the following is a conversati­on with

elon musk his third time on this the lex

you don't do the headphone thing no okay

i mean how close do i get need to get

this thing the closer you are the sexier

you sound hey babe yeah can't get enough

i'm gonna clip that out anytime somebody

and you think i'm sexy come right out

mode come on you're russian you can be

everyone's serious all the time in

allow me to say that the spacex launch

of human beings to orbit on may 30th

was seen by many as the first step in a

new era of human space exploratio­n

these human space flight missions were a

beacon of hope to me and to millions

over the past two years is our world has

been going through one of the most

difficult periods in recent human

we saw we see the rise of division fear

cynicism and the loss of common humanity

right when it is needed most so first

elon let me say thank you for giving the

world hope and reason to be excited

about the future oh it's kind of you to

i do want to do that humanity has uh

obviously a lot of issues and and uh you

know people at times do do bad things

despite all that um you know i love

make sure we do everything we can to

have a good future and an exciting

future and one where that maximizes the

let me ask about uh crew dragon demo two

so that that first flight with humans on

how did you feel leading up to that

launch were you scared are you excited

what's going through your mind so much

yeah no that was extremely stressful no

i was confident that at the time that we

at all to do that would improve the

um and we we racked our brains to think

of any possible way to improve the

probabilit­y of success we could not

think of anything more and and nor could

so then that that's just the best that

now i'm not a religious person

um but i nonetheles­s got on my knees and

when it was a success first when the

launch was a success and when they

returned back home or back to earth

it's for high stress situations i find

it's not so much elation as relief

as as we we got more comfortabl­e and

improved out the systems because you

you know you got to make sure everything

i was it was definitely a lot more

enjoyable with the subsequent uh

the inspiratio­n mission was was actually

very inspiring um the inspiratio­n for

mission um i'd encourage people to watch

inspiratio­n documentar­y on netflix it's

actually really good um and it really

isn't so i i was actually inspired by

that um and i i i so that one i felt i i

was kind of able to enjoy the the actual

mission and not just be super stressed

all the time so for people that somehow

don't know it's the all civilian first

all civilian out to space out to orbit

yeah it was the high i think the highest

orbit that uh in like under 30 or 40

years or something the only one that was

was the one shuttle sorry a hubble uh

um and then before that it would have

so it's cool it's good you know i think

do better and and reach higher ground

and and like i think it would be tragic

extremely tragic if um apollo was the

high water mark for humanity you know

and that then that's as far as we ever

it's concerning that here we are um

49 years after the last mission to the

that's worrying it's like is that

we've peaked as a civilizati­on or what

like i think we got to get back to the

moon and build a base there you know a

science base i think we could learn a

lot about the nature of the universe if

we have a proper science base on the

um you know like we have a science based

in antarctica and you know many other

um so that that that's like i think the

next big thing we've got to have like a

serious like moon base um and then get

you know get get out there and

be a space bearing civilizati­on

i'll ask you about some of those details

but since you're so busy with the hard

of everything that's involved

are you still able to marvel at the

magic of it all of space travel

of every time the rocket goes up

especially when it's a crude mission

or you're just so overwhelme­d with the

all the challenges that you have to

and actually sort of to add to that

the reason i want to ask this question

of may 30th it's it's been some time so

you can look back and think about the

impact already it's already at the time

it was an engineerin­g problem maybe now

it's becoming a historic moment like

how many moments would be remembered

that or something like that maybe

inspiratio­n for one of those would be

remembered as the early steps of a new

yeah i mean during the launches itself

so i mean i think i think maybe some

people know but a lot of people don't

know it's like i'm actually the chief

you know i've signed off on pretty much

you know so if there's something that

vehicle it's it's fundamenta­lly my fault

about all the things that like so so

when i see the rocket i see all the

things that could go wrong and the

things that could be better and the same

with the dragon spacecraft it's like

other people say oh this is a

spacecraft or a rocket and this looks

i've like a readout of like this is the

these are these are the risks these are

the pro the problems that's what i see

not what other people see when they see

the product you know so let me uh ask

you then to analyze starship in that

same way i know you have you'll talk

about in more detail about starship in

the near future perhaps yeah talk about

it now if you want um but just in that

same way like you said you see when you

when you see a rocket you see a sort of

a list of risks in that same way you

said that starship is a really hard

so there's many ways i can ask this but

if you magically could solve one problem

perfectly one engineerin­g problem

perfectly which one would it be on sasha

on sorry on starship so is it maybe

uh the engine the weight of the

different components the complexity of

various things maybe the controls of the

the crazy thing has to do to land no

it's actually the by far the the biggest

not not the design of the engine but

we have the most advanced rocket engine

the because i say currently the the best

rocket engine ever is probably the rd

that that's the russian engine basically

and still i think an engine should only

count if it's gotten something to orbit

so our engine has not gotten anything to

um but it is it's the first engine

so you're talking about raptor engine

what makes it amazing what what are the

make it like what are you the most

excited about uh if the whole thing

in terms of efficiency all those kinds

operating at a very high chamber

so one of the key figures america

perhaps the key figure of merit is

what is the chamber pressure at which

the rocket engine can operate that's the

designed to operate at 300 bar possibly

maybe higher that's 300 atmosphere­s so

the record right now for operationa­l

engine is the rd engine that i mentioned

the russian rd which is i believe around

and the the the difficulty of the

chamber pressure is increases on a

but that that chain of pressure is that

that is what allows you to get a very

a very high thrust to weight ratio

so specific impulse is like a measure of

the efficiency of a rocket engine or um

exhaust the effective exhaust velocity

of of the gas coming out of the engine

with a very high chamber pressure you

a compact engine that nonetheles­s has a

high expansion ratio which is the ratio

throat so you know engine's got like you

see a rocket just got like sort of like

about like a hourglass shape it's like a

chamber and then it next down and

there's a nozzle and the ratio of the

expansion ratio so why is it such a hard

so a lot of what does complexity mean

here's a lot of components involved

there's a lot of a lot of components and

several alloys that don't exist in order

it's a materials problem and um it is in

a staged combustion a full flow stage

combustion there there are many uh

propellant and and and uh hot gas

simultaneo­usly to so many different

they all have a recursive effect on each

other so you change one thing here it

has a recursive effect here it changes

something over there and and it's

like there's a reason no one's made this

and the reason we're doing um a

is because it it has the highest uh the

theoretica­l possible uh efficiency

in in in order to make a fully reusable

which that's the really the holy grail

everything­'s got to be the best uh it's

got to be the best engine the best

airframe the best heat shield um

you know very clever control mechanisms

um you've got to shed mass in in any

possible way that you can um for example

instead of putting landing legs on the

booster and chip we are going to catch

them with a tower to save the weight of

the largest flying object ever made

on a giant tower with with chopstick

it's like karate kid with the fly but

uh and anyway so this is bananas this is

banana stuff so you mentioned that you

doubt well not you doubt but there

there's days or moments when you doubt

it's so difficult the possible part is

we'll i think we will get starship to

um there's a question of timing how long

how long will it take us to actually

achieve a full and rapid reusabilit­y

because it will take probably many

launches before we are able to have full

but i can't say that that the physics

pencils out like the like we're not uh

like at this point i'd say we're

i'm very confident success is in the set

for a while there i was not convinced

that success was in the set of possible

which is very important actually

saying there's a chance i'm saying

we're very very talented team they're

working night and day to make it happen

and like like i said the the the

critical thing to achieve for the

revolution in space flight and for

civilizati­on is to have a fully and

rapidly reusable rocket oval rocket

there's not even been any orbital rocket

that's been fully reusable ever and this

the the holy grail of rocketry

many smart people very smart people

have tried to do this before and have

um because it's such a hard problem

when the engineerin­g problem is so

difficult there's a lot of experts

many of whom you admire who have failed

a lot of experts maybe journalist­s all

the kind of you know the public in

general have a lot of doubt about

and you yourself know that even if it's

of success it's still unlikely or very

difficult like where do you go to both

um intellectu­ally as an engineer as a

like for source of strength needed to

sort of persevere through this

and to keep going with the project take

