Inside West Point: The Future of Technology in Warfare with Mr. Elon Musk

welcome to inside West Point ideas at impact I'm bringer General Shane Reeves the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point through a series of discussions we will show you a different side of West Point where we will make even our most complex initiatives accessible to Broad audiences and give you an inside view to our cross disciplinary work which is being applied throughout the world Mr mus thank you very much for being here sir appreciate it's an honor to be here uh yeah it's really a great honor well we're really 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 and we want to make sure that the academy and the cadets are focused on not tomorrow but the next 20 30 40 years and underlying the entire theme is an emphasis on the importance of preparing cadets for future warfare and really where humans and machines intersect and it's as if your background was made for this theme however true I actually talked to quite a few people and they really don't know who you are

so neither do I yeah so I thought I should tell people a little bit about your bio who am I yeah who who are we really yeah you'll make a company that figures it out sir all right so if you don't know if you don't know this is ridiculous of course you know but I'm gonna do it anyways Elon Musk sitting next to me co-founded and leads uh or leads X Tesla SpaceX neurolink here's my favorite as an academic the boring company that was good that was good come on yeah I saw it as a

joke yeah it did and now it's real that's awesome by the way you have a new company also xai yeah and that's all of them unless you started one this morning I don't know about I'm not sure right but basically what this means is everybody in this room has the opportunity based on these companies to drive a futuristic electric truck through a gigantic underground tunnel while using a digital Connection in their brain to start a rocket while simultaneously getting updates on Army football his Innovations have revolutionized electric vehicles batteries space exploration Advanced human machine interactions

uh made information uh instant accessed information instantaneous and have starting to help integrate AI throughout our daily lives after the convocation I'm hoping to have a little bit of time so you can give me some personal tips because somehow you have founded and Lead multiple companies you're a father to to multiple children and I'm exhausted after two hours of coaching one kids sport that's so whatever you can do to help me out I'd appreciate it so we have Cadets and staff and faculty who can speak on multiple disciplinary perspectives that would interest you uh drone

swarms electric batteries molecular brain science engineering psychology philosophy law Chinese language but that's just the start I think this one's particularly relevant um because we can even cover the intense science of boxing with our worldclass department of physical education just in case you never know some random head of state challenges you to a fight you know I did challenge Putin to a one-on-one combat did he take it no and I and and then I I was like I was like I I actually uh on you know the xfk Twitter um I I said I I

hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to one-on-one combat and I I made sure to use his name in Russian cilic and then I said and the stakes are Ukraine and and the use were Ukraine Ukrainian cic and uh and then and then people thought I wasn't serious I'm like no I'm absolutely serious I mean he he does have he has a you know he's good at Judo I hear and uh I think it would be I mean the pay-per-view Al loone on that would be incredible I I could get everybody in here to start chanting two men

in or one man leaves yeah two men in or one man leaves so I'd watch that and I'm in it so I will tell you that uh our 31st superintendent Douglas MacArthur once said there's no substitute for victory yeah and when it and when it comes to fighting it's not just our military but it's also the whole country and the whole industrial base yes that's so important and you've innovated across so many areas um whether it's beneath Earth surface outer space and everything in between and we're again truly truly grateful for you to be here

as we start to talk about um some of these some of these things that you've been working on as you look into the audience I just want to give you a bit of context uh a lot of these are the the leaders who will face our nation's most complex and difficult challenges going forward we have our Cadets who will serve as army officers leading hundreds and eventually thousands of soldiers through this this complexity that we talk about and we also have our faculty uh and and who are who are preparing them to do just what

B just said lead through these complex situations and many of our faculty will also reenter the Army and be required to lead thank you for taking the time to help us think deeper and inform us as we start to inform our Cadets on how we can be successful not just fighting but winning in the in the contemporary in future battle space so let me start with this broad question 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 and trying to see who can deploy the most number of drones um now if there's 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 um minimize the Terminator risk but but I mean essentially if you are when you when you're making military drones you are making Terminators um and when I think you 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 scaling machine completely autonomous well you give it

the okay yeah in a particular Arena and it's just and it goes with certain parameters yeah hopefully do you think our you think our adversaries will have that those same type of concerns or limitations um well yeah I mean it 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 all bets are off and you know then you you start deploying things that you really wouldn't want to depl playy U

so hopefully that doesn't happen but you would but you said it 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 drone 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 so my personal belief is like that you really it'll actually be 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 dangerous drones don't miss because of The lethality then it's too dangerous have humans in the front yes I mean that I mean if you're' seen some of the computer controlled 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 uh 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 webly I need to invest in drones um the um the United States is

