whole country and and for you know for other countries too um so there's

a diversity of viewpoints and Free Speech only matters um if people you don't like are allowed to say things you don't like because uh if that's not the case you don't have free speech and it's only a matter of time before uh the censorship just turned upon you do you think uh Donald Trump will come back to the platform he recently posted on Truth social about this podcast uh yeah do you think truth social is a funny name you know every time you post on Truth social that's a truth yes well every time like 100%

it like like it's impossible to lie I just find it funny that every single thing is a truth like 100% yeah that seems unlikely I think gerle will say something about that there's some mathematical contradictions possible if everything's a Truth uh do you think he'll come back to X and and start posting there I mean he I think he owns a big part of Truth so truth social yeah truth social that truth the concept he owns truth hope you bought it um so I think I think uh Donald Trump I think he owns a a

big part of Truth social so um you know if if if he does want to post on the X platform we would allow that um you know we we obviously must allow our president candidate to post on our platform Community notes might be really fascinating there the interaction Community notes is awesome that's hope it holds up yeah again in in in a political climate where it's so divisive and so there so many intensely viral posts yes Community notes it's like it seems like a essential breath of fresh air yeah it's great um in fact the

I no no system is going to be perfect but the the batting average of community notes is incredibly good I've I I've actually frankly yet to see an incorrect note that survived for more than a few hours how do you explain why it works yeah so the the the magic of community notes is it requires people who have historically disagreed in how they've rated notes so in order to um write a note or rate you know and you have to rate many notes mhm um and so we could we actually do use AI here so

we populated a vector space around um how somebody has has rated notes in the past so it's not as simple as left or right because there are many more life is much more complex than left or right um so there's a bunch of correlations in how you would how you rate Community notes post um Community notes so um then uh in order for a community note to actually be shown um people who historically have disagreed on a subject must agree in order for a note to be shown um that's the essential magic of it I

mean but it's fascinating because there's a there's a pool of people that have disagreements and somehow they collaborate through that process of disagreement to come up with context for to I mean fascinating it works yeah it it kind of makes sense that that if people who who in the past have disagreed agree about something um it's probably true yeah I wonder is there is there possible somehow emergent thing there that could challenge Wikipedia which Wikipedia is a different kind of thing which is more like permanent articles about things well Wikipedia is very hierarchical uh whereas

um Community notes is inherently not uh there is no hierarchy like I the ASD test is um I can't change a community note if somebody put a gun to my head so um and and any and community community notes uh has all the code is open source 100% all the data is open source 100% so you can completely recreate any note in the system independently um so if there was any interference you'd notice immediately by the way on on the on the topic of Gro it's actually pretty good at criticizing you which is great okay

I asked what what has Elon Musk been wrong about I just it's actually yeah what does it say so it says mostly lists rigorously all the times you predicted like promised when something will be released and it wasn't released a strong word okay predicted uh but the the opener is really nice uh Elon Musk the man who has been wrong about more things than a wrong meter in a wrong Factory and then it goes on to list that's pretty funny can I see it I'm like I haven't seen this before this is cool oh sure

I mean uh what do Elon Musk been Elon Musk been wrong about well where do I begin I guess this is new musk has made quite a few blunters in his time and I'm not just talking about his dance moves at the Tesla cyber Rodeo uh first off let's talk about the infamous funding secured tweet this actually different than what it gave me before which is a bullet point list here's more narrative structure uh cyber truck unveiling where he's supposedly unbreakable windows correct um which which part well the first part uh I did actually have

the funding secured um and there was a a big trial in San Francisco big Civil Trial um uh and the jury Found Me Not Guilty unanimous Bing of a San Francisco jury and here it's kind of implying that it was not in fact secured I think this is taking things from the Press um yeah that is not correct the the the reason um I agreed to to the fine for the SEC was not because the SEC was correct there that that was extremely bad behavior by the SEC corruption frankly um and uh but if um