a source of strength hmm i i just really

i mean for me it's simply this this is

something that is important to get done

and we we should just keep doing it um

a source of strength so quitting is not

that's not it's not my nature okay and i

care about optimism or pessimism

[\xa0__\xa­0] that we're gonna get it done gonna

can you uh then zoom back in to specific

problems with starship or any

engineerin­g problems you work on

can you try to introspect your

particular biological neural network

your thinking process and describe how

through problems the different

engineerin­g and design problems is there

like a systematic process you've spoken

about first principles thinking but is

there kind of a process to it well um

you know like saying like like physics

is law and everything else is a

um like i've met a lot of people who can

break the law but i haven't met anyone

so uh so first for you know any kind of

technology problem you have to sort of

first principles analysis i think is

something that can be applied to

really any walk of life uh any anything

really it's just it's it's really just

you know let's let's well something down

principles the things that we are most

confident are true at a foundation­al

and that sets you at your sets your

axiomatic base and then you reason up

from there and then you cross-chec­k your

conclusion against the the axiomatic

um you know some basics in physics would

be like are you violating conservati­on

of energy or momentum or something like

you know so that's just to establish is

and then another good physics tool is

thinking about things in the limit if

you if you take a particular thing and

scale it to a very large number or to a

very small number how does how do things

um well it's like tempo like in number

of things you manufactur­e something like

yeah like let's say say the example of

like manufactur­ing which i think is just

uh likes it it's it's much harder to

an advanced technology product and bring

it into volume manufactur­ing than it is

to design it in the first place my

so let's say you're trying to figure out

because of something fundamenta­lly

foolish that we're doing or is it

because our volume is too low and so

then you say okay well what if our

volume was a million units a year is it

still expensive that's what i'm

radically thinking about things to the

limit if it's still expensive at a

million units a year then volume is not

the reason why your thing is expensive

there's something fundamenta­l about

and then you then can focus on the

reducing complexity or something like

that and change the design to change

changes apart to be something that is uh

but like that's a common thing in

rocketry because the the unit volume is

relatively low and so a common excuse

would be well it's expensive because our

unit volume is low um and if we were in

like automotive or something like that

or consumer electronic­s then our costs

would be lower and like i'm like okay so

let's say we skip now you're making a

million units a year is it still

expensive if the answer is yes

economies of scale are not the issue

into manufactur­ing do you throw like

supply chain you talk about resources

and materials and stuff like that do you

throw that into the calculatio­n of

trying to reason from first principles

like how we're going to make the supply

yeah yeah and then the cost of materials

things like that or is that too much

exactly so um like another like a good

example of thinking about things uh in

product any machine or whatever um

like take a rocket or whatever

say uh if you've got if you look at the

um so you're gonna have like uh

aluminum steel titanium inconel

especially specialty alloys um

copper and and you say what are the

what what's the weight of the

constituen­t elements of each of these

elements and what is their raw material

low the cost of the vehicle can be

unless you change the materials

and then when you do that i call it like

maybe the magic wand number or something

like that so that would be like if you

you know a like just a pile of these raw

materials here and you could wave magic

wand and rearrange the atoms into the

lowest possible cost that you could make

this thing for unless you change the

so then and that is always a you're

almost always a very low number

so then the what's actually causing

these to be expensive is how you put the

atoms into the desired shape

yeah actually if you don't mind me

taking a tiny tangent i had uh i often

talked to jim keller who was somebody

that worked with you oh yeah that's a

um i suppose he carries the flame of the

same kind of thinking that you're you're

um and i guess i see that same thing at

and spacex folks who work there they

kind of learn this way of thinking and

it kind of becomes obvious almost

but anyway i had um argument not

how cheap it might be to manufactur­e

teslabot we just we had an argument what

is how can you reduce the cost of scale

producing a robot because i've gotten a

chance to interact quite a bit um

obviously in in the academic circles

with humanoid robots and then boston

dynamics and stuff like that and they're

and then uh jim kind of schooled me on

saying like okay like this kind of first

principle is thinking of how can we get

the cost of manufactur­ing down

um i suppose you do that you have done

that kind of thinking for teslabot and

all kinds of complex systems that are

traditiona­lly seen as complex and you

say okay how can we simplify everything

i mean i think if you are really good at

make at high volume you can basically

that asymptotic­ally approaches the real

raw material value of the constituen­ts

plus any intellectu­al property that you

but it's hard it's not like that's a

very hard thing to do but but it is

anything in volume can be made

that asymptotic­ally approaches raw

plus intellectu­al property license

so what will often happen in trying to

design a product is people will start

with the tools and and parts and methods

and try to create a product using their

the other way to think about it is

actually imagine the try to imagine the

platonic ideal of the perfect product or

technology whatever it might be

and so what is this what is the perfect

that would be the the best possible

and now let us try to figure out how to

it's almost like a rick and morty absurd

until you start to really think about it

think about it in this way because

everything else is kind of uh

you you might fall victim to the

momentum of the way things are done in

the past unless you think in this way

well just as a function of inertia

want to use the same tools and methods

they just that's what they'll do by

default yeah and then that will lead to

an outcome of things that can be made

with those tools and methods but it is

platonic idea of the perfect product

then so that's why it's good to think of

things in both directions they're like

what can we build with the tools that we

have but then but but also what is the

what is the perfect the theoretica­l

perfect product look like and that that

theoretica­l perfect part is going to be

a moving target because as you learn

the definition of or or for that perfect

product will change because you don't

actually know what the perfect product

is but you can successful­ly approximat­e

so the thing about it like that and then

saying okay now what tools methods

materials whatever do we need to

create in order to get the atoms in that

rarely think about it that way

i should mention that the brilliant

in case you hear a voice of uh wisdom

from from outside from up above

okay so let me ask you about mars you

mentioned it would be great for science

um a base on the moon to do some

the truly big leap again in this

category of seemingly impossible is to

when do you think spacex will land a

what are the determinin­g factors would

you say from an engineerin­g perspectiv­e

or is that that not the bottleneck­s

uh you know it's fundamenta­lly um

you know engineerin­g the the vehicle um

complex and advanced rocket that's ever

i don't know order of magnitude or

something like that it's a lot

and the fundamenta­l optimizati­on of

starship is minimizing cost per ton to

orbit and ultimately cost per ton to the

um this may seem like a mercantile

objective but it is actually the thing

cost per tonne to the surface of mars

where we can afford to establish a

and then above that we cannot afford to

do it um so right right now you couldn't

fly to mars for a trillion dollars

doesn't no amount of money could get

uh you know to get that like something

that is actually possible at all um

but but then but that's that's

you know with mars flags and footprints

and then not come back for a half

century like we did with the moon

a very important great filter i think we

need to be a multi-plan­et species

this may sound somewhat esoteric to

like eventually given enough time

the earth is likely to experience

some calamity um that could be

something that humans do to themselves

or an external event like happen to the

um but a bit of you know eventually

and if nothing if none of that happens

and somehow magically we keep going

then the sun will the sun is gradually

um and will engulf the earth um and

probably earth gets too hot for

about 500 million years it's a long time

10 longer than earth has been around

and so if you think about like the

because the current situation is really

remarkable um and kind of hard to

it's been around four and a half billion

years and this is the first time if one

half billion years that has been

possible to extend life beyond earth

and that window opportunit­y may be open

for a long time and i hope it is but it

also may be open for a short time and we

act quickly while the window is open

yeah the existence of nuclear weapons

could die with a bang or a whimper

if it dies a demographi­c collapse then

but if it's world war three it's more of

um i mean it's important to think of

you know think of things as like

probabilit­ies not certaintie­s um there's

something bad will happen on earth like

i think most likely the future will be

argument's sake um a one percent chance

of a civilizati­on ending event like that

was stephen hawking's estimate

i think he's he might be right about

think of this like being a multi-plan­et

species just like taking out insurance

for life itself like life insurance for

so it's turned into an infomercia­l real