strong in in terms of Technology of 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 but with basically I think there's there's a there's a there's a production rate issue like the theate if you say like how fast can you make drones like 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 if 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've got two to one kill ratio the other side has four times as many drones you 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 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 still I mean this is I mean I I read a lot of military history and and actually like I 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 if you look at

the the uh uniforms at the start of World War I and the tactics and strategies they use at start of World War I they were not significantly different from the Napoleonic era um you know the 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 someone's trying to point a gun at you you don't want a great looking uniform you want you want a uniform that PLS in um so there's a tendency to be gearing up to

fight the last war in 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 andil 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 the kill ratio that's what it comes down to so there was recently a report that said that president zalinsky said by February 2025

there'll be a million drones produced uh by the Ukrainian so it seems like it's doable and this might be a process question 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 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 in 100 years I I wonder whether we should solve aging there's a you know that's a great Point yeah I'd like to wrap it up sometimes right well it's

like how yeah yeah how long do you want to Putin and Kim J on to live yeah that's a great Point yeah but let's say don't get it first let's say you go for 50 100 years um 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's that going to work in your mind I mean so Communications

is essential um like you it is actually very important to have space-based communications that are it cannot be intercepted which is which is starlink what starlink offers starlink 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 tows are blown up and the the geostationary satellite links are jammed the only thing that isn't jammed is starlink so is the only thing and then GPS GPS

is 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 rece instructions so if you don't have communications and positioning then the drones don't work so that's that's that's quite important essential but you find it important that there's still that that communication between the human and the the machine or the Drone

yeah that 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 I have to say I I do look at the future with some trapid I I have to have some deliberate suspension 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 the current rates you'll have you know

something that's sort of Rock level AI probably that can be run on a drone and so you 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 but a lot of your work with neurolink though is to 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 that 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 or 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 this is an esoteric subject that you really goes into pretty wild speculation um I I I think

to C to certain 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 lmic 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 the 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 cytic third layer is trying to make the lumic system happy because lumic system is a source a source of will so there's some you know it might be that the AI 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 cortex and the digital tosy layer because our bandwidth band output bandwidth of a human is less than one bit per second per day and there's 86,400 seconds in a day you don't output 86,400 tokens so you know it's like

number of words that I can say in those Forum you 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 few number of words and in order to in order to convey an idea I have to take a concept in my head I have to compress it down to a small number of wood try to aspirationally model how you would decompress the those words into Concepts 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 uh output bandwidth neuralink can increase that bandwidth by several orders of magnitude um and uh and also you don't have to spend as much time compressing quots into a small number of words you can do conceptual telepathy um that is the idea behind your link it's so it it is intended to be a mitigation against AI existential risk you talk about U alignment can you explain what you mean by alignment to to help everyone understand yeah just is is the AI going to

do things that make civilization better make people happy or will it be contrary to uh Humanity will will it will it Foster Humanity or or not will be against humanity so obviously we want an AI that will Foster Humanity um I think in developing an AI to Foster 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 and also curious

and if you have both of those things I think it will Foster it will naturally Foster Humanity because it 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 multiplet civilization um like that's that's very important the purpose of space 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 your wild like Mars you you could Mars is not as interesting as Earth 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 there 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 but rendering human civilization much more much harder much more complex much more interesting and I so I think a curious truth sing AI would F to humanity and want to see where it goes but that relies on requires trust between the human

and the Machine and that's where I I want to ask you a question on this so the Army leaders in the Army are U 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 Maverick 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 197 built F14 right yeah yeah so I mean just go with a bip plane yeah there you go why Tom Cruz could do it sof with camel but 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 superola as humans can do it but we know that's not I don't I don't question Tom Cruz l i don't ever question Tom Cruz no I'm just kidding you know I guess 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 Apache 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 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 I don't I think we we shouldn't just automatically trust these things um I mean I think you want you want to test it out um you do a lot of testing

and uh see how it actually work Works in a conflict at small scale and then scale it up it's if it's effective um but uh yeah I mean I have to say like I like 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 the pilot of liability in the F plane to be honest

uh so you know if if if you say you compare uh a drone versus a fighter plane how easy is it to make a drone you could 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 piloted fighter aircraft is coming to an end if that's the case then there's a there's a a question that is

oftentimes debated and 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 guess what I'm saying is that the the the at the front of the battle lines is going to be just drones and any humans caught in the crossfire are going

to get it's will be killed instantly so it's it's it's a it's then then it's irrelevant it's just going to be that this 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 sign ific disadvantage yeah I mean I think it's just think like you got drones that that you know are constantly scanning they're scanning in infrared scanning invisible it does thous thousands of them or tens of thousands you mentioned a million that Ukraine's going to make is

