NEW: Elon Musk On The Future Of Warfare

we're really excited for you to help us kick off our our um intellectual theme human in the machine which is leadership on the emerging Battlefield how do you see Warfare transforming in the future I mean the biggest effect I think by far is AI and drones uh so the the next well in fact the current war in Ukraine uh is very much a drone War already uh it's it's sort of a contest between Russia trying to see who can deploy the most number of drones um now if there uh a major power War it's very

much going to be a drone War it's it's going to be drones and Ai and you know it's a sort of I mean I do worry about the existential risk of AI um which is that if you if you employ Ai and drones do you do you go down this path where eventually you get to Terminator you know try to avoid that um that would be good that would be good yeah um minimize the Terminator risk but but I mean essentially if you are when when you're making military Dres you are making Terminators um and

you're I think you're you'll somewhat be forced into the giving localized the Drone localized AI um because if the AI is far away it can't control as well as localized AI so what do you mean by localized AI meaning it's autonomous killing machine completely autonomous well you give it the okay yeah in a particular Arena and it's and it goes with certain parameters yeah hopefully do you think our you think think our adversaries will have that those same type of concerns or limitations um well yeah I mean depends on how much existential risk there is

in these wars uh so if it's if it's a a regional War I think it'll be more tempered if it's goes beyond a regional War then it's or betol and you know and then you you start deploying things that you really wouldn't want to deploy so hopefully that doesn't happen but you would but you said and I would agree that if you just look at the contemporary conflicts that are taking place you would agree that machines aren't just disrupting Warfare they're now Common Place Dron drones are going to be overwhelmingly the uh what matters in

in any in any between you know any powers that have uh significant technology it's it's so my personal belief is like that you really it'll actually be my I think probably too dangerous to have humans at the front it's it's drones it's drones at the front it's too dous don't miss because of The lethality though it's too dangerous to have humans in the front yes I mean I mean if you seeing some of the computer controled sniper rifles I mean they just don't miss so you're in the you're you're finding a machine that's going to

you know aim with Micron level accuracy and uh never gets tired so how do you think the United States should be Levering technology to further our National Defense well I think we probably need to invest in drones um the um the United States is strong in in terms of Technology of the items but the production rate is low so it's it's a it's a small number of units relatively speaking but basically I think there's there's a there's a there's a production rate issue like theate say like how fast can you make drones say you say

there's a drone conflict the outcome of that drone conflict will be um how many drones does each side have in that particular Skirmish times the kill ratio so if you've got you can have a let's say we would United States would have a drone a set of drones that have a have a high kill ratio uh but then uh the other side has far more drones if you got two to one kill ratio the other side has four times as many drones you're still going to lose do you think our industrial base can scale to

make the volume of drones that you're you're just you're you're you know talking about I think that's that's going to be the the the biggest challenge that that is uh it can scale but it is not currently scaling why would that be I think the procurement is so I mean there we not read a lot of military history and and actually like the thing that I go to sleep with is using an audio book on on U on military history on of one kind or another uh so I find the subject very interesting um and

one of the things that tends to happen is that uh countries pretty much are geared enough to fight the last war not the next war and it's it's hard to change um I you look at the the uh uniforms at the start of World War I and the tactics and strategies they use to start of World War I there were not significantly different from the Napoleonic era um you know the the I mean the French were marching into war with brightly colored uniforms look great um that's that's that's not what you want to be you

know when some trying to Point again at you don't want a great looking uniform you want uniform that blends in um so there's a tendency to be geing after to fight the last war the last war the US for is kind of the Cold War I guess so uh it usually takes like some kind of shock factor to adjust uh I I would recommend adjusting now um and and you're are seeing some startups like and and a few others that are have different mindset um but it's really it's it's going to be can you make

a lot of drones and what's kill ratio that's what it comes down to so there was recently a report that said that president zalinski said by February 2025 there'll be a million drones produced by the Ukrainian so it seems like it's doable and this might be a process question and we'll talk about process in a second but as you were as you were just talking I was thinking about and you said that you you can't have humans at the front and so you haven't created a company that's solved aging yet have you no okay so