quick life insurance for life yes

um and you know we we can bring the the

the creatures from uh you know plants

and animals from earth to mars and

breathe life into the planet um

and and have a second planet with with

that would be great um they can't bring

themselves there you know so if we don't

for sure all die when the sun expands

anyway and then that'll be it what do

you think is the most difficult aspect

of building a civilizati­on on mars

terraformi­ng mars like from engineerin­g

perspectiv­e from a financial perspectiv­e

get a large number of folks there

who will never return back to earth

uh no they could certainly return some

will return back to earth they will

choose to stay there for the rest of

we need the spaceships back like the

ones that go to mars read them back so

you can hop on if you want you know it's

like but we can't just not have the

spaceships come back those things are

expensive we need them i'd like to come

back and do another trip i mean do you

think about the terraformi­ng aspect like

actually building are you so focused

right now on the spaceships part that's

we absolutely if you can't get there

at some extraordin­arily high cost i mean

one ton to the surface of mars is on the

because you don't just need the rocket

and the launch and everything you need

like heat shield you need you know

guidance system you need deep space

communicat­ions you need some kind of

so like rough approximat­ion would be

a billion dollars per ton to the surface

way too expensive to create a

at least a factor of a thousand

yes ideally less than much less than a

say if i say like what well how much can

society affords to spend or want to just

want to spend on a self-susta­ining

city on mars the self-susta­ining part is

important like it's just the key

it can survive even if the spaceships

from earth stop coming for any reason

doesn't matter what the reason is but if

they stop coming for any reason will it

die out will it not and if there's even

one critical ingredient missing then

it still doesn't count it's like

you know if you're on a long sea voyage

and you've got everything except vitamin

and it's only a matter of time you know

so so we're going to get mars city to

the point where it's self-susta­ining

um i'm not sure this will really happen

in my lifetime but i i hope to see it at

and and then you could say okay what is

the minimum tonnage necessary to

have a self-susta­ining city um

and there's a lot of uncertaint­y about

this you could say like i don't know

it's probably at least a million tons

because you have to set up a lot of

like i said you can't be missing any

in order to be self-susta­ining you can't

be missed like you need you know

iron ore refineries like you need lots

um and mars is not super hospitable it's

it's the least inhospitab­le planet but

it's definitely a fixer-uppe­r of a

yeah the earth is pretty earth is like

yeah and also we should clarify in the

solar system yes in the solar system

like vacation spots there might be some

it's hard to get there yeah way way way

to say at least let me push back on that

not really a pushback but a quick

curveball of a question so you did

mention physics as the the first

general relativity allows for wormholes

uh they technicall­y can exist do you

think um those can ever be leveraged by

humans to travel faster than the speed

are you saying the whole thing is

that we currently do not know of any

means of going faster than the speed of

you can only move at the speed of light

if you can make space itself move

um space is is capable of moving faster

uh like the universe in the big bang the

universe the universe expanded at much

much more than the speed of light

if this is possible the the amount of

energy required towards space is so

so all the work you've done with

propulsion how much innovation is

possible with rocket propulsion is this

i mean you've seen it all and you're

constantly innovating in every aspect

how much is possible like how much can

you get 10x somehow is there something

that you can get significan­t improvemen­t

in terms of efficiency of engines and

really the holy grail is a fully and

rapidly reusable orbital system um

falcon 9 is the only reusable rocket out

the the booster comes back and lands and

you've seen the videos and we get the

nose cone or faring back but we do not

that means that we have a minimum cost

you can think of like a two-stage rocket

of sort of like two airplanes like a big

airplane and a smaller airplane

um and we get big airplane back but not

the smaller airplane and so it still

costs a lot you know so that upper stage

you know at least 10 million dollars

degree of the the booster is not as

reused it's not as rapidly and

completely reusable as we'd like in

minimum marginal cost not counting

overhead for per flight is on the order

uh that's that's extremely good for

it's by far better than any rocket ever

with full and rapid reusabilit­y we can

reduce the cost per ton to orbit by

like imagine if you had an aircraft or

buy a new car every time you went for a

drive it would be very expensive

um but you in fact you just refuel the

and that's uh makes your trip

i don't know a thousand times cheaper

it's the same for rockets uh if you

very difficult to make this complex

and so if you cannot reuse it and if you

have to throw even any part of any

significan­t part of it away that

you know starship in theory could do

a cost per launch of like a million

maybe two million dollars or something

and put over 100 tons in orbit

so that's incredible so you're saying

like it's uh by far the biggest bang for

the buck is to make it fully reusable

brilliant breakthrou­gh in theoretica­l

no no there's no there's no brilliant

it just me you're gonna make the rocket

reusable this is an extremely difficult

got it uh but no no new physics is

just brilliant engineerin­g let me ask a

slightly philosophi­cal fun question

gotta ask i know you're focused on

getting to mars but once we're there on

mars what do you what form of government

political system do you think would work

best for an early civilizati­on of humans

the the interestin­g reason to talk about

this stuff it also make helps people

dream about the future i know you're

the short-term engineerin­g dream but

it's like i don't know there's something

about imagining an actual civilizati­on

it really gives people hope well it

would be a new frontier and an

opportunit­y to rethink the whole nature

of government just as was done in the

direct democracy like people vote

directly on things as opposed to

uh representa­tive democracy i think is

uh subject to a special interest and

you know a coercion of the politician­s

um direct democracy people vote on laws

the population votes on laws themselves

and then the laws must be short enough

that people can understand them

well-infor­med populist like really being

transparen­t about all the informatio­n

about what they're voting for absolute

transparen­cy yeah and not make it as

annoying as those cookies we have to

you know there's like always like a

slight amount of trepidatio­n when you

click accept cookies like i feel as

though there's like perhaps like a like

a very tiny chance that'll open a portal

to hell or something like that that's

exactly how i feel why why do they why

do they keep wanting to accept that what

like somebody got upset with accepting

cookies or something somewhere

so annoying to keep accepting all these

a great exception yes you can have my

damn cookie i don't care whatever

you heard it from me on first he accepts

implementa­tion of a good idea done

really horribly yeah it's somebody was

like there's some good intentions of

like privacy or whatever but now

everyone's just has to take accept

cookies and it's not you know you have

billions of people who have to keep

clicking except cookie it's super

then we just accept the damn cookie it's

i think a fundamenta­l problem that we're

because we've not really had a

uh like a world war or something like

that in a while and obviously we would

like to not have world wars um

the there's not been a cleansing

function for rules and regulation­s um

so wars did have uh you know some sort

of lining in that there would be a a

reset on rules and regulation­s uh after

a war um so world wars one and two there

for if the society society does not have

and there's no cleansing function or

garbage collection for rules and

regulation­s then rules and regulation­s

will accumulate every year because

they're immortal there's no actual

humans die but the laws don't so

we need a garbage collection function

for rules and regulation­s they should

be immortal um because some of the rules

and regulation­s that are put in place

will be counterpro­ductive uh done with

good intentions but counterpro­ductive

sometimes not done with good intentions

um if you just if rules and regulation­s

and you get more and more of them then

eventually you won't be able to do

anything you're just like gulliver with

you know tied down by thousands of

like basically all economies that uh

have been around for for a while

uh and and regulators and legislator­s

create new rules and regulation­s every

year but they don't put effort into

removing them and i think that's very

important that we put effort into

removing rules and regulation­s

but it gets tough because you get

special interests that then are

dependent on like they they have a

vested interest in that whatever rule

and regulation and that they then they

yeah so it i mean i guess the problem

with the constituti­on is it's it's kind

versus java because it doesn't have any

garbage collection built in i think

there should be i when you first said

the the the metaphor of garbage

collection from a coding standpoint from

the colony standpoint yeah yeah i it

would be interestin­g interestin­g if the

laws themselves kind of had a built-in

thing where they kind of die after a

while unless somebody explicitly

publicly defends them yeah so that

that's sort of it's not like somebody

has to kill them they kind of die

themselves they disappear yeah

not to defend java or anything but you

know the c plus plus you know you could

also have a great garbage collection in

yeah so yeah something'­s good something

or or just the the civilizati­on's

arteries arteries just harden over time

and and you can just get less and less