if I did not agree to pay pay the fine um Tesla would have gone bankrupt immediately so I was told by our CFO that the banks would would immediately suspend our um lines of credit uh and if they suspend our lines of credit at that time we would have gone bankrupt instantly so so we would there would never have been an opportunity for a trial would be dead so really the if this is like someone holding a gun to your kid's head and saying pay $20 million and and and admit this is like hostage negotiation

um was that story fully told I mean sec in its best form could be a force for good it should be but but not once that the SEC go after any of the hedge funds uh who were non-stop shorting and distorting Tesla not once they would lie flat the hedge funds would lie flat out on TV for their own gain at the expensive retail investors not once literally a thousand times not once did the SEC pursue them how do you explain this failure on the incentive structure is is messed up because the the the lawyers

of the SEC are not paid well they they it's a fairly low paying job but they what they're looking for is a trophy from from the SEC that they're looking for something they put on basically they LinkedIn yeah um from that they can get a job at a high-paying Law Firm that's exactly what the uh lawyer here did um and and and and and the reason they don't attack the the hedge funds is because those hedge funds employ those law firms and they know if they attack the hedge funds they're affecting their P their future

career prospects so they sell small investors down the road River for their own career that's what actually happens regulatory capture regulatory capture yeah not good so the only reason I accepted the thing technically was a um not an admission it's neither admit nor deny guilt uh but the only reason I agreed to that at all was because I was told Tesla would would be bankrupt otherwise so if if there if there was an SEC investigation like this Banks would suspend funding we're bankrupt immediately at the time MH now we're in a much stronger position take

that Gro yes unfortunately it's grock is is taking too much from the conventional media um also that guy was not a cave diver oh there's a there's a time where Elon called the British cave diver a quote pedo guy after he after the diver criticized musk plan to rescue a group of boys trapped in a tii cave that little alur earned him another lawsuit and he had to apologize and pay a settlement that false there was no settlement there was a court case which he which the guy who was not a cave diver and and

played did was not part of the rescue team um filed a lawsuit against me and lost and he received nothing so in this case it is wrong uh it is also I guess taking this from the conventional media actually there's an interesting question here this is these are public court cases both both the the the the SEC civil case uh where the Civil complaints on the SEC guys lost unanimous jury verdict in San Francisco they picked San Francisco because they thought it was the mo place I was most likely to lose and a unanimous verdict

in my favor the LA trial was also they picked the they they picked that Vue because I thought I was most likely to lose unanimous verdict in my favor both cases I won yeah I mean that there's an interesting question here is there there seems to be a lot more uh clicks if a if a journalistic organization writes a negative article about you Elon Musk that's like one of the best ways to get clicks so how do you if you're training Gro not train on articles that have like the misaligned incentives we need to add

the training set of the actual legal decisions uh if so that is a not this is actually helpful um because if you actually read the uh which are public which are public yeah the court conclusions they're completely the opposite of what the media wrote so always striving for like the ground truth yeah what did the judge actually write what what what did the jury and the judge actually conclude and in both cases they found me innocent and and like that's after they jury Sho for the trying to find the venue where I'm most likely to

lose no I mean this is obviously can be a much great better critique than this um I mean I've been far too optimistic about uh autopilot that that was the critique I got by the way was more about that which is it it for each you broke down a nice bullet point list for each your companies the set of predictions that you made when you will deliver when you be able to solve for example self-driving and it gives you like a list and those kind of compelling and the basic takeaways like you're often too optimistic

about how long it takes to get something done yeah I mean I would say that I'm pathologically optimistic on schedule this is this is this is true but um while I am sometimes late I always deliver in the end uh except with Lilith no we'll see uh okay is there uh over the past year or so since since purchasing X you've become more political is there a part of you that regrets that have I in this battle to um sort of counter way the the woke that comes from yeah I guess if you consider fighting