100 years I I wonder whether we should solve aging that's a great Point yeah I'd like to wrap it up sometimes right well it's like yeah how long do you went to prud and Kim J on to love that's a great Point yeah but let's say don't get pushed let's say you go for 50 100 years how do you envision this Evolution and I think this might get to neurolink how do you see this Evolution between the human who maybe can't be at the front any longer the technolog is at the front yet keeping them

C integrated and synchronized like how does that how is that going to work in your mind I mean so Communications is essential like it is actually very important to have space-based communications that are it cannot be intercepted which is which is starlink what starlink offers starink is starlink is the backbone of the Ukrainian military Communication System um because it it can't be blocked by the Russians essentially it's the only thing they can't be so on the front lines all the fiber connections are cut the cell towers are blown up and the the geostationary satellite links

are jammed the only thing that isn't jammed is slic it's a only thing and then GPS GPS also jammed GPS signal is very faint but stalling can offer location capability as well so it is a a strategic advantage that's very significant um and and when when you're trying to communicate with the drones the drones need to like basically they need to know where they are and and they need to receive instructions so if you don't have Communications in positioning then the drones don't work that that's that's that's quite important it's essential but you find it

important that there's still that that communication between the human and the the machine or the drum yeah yes there's like it's a different question of like where are things like right now versus where will things be in 10 years um but I have to say I I do look at the future with sub trepidation I I have to have some deliberate suspens of disbelief to sleep sometimes um because I I think the we're headed into a pretty wild future and I'm I'm naturally an optimistic person so you know but but AI is going to be

so good um including localized AI I mean at at current rates you'll have you know some of that sort of rock level AI probably that can be run on a drone and so you could literally say you know um this is the equipment that the Drone needs to destroy go into that thing It'll recognize what equipment needs to be destroyed and take it out it's a lot of your work with neurolink though is because what you're saying is that AI is going to quickly surpass at least in your estimation the the human's ability to control

it yeah okay I mean I'd like to say no but the answer is yes so how first off how long until you think that happens before the the the the AI has has evolved to the point where and I you know they the AIS can start working together even relying on computers like in a de hobbled way and therefore surpasses the ability for the human to to be able to influence um how it's working well I think humans will be able to influence how it's working for a long time um this is an esoteric subject

that you really goes into pretty wild speculation um I I think it's to to some degree that the AIS I think will want humans as a source of will uh so if you think of how the human mind works there's lumic system and the cortex your sort of your kind of um base instincts and the sort of thinking and planning part of your brain but you also have a tertiary layer already which is that all of the electronics that you use your your phones computers applications um so you already sort of have three layers of

intelligence um but all of those the cortex and the Machine intelligence your sort of cybernetic third layer is trying to make the limic system happy because limic system is a source a source of will so there's some you know it might be that the AIS just want to make the humans happy um and part of what neur Link's trying to do is improve the communication bandwidth between the Vortex and the digital temp layer CU our bandwidth band output bandwidth of a human is less than one bit per second per day there 86,400 seconds in a

day you don't outward 86,400 tokens so you know it's but like the the number of words that I can say at those Forum say just like just look at it from an information Theory standpoint how how much information am I able to convey not that much because I can only say a pure number of words and in order in order to convey an idea I have to take take a concept in my head I have to compress it down to a small number of woods try to aspirationally model how you would decompress th those woods

into Concept in your own mind that's communication so your brain is doing a lot of compression decompression and and and then has a very small output bandwidth neuralink can increase that bandwidth by several orders of magnitude and uh and also you don't have to spend as much time compressing ports into a small number of words you can do conceptual telepathy that is the idea behind your link it's so it is intended to be a mitigation against AI existential risk you talk about alignment can you explain what you mean by alignment to to help everyone understand

yeah just is is AI going to do things that make civilization better make people happy or will it be contrary to uh Humanity will it will it Foster Humanity or or not will be against humanity so obviously we want an that will poster Humanity I think in developing an AI to post Humanity because I've thought about AI safety for a long time um I think I've had probably a thousand hours of discussion about this um and my ultimate conclusion is that the best course for AI safety is to have an AI that is maximally truth

seeking uh and also curious and if you have both of those things I think it will Foster it will naturally Foster Humanity because people want to see how Humanity develops humanity is more interesting than not Humanity um you know I like Mars I'm a big fan of Mars obviously um and and I think we should become a multi-planet civilization um I think that's that's very important the purpose of SpaceX uh is is to make life multiplanetary that's the reason I created the company and and that's the reason that we have the Starship development in South