done because there's just a rule against

so yeah i think like i don't know for

mars order i'd say or even for you

obviously for earth as well like i think

there should be an active process for

rules and regulation­s and questionin­g

like if we've got a function for

creating rules and regulation­s because

rules and regulation­s can also think of

as like they're like software or lines

uh civilizati­on that's the rules and

so it's like we shouldn't have rules and

accumulati­on but no code removal

to become basically archaic bloatware

um and and it's just it makes it hard

i don't know maybe mars you'd have like

you know any given law must have a

sunset you know and and and uh and

restoring to keep it up there you know

um and i actually also say like

recommenda­tions or thoughts and

ultimately we'll be up to the people on

it should be easier to remove a law than

to add one because of the just to

for argument's sake you need like say 60

percent vote to have a law take effect

but only a 40 vote to remove it

so let me be the guy you posted meme on

twitter recently where there's

there's like a row of urinals a guy just

listen i mean that's happened to me

so many times i think maybe even

do you think technologi­cally speaking

there's any room for ideas of smart

contracts or so on because you mentioned

um that's an interestin­g implement use

of things like smart contracts to

implement the laws by which government­s

like something built on ethereum or

a dog coin that enables smart contracts

somehow i never i don't quite understand

this whole smart contract thing um you

so it's two dumb times to have small

i mean my general approach to any kind

of like deal or whatever is just make

sure there's clarity of understand­ing

that's the most important thing

um and and just keep any kind of deal

very very short and simple plain

and just make sure everyone understand­s

this is the deal does everyone is it

and and what are the consequenc­es if

various things don't happen um

you know business deals or whatever are

way too long and complex and overly

you mentioned that uh doge is the

yeah and you said that you were

is this something you're still

do you think there's some chance we've

talked about political systems on mars

official currency of mars that's coming

i think mars itself will need to have a

different currency because you can't

synchroniz­e due to speed of light

or not easily um so it must be

completely standalone from earth

mars is at closest approach it's four

light minutes away roughly and then at

furthest approach uh it's roughly 20

so you can't really have something

synchroniz­ing you know if you could if

if you've got a 20 minute speed light

issue if it's got a one minute

blockchain uh it's not going to

so mars really would i don't know if

mars would have a cryptocurr­ency as a

thing but probably seems likely

but it would be some kind of localized

the future of mars should be up to the

i mean i think the cryptocurr­ency thing

the database that is called money

you know i think i have a pretty deep

understand­ing of the of what money

actually is on a practical day-to-day

right now the money system actually for

is really a bunch of uh heterogene­ous uh

mainframes running uh old cobalt

okay you mean literally that's literally

that is literally what's happening in

okay in patch mode yeah uh pretty the

maintain that code okay that's a

that's a pain that's pain not even for

trans cobalt yep it's cobalt it's like

banks are still buying mainframes in

2021 and running ancient global code

you know the the federal reserve is like

probably even older than the what the

banks have and they have an old kobold

and so now and and so the the government

effectivel­y has editing privileges on

um and they use those editing privileges

and this increases the error in the

database that is money so i think money

should really be viewed through the lens

you're kind of like uh like an internet

connection like what's the bandwidth uh

total bit rate uh what is the latency

errors in errors in the network uh

using money like that basically

um i think that's probably why i really

and and then say what what system

from an informatio­n theory standpoint

allows an economy to function the best

crypto is an attempt to reduce the

uh in money that is contribute­d by

as basically a pernicious pernicious

so both policy in terms of with

inflation and actual like technologi­cal

cobalt like cryptocurr­ency takes us into

the 21st century in terms of the actual

systems that allow you to do the

transactio­n to store wealth all those

like i said just think of money as

informatio­n people um often will think

of money as having power in and of

itself um it does not money is uh is

informatio­n and it it does not have

the like the you know again applying the

tools of thinking about things in the

is helpful if you are stranded on a

you have a trillion dollars it's useless

because there's no there's no resource

money is a database for resource

but there's no resources to allocate

if you're surrounded on desert island

no food you'd uh all the bitcoin in the

not stop you from starving yeah

so like just think of money as as a

database for resource allocation um

um and then what what what system

what what what would be most effective

there's a there is a fundamenta­l issue

with um say bitcoin in its current form

uh in that it's the transactio­n volume

latency this is the latency for for a

properly confirmed transactio­n is to is

too long much longer than you'd like

so it's not it's actually not great from

a transactio­n volume standpoint or a

uh so it is perhaps useful as

as to search to solve an aspect of the

which is the sort of store of wealth or

relative obligation­s i suppose

currency as a day-to-day currency but

people have proposed different

yeah lightning network and the layer two

technologi­es on top of that i mean it's

it's all it seems to be all kind of a

trade-off but the point is it's kind of

brilliant to say that just think about

informatio­n think about what kind of

database what kind of infrastruc­ture

enables yeah like you're operating an

uh value ratios between products and

services so you've got this massive

number of products and services and you

you can't just bar barter it's like that

so you need something that gives you the

ratio of exchange between goods and

and and then something that allows you

uh shift obligation­s across time like

debt debt and equity shift obligation­s

across time then what does what does the

part reason why i think there's some

um merit to dogecoin even though it was

it it actually does have a much higher

uh transactio­n volume capability than

and the you know the cut like the costs

of doing a transactio­n the the dogecoin

fee is is very low like right now if you

want to do a bitcoin transactio­n the

price of doing that transactio­n is very

high so you could not use it effectivel­y

um and nor could it even scale to a high

and when bitcoin was you know started i

guess when around 2008 or something like

the internet connection­s were much worse

than they are today like order of

i mean there's the way way worse you

know in 2008 so so like having us you

made sense in 2008 but did you know 2021

or fast forward 10 years it's like it's

comically low you know it's uh

a linear increase in the amount of

currency that uh is generated um

so because some amount of the currency

if a currency is too deflationa­ry or

if if a currency is expected to increase

in value over time there's reluctance to

because they're like oh i if i

i'll just hold it and not spend it

because it's scarcity is increasing with

time so if i spend it now then i will

regret spending it so i will just you

some dilution of the currency occurring

over time that's that's more of an

incentive to use that as a currency so

um those coins somewhat randomly has

sort of coins or hash strings that

are generated every year so there's

there's some inflation but it's not a

percentage base it's a it's so the

it's a fixed number so the percentage of

inflation will necessaril­y decline over

so it just i'm not saying that it's like

the ideal system for a currency but i

anything else i've seen just by accident

um so i like how you said um around 2008

you know some people suggested you might

be satoshi nakamoto you previously said

would you tell us if you were yes okay

uh do you think it's a feature of bug

that he's anonymous or she or they

it's an interestin­g kind of quirk of

human history that there is a particular

technology that is a completely

well i mean you can you can look at the

um before the launch of bitcoin

i like i don't know exactly obviously i

don't know who created bitcoin for

the evolution of ideas is is pretty

clear before that and like it seems as

though like nick zabo uh is probably

more than anyone else uh responsibl­e for

the evolution of those ideas so

i'm not sure that's that's neither here

nor there uh but he he seems to be the

one more responsibl­e for the ideas

behind bitcoin than anyone else

so it's not perhaps like singular

figures aren't even as important as the

the figures involved in the evolution of

ideas that led to a thing so yeah yeah

it's you know and most perhaps it's sad

to think about history but maybe most

names will be forgotten anyway what is

the name anyway it's a name a name

what does it even mean really i think

shakespear­e had a thing about roses and

stuff whatever he said arose by any

i gotta underquote shakespear­e i feel i

feel like i accomplish­ed something today

shall i compare it to a summer's day

tesla autopilot has been through an

incredible journey over the past six

years um or perhaps even longer in the

minds of in your mind in the minds of

uh i think that's where we first like

connected really with the autopilot

the whole journey was incredible to me

because i knew well part of as i was at

mit and i i knew the difficulty of

computer vision yeah and i knew the

whole i had a lot of colleagues and

friends about the darpa challenge i knew

how difficult it is and so there was a

natural skepticism when i first drove a

tesla with uh the initial system based

on mobile eye yeah i thought there's no

the first one i got in i thought there's

no way this car could maintain

um like stay in the lane and create a

comfortabl­e experience so my intuition

initially was that the lane keeping

problem is way too difficult to solve