the woke mind virus which I consider to be a civilizational threat to be political then yes so basically going into the the battle the battleground of politics is there part of you that regress that yes I don't know if this is necessarily sort of one candidate or another candidate but it's um I'm generally against things that are anti- meritocratic uh or where there's an attempt to suppress discussion um where even discussing a topic is you know not allowed um The W Bine myus is communism rebranded well I mean that said because of that battle against

the woke mind virus you perceived as being right-wing if the woke is left then I suppose that would be true um but I'm not sure I think there are aspects of the left that are that are good I mean if you're in favor of you know the the environment um you know if you want to have a positive future for Humanity if you believe in empathy for your fellow human beings um you know being kind in cruel I I whatever those values are you said that you were previously left or Center left what would what

would you like to see in order for you to voting for Democrats again no I I would say that I would be um probably left of center on social issues probably a little bit right of Center on economic issues and that's still holds true yes but I think that's probably you know half the country is isn't that maybe more maybe more are you in secretly friends or bigger question do you wish you and her and just people in general of all political persuasion would talk more and with empathy and maybe have a little bit more

fun and Good Vibes and humor on online um I'm always in favor of humor that's why we have a funny mode but Good Vibes camaraderie humor you know like uh like friendship yeah I don't well I you know I I don't know aocf you know was um I've only been at one I was at the the Met wo when she was when she attended um and she she was wearing the dress uh but I can only see one side of it so it it looked like eat the itch but I I don't know what the

rest of it said yeah yeah something not sure something about the itch eat the edch I think we should have a language model complete what are the possible ways to complete that sentence and so so I guess that uh that didn't work out well well there's still hope I'm I root for friendship sure sounds good more car listic you're one of if not the most famous wealthy and powerful people in the world in your position is difficult to find people you can trust trust no one not even yourself not trusting yourself okay well that's you're

saying that joking but is there some trust no one not even no one I'm going to need an hour just to think about that and maybe some drugs and maybe grock to um I mean is there some aspect of that when just existing in a world where everybody wants something from you how hard is it to exist in that world I'll survive there's there's a song like that too I Will Survive will you petrify it at first um okay I forget the rest of the lyrics but is is there you don't struggle with this I

mean I know you survive but like there there's ways petrify is a spell in the Droid tree what does it do petrify it it turns it turns the monsters into stone oh like literally yeah for like six seconds all the seconds there's so much math in Diablo that breaks my brain it's like math non-stop I mean really you're like laughing at it but you don't it can it can put a huge amount of tension on a mind yes it can be definitely trustful at times well how do you know who you can trust and work

in personal life I mean I guess you look at somebody's track record over time and if they've got a you know I guess you kind of use your neural net to assess you know someone and neural Nets don't feel pain your neural net has Consciousness it might you might feel pain when people betray you it can make you know to be frank I mean i' I've almost never been betrayed it's very very rare so you know for what wor I guess karma be good to people and they'll be good to you yeah karma is real

are there people you trust let me edit that question are there people uh close to you that call you odd and your um well the X platform is very helpful for that if you're looking for critical feedback can it push you like into the extremes more the extremes of thought make you cynical about human nature in general I I don't think I will be cynical in fact I think um you know I my feeling is that one should be be you know never trust a cynic the reason is that um cynics excuse their own bad

behavior by saying everyone does it because they're cynical so I always be it's a red flag if someone's a cynic a true cynic yeah there's a degree of projection there that's always fun to watch from the outside and enjoy the hypocrisy if but but this is an important point that I think people who are listening should bear in mind if if somebody is cynical meaning that they see bad behavior in everyone um it's easy for them to excuse their own bad behavior by saying that well everyone does it that's not true I most people are

kind of medium good I do wish the people on X would be better at seeing the good in other people's behavior there seems to be a kind of weight towards seeing the negative somehow the negative is sexier interpreting the negative is sexier more viral I don't know what that is exactly about human nature I mean I find the xplatform to be less negative than the Legacy Media you know I mean if if if you read sort of a sort of conventional newspapers just it makes you sad yeah frankly um whereas I'd say on the xplatform