Texas that rocket is far far too big for just satellites um it's it's a intended to establish Life on Mars not just you know send astronauts there briefly but to build a city on Mars and that's ultimately self- sustaining um so but getting back to AI the if if you've got a true seeking AI that is maximally curious my neural net my biological neural net says that that's going to be the the the safest outcome um because like see while like Mars you you could Mars is not as interesting as us because there's no human

civilization there um or thought of another way if you if you're if you want to render Mars rendering Mars is pretty easy it's basically Red Red Rock on a look kind of like some parts of Arizona you know as not a lot of people um it's it's just it's that's it's easy to render it's render like to Mars but but rendering human civilization much more much harder much more complex much more interesting and I so I think a curious truth seeking AI would plus to humanity and want to see where it goes that relies on

requires trust between the human and the Machine and that's where I want to ask you a question on this so the Army leaders in the Army are um no strangers to implementing new technologies um think about how GPS for example transform navigation it it'd be unheard of not to use GPS uh today um but when I was a lieutenant no one used GPS so recently I was watching this incredibly important and realistic documentary um called Top Gun mavrick yeah and in it I learned it's really good it's really good it's a it's I mean if

you you don't want to think about the plot too closely but it's a great movie it's a fantastic movie I learned that Tom Cruz is actually not an actor he's like a pilot apparently but um he taught me something really important in it he says it's about the pilot not the plane and right that's right before he defeats a fifth generation fighter with a 19 14 right yeah yeah so I just go with a B plan yeah there you go Tom Cruz could do it s with camel in it you know it's it's a bit

of a cynicism or a cynical view of the need for technology it's like hey technology is Superfluous humans can do it but we know that's I don't question Tom Cruz lot I don't ever question Tom Cruz no I'm just kidding but I guess the question is how do we get humans to be able to trust the machines because there is a lot of stories for example uh we just recently had a conversation where uh where a pilot aache Pilots were given new technology and they were like we're not going to use it because we don't

really trust it use it and so how do you get the how do you when new technolog is implemented we have to be able to trust it especially if it's going to be the Difference Maker to to win so how do we do that how do we build the trust between the human and the Machine well I I don't I don't I think we we shouldn't just automatically trust these things um I mean I think you want to test it out um you do a lot of testing and uh see how it actually works in

a conflict at small scale and then scale it up if it's if it's effective um but uh yeah I mean I have to say like I I'm not sure for example that there is a um fortunately this is not an Air Force Gathering but there's there's not I'm not sure there's a lot of room opportunity for fighter pilots um because I think the if you've got a drone swarm coming at you uh what what the the pilots of liability in the fir plane be honest uh so you know if if if you say you compare

u a drone for us as a fighter plane how easy is it to make a drone you you can it's an order of magnitude maybe at least at least 10 maybe 100 times easier to make the Drone and you can afford to sacrifice the drones whereas the pilots you don't want to sacrifice the pilots so my guess is that actually the the age of of human palleted fighter aircraft is coming to an end if that's the case uh then there's a there's a a question that is oftentimes debated and law and and ethics debates about

Killer Robots yes and um really are these things that that should we be willing to lean so forward with the technology that we start to supplant the the human pilot with the technology and and where does that go um and so what are your thoughts as we talk about technology replacing humans on the battlefield well I just what I'm saying is that the the the at the front of the battle lines it's going to be just drones and any humans caught in the crossfire are going to get it's killed so it's it's it's a it's

then then it's irrelevant it's just going to be the it's just going to be the way military operations take place there isn't going to be if you make the choice to be there then you're you're at a significant disadvantage yeah I mean I think it's just think like you R drones that that you know are constantly scanning they're scanning in infrared scanning invisible there's thous thousands of them are t, you mention a million that Ukraine's going to make got you got a million drones coming at you yeah do you do you want to be on

there with the try try to take out drones of assault rifle it's like not going to be a good situation um I mean I think there there is there is something where um if you go fully uh analog where if you if you're if you can do um sort of an Emi like electromagnetic explosion of some kind that could trick it take out Electronics but then you then your electronics are going to go too so you're going to go either fully analog or fully digital um so I think that there actually would be a role