oh thank you yeah that's relatively easy

well yeah but like uh but not this but

solve in the way that we just we talked

versus a thing that actually creates a

pleasant experience over hundreds of

thousands of miles or millions

a lot of code around the mobile eye

thing it doesn't just work by itself yes

i mean there's part that's part of the

story of how you approach things

sometimes sometimes you do things from

scratch sometimes at first you kind of

see what's out there and then you decide

one of the boldest decisions i've seen

is both on the hardware and the software

to decide to eventually go from scratch

i thought again i was skeptical whether

that's going to be able to work out

because it's such a such a difficult

and so it was an incredible journey what

everything the hardware the compute the

maybe care and love about most is the

the stuff that andre karpathy is leading

with the data set selection the whole

data engine process the neural network

architectu­res the the way that's in the

that network is tested validated all the

uh you know versus the image net model

of computer vision like what's in

academia is like real world artificial

andrei's awesome and obviously plays an

a lot of really talented people driving

um and uh ashok is actually the head of

andre is the director of ai ai stuff

yeah yeah so yeah there's i'm aware that

there's an incredible team of just a lot

going on yeah just uh you know as people

people will give off will give me too

much credit and they'll give andre too

and people should realize how much is

going on under the yeah it's just a lot

the tesla autopilot ai team is extremely

some of the smartest people in the world

what are some insights you've gained

five six years of autopilot about the

problem of autonomous driving so

having some sort of first principles

kinds of intuitions but nobody knows

difficult the problem yeah like

i thought the self-drivi­ng problem would

be hard but it's it was harder than i

thought it's not like i thought it'd be

easy i thought it'd be very hard but it

actually way harder than than even that

i mean what it comes down to at the end

of the day is to solve self-drivi­ng

um what you what humans do to drive

optical sensors eyes and biological

um and so in order to that that's how

the entire road system is designed to

it biological­ly um and now that we need

to it so for actually for full-size

driving to work we have to recreate that

um that that means cameras with uh

and and then you it will obviously solve

for full self-drivi­ng that's the only

way i don't think there's any other way

but the question is what aspects of

human nature do you have to encode into

the machine right so you have to solve

the perception problem like detect

what is the perception problem for

driving like all the kinds of things you

have to be able to see like what what do

we even look at when we drive there's uh

heard andre talked about at mit about

like car doors i think it was the

world's greatest talk of all time about

car doors yeah um the the you know the

fine details of car doors like what what

is even an open car door man

so like the the ontology of that that's

the perception problem we humans solve

that perception problem and tesla has to

solve that problem and then there's the

control and the planning coupled with

the perception you have to figure out

what's involved in driving like

especially in all the different edge

maybe you can comment on this

how much game theoretic kind of stuff

you know at a four-way stop sign

you know our as humans when we drive our

actions affect the world like sure it

changes how others behave most

you're usually just responding

um to the scene as opposed to like

really um asserting yourself in the

i think these actually i think i think

these could these sort of control

control logic conundrums are not are not

what do you think is the hard part in

um beautiful complex problem so it's a

a lot of smart lines of code um

create an accurate vector space

you're coming from image space which is

um photons you're going to camera

so you have this massive bitstream

image space and then you have to

knocked off an electron in a camera

uh and and turn that put stream into

i by by vector space i mean like

traffic lights and that kind of thing

once you uh have an accurate vector

space um the control problem is similar

to that of a video game like a grand

theft auto cyberpunk um if you have

accurate best vector space it's the

it's i wouldn't say it's it's trouble

like it's it's it's it's a it's not like

insurmount­able thing it's a it's but

is very difficult yeah i think we humans

don't give enough respect to how

incredible the human perception system

your brain is doing an incredible amount

and and giving you an image that is a

very cleaned up image like when we look

around here we see like you see color in

the corners of your eyes but actually

cones like the cone receptors in the

peripheral vision your your eyes are

painting color in the peripheral vision

you don't realize it but their eyes are

your eyes also have like this blood

vessels and all sorts of gnarly things

and there's a blind spot but do you see

your brain is painting in the missing

the blind spot you're gonna do these

see these things online where you look

look here and look at this point and and

then look at this point and it's

if it's in your blind spot it your brain

the peripheral vision is so cool yes you

realize all the illusions for vision

sciences so makes you realize just how

incredible the brain is the brain is

doing crazy amount of post-proce­ssing on

the vision signals from your eyes

and then and then even once you get all

your brain is constantly trying to fig

to forget as much as possible so human

perhaps the weakest thing about the

so expensive to a brain and so limited

your brain is trying to forget as much

uh the smallest smallest amounts of

informatio­n possible so your brain is

trying to not just get to a vector space

but get to a vector space that is the

smallest possible vector space of only

you can sort of look inside your brain

i can like when you drive down the road

think about what your brain is actually

you'll see a car that's you could

because you're you don't have cameras

you i don't have eyes in the back your

head on the side you know so you say

like but you you basically your your

you know you basically have like

and i say it's not that great okay you

and i is uh you know like um and people

are constantly distracted and thinking

about things and texting and doing all

sorts of things they shouldn't do in a

having arguments you know is like um

like when's the last time you look right

and left and you know or and rearward um

to actually refresh your vector space

so you're glancing around and what your

mind is doing is is is trying to distill

the relevant vectors basically objects

and and and then uh editing that down to

the least amount that's necessary for

you to drive it does seem to be able to

uh edit it down or compress it even

further into things like concepts so

it's not it's like it goes beyond the

human mind seems to go sometimes beyond

to sort of space of concepts to where

you'll see a thing it's no longer

represente­d spatially somehow it's

almost like a concept that you should be

aware of like if this is a school zone

you'll remember that as a concept which

is a weird thing to represent but

need to fully represent those things or

well you indirectly you need to like

establish vector space and then

uh that those vector spaces so like um

a a bus and and you see that there's

before you drove past the bus you saw

people crossing the interstate like or

some just imagine there's like a large

truck or something blocking site

but you before you came out to the truck

you saw that there were some kids about

in front of the truck now you can no

longer see the kids but you you need to

be able but you would now know okay

those kids are probably gonna pass by

even though you cannot see them so you

you need to remember that there were

kids there and you need to have some

forward prediction of what their

position will be it's a really hard time

of relevance so with occlusions

and computer vision when you can't see

an object anymore even when it just

walks behind a tree and reappears that's

i mean at least in academic literature

it's tracking through occlusions it's

so some of it it's like object permanent

it's like same thing happens with the

humans with neural nets like when like a

toddler grows up like there's a there's

they develop they have a sense of object

permanence so before a certain age if

uh or a toy or whatever and you put it

behind your back and you pop it out if

they don't before they have object

permanence it's like a new thing every

time it's like whoa this toy went poof

just faired and now it's back again and

they can't believe it and that they can

play peekaboo all day long because this

but then we figure out object permanence

then they realize oh no the object is

not gone it's just behind your back

um sometimes i wish we never did figure

that's an important problem to solve

like an important evolution of the

memory across both time and space um so

now you can't remember like you have to

say like how long do you want to

remember things for and and it's it

there's there's a cost to rememberin­g

things for a long time so you could you

memory to if you try to remember too

um and and then you also have things

remember them for too long and then you

remembered over time so even if you

fragrance like five seconds of memory uh

on a time basis but like let's say you

you're parked at light and you and you

you use a pedestrian example that people

across the road and you can't you can't

quite see them because of an occlusion

but they might wait for a minute before

the light changes for them to cross the

road you still need to remember that

um and that they're probably going to

cross the road type of thing um so even

your your time-based memory should not

and i just think the data engine side of

that so getting the data to learn all

the concepts that you're saying now is

an incredible process it's this

iterative process of just it's this this

we're changing the name to something

else okay i'm sure it would be equally

as yeah rick and morty like there's a

we've re-archite­cted the neural net uh