a good you got a million drones coming at you yeah do you do you want to be on the there with the trying to trying to take out drones with assault rifle it's like not going to be a good situation um I mean I think that there there is there is something where um if you go fully uh analog where if you if you if you can do um sort of an Emi like electromagnetic explosion of some kind that could TR it take out all 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 H and had mechanical controls um because then you could do an em sort of an EMF blast take out the drones and the analog I mean that that could be another Tom Cruz movie maybe I don't know um you know um he just it just goes a fully analog aircraft and all the drones P 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 could 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 me how do we how do we do that well I'm I'm very Pro military so to be clear um it's good your audience will like that [Laughter] yes so [Applause] yeah so but I think what what what uh if if

there's a significant conflict the US industrial base will switch quickly to military act military production just as it did in World War II um is it you know is it quick enough I don't know but that's what'll probably happen um but yeah Ai and drones that's that's the future of warfare and I mean if I'm missing something here but 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 space is Big um real big it's

like [Laughter] whoa you if 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 in you know floating around space that's Earth but space is becoming increasingly militarized and 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 the 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 commun 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 human or a drone they need communication so you got to have communications any ground based Communications like fiber optic 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 U then but for any kind of data Communications it's space based um and then while GPS been effective for a long time GPS jamming

at this point is pretty easy uh because the GPS signal is is it's a weak signal so it's easy to jam do GPS jamming um so having sort of a Next Generation 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 all 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 Wars program in the 80s but this is certainly something that can be done which is you have just kinetic weapons from space or space based lasers um Starling system technically does have lasers um but they're low power lasers um for now now yeah so let me let me ask you about back to this question about um process process so so I like military history also yeah uh so in um so in I like all disciplines at West Point by the way I love all of you 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 counsels 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 a 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 Ko's like I don't care he's the right guy and then what does skipio do he goes in and he puts juice into he's Innovative and and they and obviously we know have the third Punic War ends because we know about Rome and not Carthage right so um what KO was getting at is this

need for Innovative and creative and entrepreneurial leaders right that's what is necessary and so processes only as good as those who lead it and so what are the traits you look for in those who lead your various businesses and Enterprises well 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 confident in the in their field um so this is this is incredibly important uh to to me if if if if somebody's leading a given engineering field or engineering department and they are not good at that then that would be like a Cavalry Captain who can't ride a horse problem problem great leader in every way except you 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 there there need to be the best horse rider but they must be confident 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 C the case that this this is overlooked um you know I don't want to pick on the CEO of Boeing but uh think's got 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 work right fly running the airplane company I guess I have to cross out my job at Boeing CEO there goes can't do that I 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 uh 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 it's 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 uh but actually try like

you somebody might wonder well can I be Innovative well have you tried just 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 falize ideas from one field into another and so you can synthesize Ser take a SpaceX and Tesla the automotive industry is very good at manufacturing um so man in terms of manufacturing complex machines and volume the automotive industry is the best that 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 because 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 over being overly cautious no 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 at the it's more like a batting average somebody should have a good batting average but nobody bats a thousand um but if somebody bats zero all the time I mean okay you know you got to take them off um so uh you know so I think I I do have this sort of simple post principles algorithm that I think could be quite helpful um and I sort of

say it as a monor to myself because I've made this mistake so so many times um so the first element is for any given thing make the make the make the requirements less dumb um so so what whatever problem you 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 DB so the so if if say like what this is where uh say military procurement it goes wrong right at the outset with excess requirements so you you'll get sort of this giant

document of requirements um that actually should be like one page um so step one make the requirements simplifying just make the requirements less done um because if you don't make the 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 it's it doesn't matter so then then the the step two is 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 this again the subtance I think maybe very obvious but it's very effective um but it goes to the ideas like 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 uh 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 bipe I'm like well actually no we should have jet airplanes instead you know um so we should optimize a thing that should not exist um and then step four is go faster again this sounds really obvious but people just don't try going faster um and the the first step would be to automate something um but only automate it once you've done those those other four things now the reason I I have this montro is because I personally many times s automated something sped it up optimized it and

then deleted it and I'm like wait I'm tired of going backwards here so uh if you run that that simple algorithm uh in many Arenas of life you will be shocked at how effective it is so shockingly 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 [Laughter] cat uh 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 uh 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 uh we have to fight and win and we're laser focused on that yeah well I mean 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 so thank you Mr [Applause] M please be sure to tune T in to the inside West Point ideas the impact podcast next month remember you can find this podcast as well as the other podcast journals and books hosted or

published by the West Point press at Westpoint press.com so until next time [Music]