for a fighter plane if it was fully analog and had mechanical controls um because then you could do an em sort of an EMF blast take out the drones and the analog fight I mean that could be anotherr Tom Cruz mie maybe I don't know um you know um it just goes a fully analog aircraft and all the drones fall out of the sky because of an EMF bomb how do you reply to those in uh say industry that would say I don't we don't want to contribute to the the development of technology that can

be used by the Department of Defense like basically we need to build we need to build trust with with the industrial base and with Society maybe something we're doing what I mean how do we how do we do that well I'm I'm very prom military just so to be clear it's good your audience will like that yes so so but I think what what what uh well if if there's a significant conflict the US industrial base will switch quickly to military act military production just did in World War II um is it you know is

it quick enough I don't know but that's what probably happen um but yeah Ai and Rance that's that's the future of warfare and I mean tell me if I'm missing something here where you where do you see where do you see the domain of space space uh yeah space is I mean space is the ultimate High Ground so it really goes Spacey big um real big so well yeah you ever see like Earth to scale with the sun and the you know it's like wow we're just like a tiny little dust mode you know floating

around space that's but space is becoming increasingly militarized and so how did you see that especially as it relates to land Warfare like what's your thoughts on the space domain as it relates to land Warfare and and what are things that we should be doing to to start to gain those advantages that are necessary well I mentioned I mentioned the space-based communications is is critical like if you can't communicate you don't know what's going on can't receive orders you can't report information um and uh and whether it's a human or a drone they need communication

so you got to have communications any groundbased Communications like fiberoptic fiber optic cables and uh cell phone towers will be destroyed so it's it's basically only all you've got are basically analog radio radios and um before any kind of data Communications it's space based um and then while GPS has been effective for a long time GPS jamming at this point is pretty easy because the GPS signal is is it's a weak signal so it's easy to J do GPS jamming um so having sort of a Next Generation A system that can provide positioning is is

going to be very important um space can also probably offer you know the the ultimate weapons where you just have um you know tungsten cannibals from allit um how about offensive weapons in space do you see those that's what I mean by rods from God yeah so if you have like you know CL they talked about this in in the star war program in the80s but this is certainly something we can't read done which is you have just kinetic weapons from space or space-based lasers um soling system technically does have lasers um but they're low

power lasers for now yeah so let me let me ask you about back to this question about um process process so so I like mil period history also yeah uh so in um so in I like all disciplines of the West Point by the way I love all of so in um 149 BC there was the third Punic Wars ongoing and the Roman Legions are outside Carthage and uh they lay Siege to Carthage and it's not going very well the pro councils that are in charge are passive uh risk averse um and they're losing and

there's a young guy who's from the famous skipio line of pro counsels uh and it is it is skipio amanas um who is the grandson the adopted grandson skipio africanas and so skipio is the only one who's doing something and so KO the Elder is sitting in the in the Senate and he says this he says he alone still thinks the others flit about in the shadows and his basically argument was I want skipio in charge and the problem was skipio was too young you had to be 42 to be a pro counsel and so

K's like I don't care he's the right guy and then was skipio do he goes in he puts juice in's Innovative and and they and obviously we know have the third Punic Wars because we know about Rome not Carthage right so um what K was getting at is this need for Innovative and creative and entrepreneurial leaders right that's what is necessary and so processes were only as good as those who lead it and so what are the traits you look for and those who lead your various businesses and Enterprises and I'm very much in technology

so for me uh if somebody is going to lead something in technology they must themselves be good at technology meaning that if if they're going to lead something that involves complex engineering they must themselves be good at at engineering they don't necessarily need to be the best engineer on the team but they need to be a they need to be very competent in in their field um so this is this is incredibly important uh to to me if if if somebody's leading a given engineering field or engineering department and they are not good at that

that would be like a Cavalry Captain who can't ride a horse problem problem great leader in every way except can't ride a horse um and then you got to charge into battle and Calvary Captain falls off the horse you know it's not aspiring so uh Calvary Captain must be able to ride a horse um that's that's so that that that's actually they they need to be the best horse rider but they must be competent in this regard otherwise they cannot evaluate the talent of the team um and they don't understand the technology that's being developed