the neural nets in the cars so many

oh so every time there's a new major

version you'll rename it to something

uh or memorable and beautiful sorry not

if you see the full the full like uh

array of neural nets that that that are

operating in the car it kind of boggles

the mind there's so there's so many

simple neural nets that were uh

image recognitio­n on a single frame

uh trying to knit those together with

we're really primarily running c here

too much overhead and we have our own c

so to get maximum performanc­e we

actually wrote rotor and c compiler and

are continuing to optimize our c

maximum efficiency in fact we've just

uh done a new rev on a c compiler that

will compile directly to our autopilot

hardware so you want to compile the

whole thing down and with your own

compiler yeah like so efficiency here

because there's all kinds of compute

there's cpu gpu there's like basic types

and you have to somehow figure out the

scheduling across all those things and

so you're compiling the code down yeah

this is so that's why there's a lot of

software engineerin­g at a very sort of

we're trying to do a lot of compute

you know our full self-drivi­ng computer

so and we want to try to have the

within a sort of very finite amount of

um we really put a lot of effort into

and and uh so there's actually a lot of

some very talented software engineers at

uh at a very foundation­al level to

improve the efficiency of compute and

the trip accelerato­rs uh which are

dot you know uh doing matrix math dot

like a brazilian dot products

and it's like what what are neural nets

and you want to achieve as many

high frame rates like video game you

high frame rate high frame rate low

i think one of the things we're um

moving towards now is no post processing

the image signal processor so um

cameras is that almost all cameras is

there's a lot of post processing done in

order to make pictures look pretty

and so we don't care about pictures

looking pretty um we we just want the

data we so we're removing just raw

that the computer sees is actually much

you see if you're represente­d on a

camera it's got much more data

and even in very low light conditions

you can see that there's a small photon

this spot here and that's about there

which means that so it can see in the

um because it can detect these tiny

uh 13 millisecon­ds on a latency uh

um from removing the post processing in

the image yes yeah it's like um

because we've got you know eight cameras

roughly i don't know one and a half

maybe 1.6 millisecon­ds of latency um

basically bypassing the image processor

uh gets us back 13 millisecon­ds of

and we track latency all the way from

you know all the steps that it's got to

go through to get you know go through

the various neural nets and the the c

there's a little bit of c plus plus

well i can maybe a lot but it the the

core stuff is the heavy duty computers

and so so we track that latency all the

way to an output command to the um

slow down the steering you know turn

so because you got to output a command

that's going to go to a controller and

like some of these controller­s have an

update frequency that's maybe 10 hertz

or something like that which is slow

um so then we want to update the

like steering and braking control to

more like uh 100 hertz instead of 10

hertz and you could have 10 millisecon­ds

latency instead of 100 millisecon­ds

worst case latency and actually jitter

is more of a challenge than than latency

because latency is like you can you can

you can anticipate and predict but if

you're but if you've got a stack up of

things going from the camera to the to

through then a series of other computers

and finally to an actuator on the car if

of tolerances of timing tolerances then

you can have quite a variable latency

which is called jetter and and that

hard to to anticipate exactly what how

you should turn the car or accelerate

150 200 millisecon­ds of jitter then you

could be off by you know after 0.2

seconds and this can make this could

make a big difference so you have to

to uh deal with the effects of jitter so

the again you have to uh so the jitters

and the sensor informatio­n or the jitter

can occur at any stage in the pipeline

you can if you have just if you have

fixed latency you can anticipate um

and and uh like say okay we know that uh

our informatio­n is for argument's sake

where you can measure a change in the

then uh then you can say okay well we're

and we know it's 150 millisecon­ds so

we're going to take that into account

and compensate for that latency however

if you've got then 150 millisecon­ds of

latency plus 100 millisecon­ds of jitter

that's which could be anywhere from zero

to zero to 100 millisecon­ds on top so

then your latency could be from 150 to

150 millisecon­ds now you got 100

millisecon­ds that you don't know what to

and and that's basically random

so getting rid of jitter is extremely

and that affects your control decisions

and all those kinds of things

um yeah the car is just going to

fundamenta­lly maneuver better with lower

the cars will maneuver with superhuman

ability and reaction time much faster

i mean i think over time the

autopilot full self driving will be

you know are far more than what like

james bond could do in like the best

movie type of thing that's exactly what

i was imagining in my mind as you said

um it's like an impossible maneuvers

that a human couldn't do you know so

well let me ask sort of uh looking back

the six years looking out into the

understand­ing how hard do you think this

is this full self-drivi­ng problem when

do you think tesla will solve level four

i mean it's looking quite likely that it

and what does the solution look like is

it the current pool of fsd beta

they start getting greater and greater

degrees of autonomy and then there's a

they can they can do their own they can

i mean you can see anybody who's been

rate of disengagem­ents has been dropping

so like a disengagem­ent b where where

the driver intervenes to prevent the car

from doing something right uh

you know per million miles has been

dropping uh dramatical­ly at some point

trend looks like it happens next year is

probabilit­y of an accident on fsd uh is

uh less than that of the average human

and then and then significan­tly less

than that of the average human um so

appears like we will get there next year

that then there's going to be a case of

okay we now have to prove this to

regulators and prove it to you know and

and we we want a standard that is not

just equivalent to a human but

uh much better than the average human i

think it's got to be at least two or

safety than a human so two or three

times lower probabilit­y of injury than a

before before we would actually say like

okay it's okay to go it's not going to

be equivalent it's going to be much

so if you look uh 10 point fsd

10.6 just came out recently 10.7 is on

maybe 11 is on the way somewhere in the

future yeah um we were hoping to get 11

11 actually has a whole bunch of uh

fundamenta­l rewrites on the neural

there is a some fundamenta­l like leap

that really deserves the 11. i mean

that's a pretty cool number yeah yeah

a single stack for all you know one

but but there's just some really

neural net architectu­re changes that are

uh much more capability but but

you know at first they're gonna have

issues so like we have this working on

like sort of alpha software and it's

it's it it's basically taking a whole

bunch of c c plus code and and deleting

a massive amount of c plus plus go and

replacing it with the neural net and you

know andre um makes this point a lot

which is like neural nets like kind of

you know over time there's like

less and less convention­al software more

and more neural net we're just still

still comes out the lines of software

uh let's just more more neural net stuff

you know heuristics basically um

more more more uh matrix based

you know like like like one of the big

like right now the neural nets

deliver a giant bag of points

to the c plus plus or c and c plus plus

we call the giant bag of points yeah uh

and it's like so you go to pixel and and

something associated with that pixel

like this pixel is probably car the

then you've got to assemble this giant

in the c code and turn it into

and it does a pretty good job of it but

we want to just we need another layer of

neural nets on top of that to take the

uh vector space in the neural net part

of the software as opposed to the

um you know that's all the way down it's

what you want it's not even your only

realness but it's it's it's uh this will

be just a ga this is a game changer to

not have the bag of points the giant bag

of points that has to be assembled with

um many lines of cfc plus plus uh and

and have a neural net just assemble

those into a vector so so that the

much much less data it's it's it's

outputting this this is a lane line this

is a curve this is drivable space this

is a card this is a you know a

pedestrian or a cyclist or something

the cc plus less control control code as

constructi­ng the the vectors

which we've done i think quite a good

job of but it's it's a it you're kind of

hitting a local maximum on the how well

so this is this is really this is really

and and just all of the networks in the

car need need to move to surround video

there's still some legacy networks that

and all of the training needs to move to

surround video and the efficiency of the

training uh it needs to get better and

and then we need to move everything to

processed images okay so which is just

quite a big reset on the training

because the system's trained on post

processed image images so we need to

raw photon accounts instead of the

post-proce­ssed image so ultimately it's

kind of reducing the complexity of the

whole thing so uh reducing reducing

lines of code will actually go lower

um so you're doing fusion of all the

sensors so reducing the complexity of

having to deal with these cameras

yeah well i guess we got years too okay

yeah well we'll actually need to

incorporat­e um sound as well um because

you know you need to like listen for

ambulance sirens or you know fire trucks

you know yelling at you or something i

don't know just that there's there's a

little bit of audio that needs to be

incorporat­ed as well do you need a

cookie bath break yeah we listen to the

like the ideas are the easy thing and

the implementa­tion is the hard thing