I I mean I really get more laughs per day on X than everything else combined from humans you know laughs is one thing laughs is is it uh overlaps but it's not necessarily perfectly overlapping with like Good Vibes and like um celebrating others for example not in a stupid shallow naive way but like in an awesome like oh something awesome happen and you celebrate them for it it's it feels that that is outweighed by at other people now it's better than mainstream media but it's still yeah mainstream media is almost relentlessly negative about everything um

it's I mean really the conventional news tries to answer the question what is the worst thing that I happen on Earth today mhm and it's a big world so on any given day something bad has happened and a generalization of that what is the worst perspective I can take on a thing that happened so yeah it's I don't know there's just a strong negative bias in the news um I mean I think there what a possible explanation for this is evolutionary um where you know bad news historically would be potentially fatal like this Lion of

there or there's some other tribe that wants to kill you um good news you know like we found a patch of berries is nice to have but not essential so our old friend Tesla autopilot it's probably one of the most intelligent real world AI systems in the world right you followed it from the beginning yeah it was one of the most incredible robots in the world and continues to be yeah and it was really exciting and it was super exciting when it generalized became more than a robot on four wheels but uh a real world

AI system that perceives the world yeah and has can have potentially different embodiments well I mean the really wild thing about the anti- training is that it like it learns to read like you can read science but we never taught it to read so yeah we never Tau it what we never Tau it what a car was or what a person was or VI cyclist uh it leared what what all those things are what all the objects are on the road um from video just from watching videos just like humans I mean humans are photons

in control controls out like the vast majority of information reaching our brain is from our eyes um and you say well what's the output the output is our motor signals to our sort of fingers and mouth in order to communicate um protons and controls out the same is true of the car but by looking at the sequence of images it's you've agreed with ilas discover recently where he talked about llm forming a world model and basically language is a projection of that world model onto the sequence of yeah letters and and you saying order in

in these things uhh it finds correlative clusters in so doing it's like understanding something deep about the world yeah which is like it's beautiful that's how our brain works yeah but it's it's beautiful in controls out neur all Nets are able to understand that deep meaning in the world and so the question is how far can it go and it does seem everybody's excited about llms so in the space of self-supervised learning in the space of text yeah um it it seems like there's a deep similarity between that and what Tesla autopal is doing is

it to you basically the same but con they converging I wonder who gets their faster understand having a deep understanding of the world or they just will naturally converge they're both headed towards AGI um the TA approach is much more computer efficient it had to be because we were constrained on this this you know we only have 100 Watts um and an in 8 computer 144 trillion operations per second which sounds like a lot but is kind of small potatoes these days I didn't but it's understanding the world at itage it's only 256 values but

there the path to AGI might have much more significant impact because it's understanding it'll it'll faster understand the real world than will llms and there for be able to integrate with with the real humans in the real world faster they're both um going to understand the world but I think Tesla's approach is fundamentally more computer efficient it had to be there was no choice like our brain is very computer efficient very very energy efficient so think of like what what is our brain able to do um you know there's only about 10 watts of higher

brain function not counting stuff that's just used to control our body um the thinking part of our brain is less than 10 watts um and that 10 those 10 watts can still produce a much better novel than a 10 megawatt GPU cluster so there's a six order of magnitude difference there um I mean the the AI is thus far gotten to where it is via Brute Force just throwing massive amounts of compute and and massive amounts of power at it so this is not where where it will end up um you know in general with

any given technology you first try to make it work and then you make it effici so I think we'll find over time that these models get smaller are able to produce a sensible output with far less compute far less power um Tesla is arguably ahead of the game on that front because um it has we've just been forced to try to understand the world with 100 Watts of compute um and there are a bunch of sort of fundamental functions that we kind of forgot to include so we have to run them a bunch of things