this may seem like a simple thing but it is often the the case that this this is overlooked um you know I don't want to pick on the CEO boing but uh go to you know degree in accounting or something um which I think that's the you know you want to have like a someone who knows how airplanes F work running the airplane company I guess I cross out my job that Boeing CEO there can't do that I me you know it's like it's like you want to you want to not be the it's just

if if you're running an airplane company you should know how airplane you should know how airplanes work and how they fly and how to design airplane um I think that's pretty important um so I think it's vital but how do you create Innovative intuition in those that work for you I mean you're you're you're famous for uh trying to gain efficiencies create create better processes pushing to try to to try to um to gain those not just efficiencies but Effectiveness so how do you is it possible can you build this Innovative intuition in a person

well I think it is possible to learn to be Innovative you know a lot of times for for any given thing uh you have to say did you try this may sound sound obvious uh but actually try like you somebody might wonder well can I be Innovative well have you tried try thinking of interesting ideas I mean I I do find a good source of of innovation is if you read if you read about a whole bunch of fields you can cross balize ideas from one field into another and so you can synthesize t a

SpaceX and Tesla the automotive industry is very good at manufacturing um it's a in terms of manufacturing complex machines at volume the automotive industry is the best the now the rocket industry space industry is very good at Advanced Materials and making things very light um and uh and so so taking Advanced Materials and mass optimization uh Concepts from the space industry applying it to automotive and taking Automotive Mass manufacturing techniques and applying it to space was kind of like a superpower but when you that's interesting is when you think about it when you're talking about

innovating though and you said people can try that means you have to be willing to let them fail yes and so where do you draw the line between recklessness and being overly cautious no if if you're not if you're not failing at least some of the time you're not trying hard enough uh you have to fail some of the time um so you know it's more like a batting average somebody should have a good batting average but nobody bats a thousand but if somebody bats zero all the time I mean okay you know you got

to take them off um so uh so I think I I do have this sort of simple first principles algorithm that I think could be quite helpful um and I sort of say it as a monitor to myself because I've made this mistake so many times um so the first element is for any given thing make make the make the requirements less dumb um so so what whatever problem you're solved make the requirements less dumb and whoever gave you those requirements even if they are the smartest person in the world they're still dumb so the

so if if say like this is where uh say military procurement it goes wrong right at the outset with excess requirements so you'll get sort of this giant document of requirements that actually should be like one page um so step one make the requirements simplifying just make requirements less done um because if you don't make if you don't do that as the first step then you can get the right answer but to the wrong question if the question's wrong it's it doesn't matter so then then the the step two is delete the part or process

step delete um and if you're not putting in if if you're not adding back 10% of what you deleted you not you haven't deleted enough this again the subance I think be very obvious but it's very effective um but it goes the idea is like if if you're not if you're not if some of the ideas that you're doing don't fail you're not trying hard enough um and then only the third step is to optimize the thing um and if I say like what's one of the mistakes that I see smart people making all the

time especially smart Engineers is optimizing a thing that should not exist sounds obvious you know um like you could try to make let's have the world's best B plane cloth B plane I'm like well actually know we should have jet airplanes instead you know um so we should optimize the thing that should not exist um and then step p is go faster again it sounds really obvious but people just don't try going faster um and the the step would be to automate something um but only automated once you've done those those other four things now

the reason I I have this mtro is because I've personally many times automated something sped it up optimized it and then deleted it and I'm like wait I'm tired of going backwards here so um if you run that that simple algorithm uh in many Arenas of life you will be shocked at how effective it is so shock Le we are already running out of time um so let me ask you this if you could choose one attribute just one attribute that' be critical for our future officers uh to have to be successful what would it

be curiosity as long as you're not not a cat but curiosity um try to read as much as possible learn as much as possible um and in in many different fields um and apply critical thinking to anything that you're told thank you so I'd like to say on behalf of Lieutenant General Gillan um and the the the entire Academy um we're really thankful that that you're here we're really thankful you took the time to help us uh celebrate the Excellence of the faculty and the cadets um and really sharing some wisdom with us because we're

really thinking about what do we need to do to be successful uh because we have a very important Mission which is a no fail Mission which is we have to fight and win and we're laser focused on that yeah well I mean in in my view or I think probably a lot of people's views um you know uh America is like like Atlas holding up the Free World and you are the arms of Atlas thank you Mr M