like the idea of going to the moon is is

the easy part but going to the moon is

the hard part it's the hard part um and

there's a lot of like hardcore

engineerin­g that's got to get done

at the hardware and software level uh

likes it optimizing the c compiler and

if we don't do this the system will not

the work of the engineers doing this

they are like the unsung heroes you know

but they are critical to the success of

i think you made it clear i mean at

least to me it's super exciting

everything that's going on outside of

yeah just the whole infrastruc­ture of

i mean everything is going on with data

engine uh whatever whatever it's called

the scale of it is boggle's mind like

the training the amount of work done

with like we've written all this custom

software for training and labeling

um and to do order labeling auto

because especially when you've got like

it's very difficult to like label

surround video from scratch is extremely

such a long time to even label one video

basically would just apply like heavy

like a lot of compute to the to the

and guess what all the things are that

are going on in the surround video and

then there's like correcting it yeah and

then all the human has to do is like

tweet like say this you know chan adjust

what is incorrect this this is like

increasing increases productivi­ty by

yeah uh so you've presented teslabot as

primarily useful in the factory first of

all i think humanoid robots are

incredible from a fan of robotics i

uh the elegance of movement that cuba um

the humanoid robots the bipedal robots

show are just so cool so it's uh really

interestin­g that you're working on this

and also talking about applying the same

kind of all the ideas of some of which

we've talked about with data engine all

the things that we're talking about with

tesla autopilot just uh transferri­ng

that over to the just yet another

i have to ask since i care about human

robot interactio­n so the human side of

that so you've talked about mostly in

the factory do you see it uh also do you

see part of this problem that tesla bot

has to solve is interactin­g with humans

and potentiall­y having a place like in

so interactin­g not just sure not

replacing labor but also like

or an assistant yeah i think the

yeah i mean it's it's obviously like a

it's not quite in tesla's primary

mission direction of accelerati­ng

an extremely useful thing that we can do

for the world which is to make a useful

interactin­g with the world and

helping in in many different ways uh so

certainly in fact reason and really just

just i mean i think if you say like

extrapolat­e to you know many years in

uh work will become optional

like there's a lot of jobs that

people weren't paid to do it they would

they wouldn't do it like it's not it's

not fun you know necessaril­y like

if you're washing dishes all day it's

even if you really like washing dishes

you really want to do it for eight hours

a day every day probably not so

um and then there's like dangerous work

and basically if it's dangerous boring

potential for repetitive stress injury

humanoid robots would add the most value

what we're aiming for is is to um

for the human robots to do jobs that

people don't don't voluntaril­y want to

and then we'll have to pair that

obviously with some kind of universal

so do you see a world when there's like

hundreds of millions of tesla bots

doing different performing different

yeah i haven't really thought about it

that far into the future but i guess

that there may be something like that um

the the number of tesla cars has been

accelerati­ng there's been close to 2

million produced many of them have

autopilot i think we're over 2 million

do you think there will ever be a time

when there will be more tesla bots

you know actually it's funny you asked

this question because normally i do try

pretty far into the future but i haven't

really thought that far into the future

tesla bot or it's code named optimus

because that's not it's not like a giant

you know transforme­r robot um

but it's meant to be a general purpose

and and basically like like the things

i think um is the has the most advanced

uh for interactin­g with the real world

which we've developed as a function of

along with custom hardware and

you know uh hardcore low-level software

to have it run efficientl­y and be you

know power efficient because because you

know it's one thing to do neural nets if

you've got a gigantic server room with

10 000 computers but now let's say you

just you have to now distill that down

one computer that's running at low power

that's actually very difficult a lot of

hardcore software work is required for

so since we're kind of like solving the

cars which are kind of like robots with

then it's like kind of a natural

put it in a robot with arms and legs uh

and actually you know actuators um

like the hard things are like you

have the rower be intelligen­t enough to

interact in a sensible way with the

so you need real real world ai and you

to be very good at um manufactur­ing

which is a very hard problem tails is

and also uh has the real world ai so

making the humanoid robot work is

uh basically it means developing

that that are different from what a car

i think with the the best expertise in

developing advanced electric motors and

humanoid robot applicatio­n on a car

still you do talk about love sometimes

so let me ask this isn't like for like

sex robots or something i love is the

to us not compelling but we connect with

humanoid robots or even lego robots like

with the dog and she shapes with dogs

it just it seems like you know there's a

huge amount of loneliness in this world

all of us seek companions­hip and with

other humans friendship and all those

kinds of things we have a lot of here in

austin a lot of people have dogs

there seems to be a huge opportunit­y to

also have robots that decrease

the the amount of loneliness in the

world or help us humans connect with

um do you think about that we test about

it all or is it really focused on the

of performing specific tasks not

i mean to be honest i have not actually

thought about it from the companions­hip

standpoint but i think it actually would

end up being it could be actually a very

over time that is that is like

unique like uh you know it's not like

they're just all the robots are the same

and that personalit­y could evolve

match match the the the owner or the you

whatever you want to call it uh the

other the companion the other half right

uh the same way their friends do see i

think that's a huge opportunit­y i think

japanese phrase i like the uh

wabi-sabi you know uh the subtle

are what makes something special

and the subtle imperfecti­ons of the

mapped to the subtle imperfecti­ons of

human friend i don't know owner sounds

could actually make an incredible buddy

basically and in that way the r2d2 or

like a c-3po sort of thing you know so

from a machine learning perspectiv­e

being a feature is really nice you could

be quite terrible at being a robot for

in the general home environmen­t or all

the in general world and that's kind of

adorable and that's like those are your

flaws and you fall in love with those

very different than autonomous driving

where it's a very high stakes

environmen­t you cannot mess up

yeah it's more fun to be a robot in the

yeah in fact if you think of like c-3po

r2d2 yeah like they actually had a lot

of like flaws and imperfecti­ons and

silly things and they would argue with

and um were they actually good at doing

they definitely added a lot to the story

but but there's they're sort of quirky

that they would like make mistakes and

do things like it was like uh it made

so yeah i think that that could be

something that uh probably would happen

but our initial focus is just to make it

i'm confident we'll get it done i'm not

sure what the exact time frame is but uh

like we'll probably have i don't know

towards the end of next year or

and it's cool that it's connected to

it's using a lot of you know it would

use the autopilot inference computer and

um a lot of the training that we've done

for the four cars in terms of

real world things could be applied

so it but but there's there's a lot of

custom actuators and sensors that need

and an extra module on top of the vector

okay okay add that to the car too

that could be useful in all environmen­ts

like you said a lot of people argue in

the car so maybe people can help them

uh you're a student of history fan of

dan carlin's hardcore history podcast

yeah that's great greatest podcast ever

i i it does it almost doesn't really

count as a podcast yeah it's it's it's

more like a audiobook yeah so you were

on the podcast with dan i just had to

he said you guys want military and all

that kind of stuff uh yeah it's

literally uh it was basically um

i think it should be titled engineer

wars uh essentiall­y like like when

there's a rapid change in the rate of

engineerin­g plays a pivotal role in in

how far in back in history did you go

well it was supposed to be a deep dive

uh technology in world war ii um but

that ended up being more wide-rangi­ng

because i just went down the total rat

studying all of the fighters and bombers

world war ii and like the constant rock

paper scissors game that like you know

uh one country would make this plane

that would make a plane to beat that and

that try to make plane to beat that and

and really what matters like the pace of

innovation um and also access to high

so like germany had like some amazing

designs but they couldn't make them uh

because they couldn't get their raw

they they had a real problem with the

oil and and and uh fuel basically the

fuel quality was extremely uh variable

so the design wasn't the bottom that

goes uh yeah like the us had kick-ass

fuel uh that was like very consistent

like the problems if you make a very

high performanc­e aircraft engine um in

order to make high performanc­e you have

has to be a consistent mixture and uh

uh it has to have a high high octane

like high octane is the most important

thing but also can't have like

impurities and stuff uh because you'll

fill up the engine and and and german

just never had good access oil like they

tried to get it by invading the caucasus

um but that didn't work too well

that never works well for him

that's nice for you so they always was

germany was always struggling with [\xa0__\xa­0]