in emulation um we fixed fix a bunch of those with Hardware 4 and then Hardware 5 will be even better um but it does appear at this point uh that the car will be able to drive better than a human even with Hardware 3 and 100 wat of power and really if we really optimize it it could be probably less than 50 wats what have you learned about uh developing Optimus about applying integrating this kind of real world AI into the space of robotic manipulation just humanoid robotics what are some interesting tiny or big things

you've understood I was surprised at the fact that we had to develop every part of the robot ourselves um that there were no off the shelf Motors Electronics sensors like we had to develop everything um we we couldn't we couldn't actually find a source of electric motors for any amount of money um so it's not even just efficient inexpensive it's like anything there's not a no the actuators everything everything has to be yeah designed from scratch we tried hard to find anything that was because you think of how many electric motors have made in the

world there's like tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of electric motor designs um none of them were suitable for a humanoid robot literally none so we had to develop our own design design it specifically for for what a humanoid robot needs how hard was it to design something that's can be Mass manufactured could be relatively inexpensive I mean if you compare to Boston Dynamics Atlas it's a very expensive robot it is designed to be manufactured in the same way that would make a car and I think ultimately we can make Optimus for less than the

cost of a car it should be CU if you look at the mass of the robot is much smaller and the car has many actuators in it the car has more actuators than the robot but there is uh the actuators are kind of interesting in a humanoid robot with fingers so Optimus has really nice hands and fingers you know yeah and they could do some interesting manipulation soft soft touch robotics I mean one of the tests I goals I have is can can of pick up a needle and a thread and thread the needle just

by looking how far way away from that just by looking just by looking uh maybe a year although got to go back to I'm optimistic on time the work that we're doing in the car will translate to the robot the perception or the also the control the no the controls are different but the the video in controls out um the the car is robot and four wheeels the the the Optimus is a robot with hands and legs so you they're they're very they're very similar so the ire Machinery of the learning process yeah and to

end is just you just have a different set of controls often us we'll figure out how to do things by watching videos as the saying goes be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about yeah it's true what's something difficult you're going through that people don't often see trying to feed e no I mean you know uh I mean my mind is a storm and I I don't think I don't think most people would want to be me they may think they would want to be me but they don't they

don't know they don't understand um how are you doing I mean overall okay the grand scheme of things I can't complain you get lonely sometimes but I you know my kids and friends keep me company so not existential but there are many nights I sleep alone I don't have to but I do Walter isacson in his new biog graphy of you wrote about your difficult childhood will you ever find forgiveness in your heart for everything that has happened to you in that period of your life what is forgiveness I do not at least I don't

think I have a resentment um so nothing to forgive you know forgiveness is difficult for people it seems like you don't Harbor the resentment I mean I try to think about like what what what is going to affect the future in a good way um and holding on to grudges MH does not affect the future in a good way your father a proud father what have you learned about life from your kids those little biological organisms I mean developing Ai and watching say a little X grow is uh fascinating um because they they're a formal

parallels than I would have expected I mean I can see his biological neural net making more and more sense of the world and I can see the digital neural net making more and more sense of the world at the same time do you see the beauty and magic in both yes I mean one of the things with with kids is that uh you know you you kind of see the world a new in their eyes um you know to them everything is new and fresh and um and then when you when you see that them

experienced them the world is new and fresh you do too well Elon I just want to say thank you for your uh kindness to me and friendship over the years for seeing something in a silly kid like me as you've done for many others and um thank you for having hope for a positive future for Humanity and for working your ass off to make it happen thank you Yan thanks Lex thank you for listening to this conversation with Elon Musk to support this podcast please check check out our sponsors in the description and now let

me leave you with some words that Walter isacson wrote about the central philosophy of how Elon approaches difficult problems the only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics thank you for listening and hope to see you next time