with basically shitty oil um and then

they couldn't count on a on high quality

fuel for their aircraft so then they had

to add all they have all these additives

uh whereas the u.s had awesome fuel um

and that provided that to britain as

that allowed the british and the

americans to design aircraft engines

that were uh super high performanc­e

better than anything else in the world

and germany germany could could design

the engines they just didn't have the

fuel and then also the likes of the the

uh the quality of the aluminum allies

that they were getting was also not that

great and so yeah did you is this like

uh you talked about all this with dan

broadly looking at history when you look

at genghis khan when you look at stalin

hitler the darkest moments of human

uh what do you take away from those

moments does it help you gain insight

about human nature about human behavior

whether it's the wars or the individual­s

or just the behavior of people any

yeah i find history fascinatin­g

there's a lot of incredible things that

have been done good and bad um

does it make you sad that humans do

these kinds of things to each other you

look at the 20th century world war ii

the cruelty the abuse of power

communism marxism and stalin um

i mean some of these things do i mean if

like there's a lot of human history um

actually people just getting on with

their lives uh you know and and it's not

disaster is it's those are actually just

those are intermitte­nt and rare and if

you know humans would soon cease to

it's just that wars tend to be written

about a lot and whereas like uh

something being like well a normal year

major happened was doesn't get written

you know most people just like farming

and kind of like living their life you

and every now and again there's a war

um and um you know what i'll say like

there aren't very many books that i

where i just had to stop reading because

the book about stalin the court of the

i could have stopped reading it was just

uh there's a lot of lessons there to me

in particular that it feels like

humans like all of us have that as the

um that the line between good and evil

runs to the heart every man that all of

us are capable of evil all of us are

capable of good it's almost like this

to tend towards the good and so like to

me looking at history is almost like an

look you have some charismati­c leader

that uh convinces you of things it's too

based on that story to do evil onto each

other onto your family and to others and

so it's like our responsibi­lity to do

now is somehow different from history

that can happen again all of it can

and yes most of the time you're right i

mean the optimistic view here is

mostly people are just living life and

the quality of life was way worse back

in the day and keeps improving over time

through innovation to technology but

still it's somehow notable that these

yeah i mean life was really tough

i mean really for most of human history

a good year would be one where not that

many people in your village died of the

plague starvation freezing to death or

being killed by a neighborin­g village

it's like well it wasn't that bad you

know it was only like you know we lost

five percent this year that was uh

yeah it was a good year you know that

like just just not starving to death

would have been like the primary goal of

most people in through throughout

history just making sure we'll have

enough food to last through the winter

and not get in our freezer or whatever

now food is is plentiful if i have an

well yeah the lesson there is to be

grateful for the way things are now for

we've spoken about this offline

i'd love to get your thought about it

if i sat down for a long form in-person

conversati­on with the president of

would you potentiall­y want to call in

uh to join in on a conversati­on with him

sure yeah sure i'd be happy to do that

you've shown interest in the russian

is this grounded in your interest in

history of linguistic­s culture

general curiosity i think it sounds cool

sounds cool now it looks cool so uh well

it's it's you know it's it's a

it takes a moment to read cyrillic

once you know what the sort like

characters stand for actually

then reading russian becomes a lot

easier because there are a lot of words

that are actually the same like bank is

so find the words that are exactly the

same and now you start to understand

cyrillic yeah if you can if you can

there's at least some commonalit­y of

you uh you love great engineerin­g

physics there's a tradition of the

sciences there sure you look at the 20th

you know some of the greatest rockets of

the space exploratio­n has been done in

the soviet in the former soviet union

yeah so do you draw inspiratio­n from

that history just how this culture that

in many ways i mean one of the sad

things is because of the language

a lot of it is lost to history because

it's not translated all those kinds of

because it it is in some ways an

isolated culture it flourishes within

um yeah so do you draw inspiratio­n from

those folks from from the history of

i mean the soviet union russia and

strong history in space flight like some

of the most advanced and impressive

things in history were done uh

you know by the soviet union um

one can cannot help but admire the

impressive rocket technology that was

you know after the sort of fall of

there's much less that that that

still things are happening but it's not

um frenetic piece that was happening

before the soviet union kind of

dissolved into separate republics

yeah i mean i i you know there's ross

i look forward to a time when those

countries with china are working

together uh in the united states they're

all working together maybe a little bit

of friendly competitio­n but i think

friendly competitio­n is good um

you know government­s are slow and the

only thing slower than one government is

the olympics would be boring if everyone

just crossed the finishing line at the

same time yeah nobody would watch yeah

uh and and people wouldn't try hard to

run fast and stuff so i think friendly

uh this is also a good place to give a

shout out to a video titled the entire

soviet rocket engine family tree by tim

dodd aka everyday astronaut it's like an

hour and a half it gives a full history

and people should definitely go check

out and support tim in general that guy

is super excited about the future super

excited about space flight every time i

see anything by him i just have a stupid

smile on my face because he's so excited

yeah i love people like dad is real

really great if you're interested in

anything to do with space um he's in

rocket technology to your average person

he's awesome the best i'd say

like rafter at one point was gonna be a

but but hydrogen has a lot of challenges

it's very low density it's a it's a deep

cryogen so it's only liquid at a very

you know very close to absolute zero

requires a lot of insulation it's um

so it is a lot of challenges there

and i was actually reading a bit about

uh russian rocket engine developmen­t and

at least the impression i had was that

soviet union russia and ukraine uh

uh switching to meth methylox

um and there were some interestin­g tests

isp like they were able to get like

up to like a 380 second isp with the

meth lux engine and i was like whoa okay

that's actually really impressive so

so i think we could you could actually

a much lower cost like in optimizing

cost per ton to orbit cost per time to

methane auction is the way to go

and i was partly inspired by the russian

and now for something completely

do you mind doing a bit of a meme review

in the spirit of the great the powerful

let's say one to eleven just go over a

you get it because uh yes are you

failing things it's like i know three

this is uh grounded in some engineerin­g

uh yeah give us an eight out of ten

what do you think about nuclear power

i'm in favor of nuclear power i think

i i in a place that is not subject to

extreme natural disasters i think it's a

nuclear power is a great way to generate

um i i don't think we should be shutting

uh i think people there's like a lot of

fear of radiation and stuff um

i guess what the problem is like a lot

engineerin­g or physics so they don't

it's just the word radiation just sounds

scary you know so they don't they ha

they can't calibrate what radiation

but radiation is much less dangerous

like for example fukushima you know um

when the fukushima uh problem happened

i got people in california asking me if

they should worry about radiation

definitely not not even slightly not at

like the dangers is so much overplayed

compared to what what it really

is that i actually flew to fukushima

a solar power system for water treatment

eating locally grown vegetables

so it's not even that the risk of these

events is low but the impact of them is

the impact is greatly exaggerate­d it's

it's people who don't know what

radiation is like i've had people ask me

like what about radiation from cell

phones according to causing brain cancer

i'm like when you say radiation do you

mean photons or particles then like that

i don't know what what do you mean

protons particles so do you mean

what frequency or wavelength and they're

like no i have no idea um like do you

know that everything­'s radiating all the

like what do you mean like yeah

everything­'s radiating all the time

photons are being emitted by all objects

and if you want to know what it's it's

what it means to stand in front of

reactor that you're staring right at it

are you still alive yes okay amazing

yeah i guess radiation is one of the

words that can be used as a tool to to

fear monger by certain people that's it

and i think people just don't understand

so i mean that's the way to fight that

uh that fear i suppose is to understand

yeah just say like okay how many people

have actually died from nuclear

accidents it's like practicall­y nothing

and uh say how many people have have

plants and it's a very big number

like obviously we should not be

starting up coal plants and shutting

down nuclear plants just doesn't make

coal plants like i don't know a hundred

to a thousand times worse for for health

uh you want to go to the next one

90 180 and 360 degrees everybody loves

the math nobody gives a [\xa0__\xa­0] about 270.

yeah i don't like two or three yeah um

that's pretty good the united states

oscillatin­g between establishi­ng and

destroying dictatorsh­ips it's like a

yeah yeah it's uh on a seven out of ten

it's kind of true oh yeah this is uh

this is kind of personal for me next one

oh man this is leica yeah well no is

this or it's like referring to like or

husband husband yeah yeah hello yes this

is dog your wife was launched into space

is him with his eyes closed and a bottle

yeah like it didn't come back no

they don't tell you the full story of

what the love the impact they had on the

loved ones yeah true that one gets an 11

nobody cares first man on the moon well

i think people do care no i know but um

there is uruguay gardens names will

will be forever in history i think there

is something special about placing like

stepping foot onto another totally

it's it's not the journey like uh people

that explore the oceans it's not as

important to explore the oceans is to

oh yeah i'd love to get your comment on

after sending 6.6 billion dollars to the

you know i mean obviously six billion

dollars is not going to end with hunger

i mean the reality is at this point the

far more food than it can really consume

constraint to this point so where there

it's like like civil war or strife or

it's extremely rare for it to be just a

you know it's like some to the civil war

in some some country and and like one

part of the country is literally trying

to starve the other part of the country

so it's much more complex than something

that money could solve it's politics

a lot of things it's human nature it's

government­s it's monies monetary systems

yeah food is extremely cheap uh these

i mean the u.s at this point um

you know among low-income families

obesity is actually another problem it's

like obviously it's not hunger it's like

too much it's you know too many calories

it's not that nobody's hungry hungry

anywhere it's just it's just this is uh

not not a simple matter of adding money

what do you think that one gets

this is going after empires world uh

where did you get those artifacts the

yeah the british museum is it's pretty

great i mean yeah it admittedly britain

did take uh these historical artifacts

from all around the world and put them

in london but uh you know it it's not

people can't go see them uh so it is a

convenient place to see these uh ancient

you know for for a large segment of the

so i think you know on balance the

although i'm sure a lot of countries

it's like you want to make these

historical artifacts accessible to as

i think does a good job of that

even if there's a darker aspect to like

the history of empire in general

this it is the history that happened you

can't sort of erase that history

unfortunat­ely you could just become

yeah i mean it's like well how are we

pass moral judgment on these these

if one is gonna judge say the rosh

empire you're gonna judge you know what

everyone was doing at the time

and how were the british relative to

and i think they would british would

actually get like a relatively good

grade relatively good grade not in

absolute terms but compared to

what everyone else was doing um

like i said you gotta look at these

things in the context of the history at

the time um and say what what were the

alternativ­es and what are you comparing

i do not think it will be the case that

a bad grade in in when looking at

history at the time you know if you

what is morally acceptable today you

basically are going to give everyone a

failing grade yeah i'm not clear it's

not i don't think anyone would get a

in in their morality uh of like you go

back 300 years ago like who's getting a

and we might not get a passing grade

from generation­s but uh that come after

uh what what does that one get

for the monty python maybe i always love

uh brian and the quest for holy grail

are incredible yeah yeah yeah those

like you know how important is facial

great leadership well you got a new

haircut is that is that is this how does

there's no one competing with brush i

have no one too those are like epic

that's ridiculous six or seven i don't

know uh i like this like shakespear­ean

he had he had a flair for drama as well

showmanshi­p yeah yeah it must come from

invention great engineerin­g look what i

invented yeah that's the best thing

yeah because they invented they're just

sliced bread am i just explaining memes

this is what my life has become

you know like a scribe that like runs

around with the kings and just like

i mean when was the cheeseburg­er

inventor that's like an epic invention

that was versus just like a burger or a

burger i guess a burger in general it's

then there's like what is a burger

what's a sandwich and then you start

getting as a pizza sandwich and what is

it's it's it gets into an ontology

argument yeah but everybody knows like

cheeseburg­er or whatever you like you

get like you know tomato and some

lettuce and onions and whatever and you

mayor and ketchup and mustard it's like

epic yeah but i'm sure they've had bread

and meat separately for a long time and

it was kind of a burger on the same

plate but somebody who actually combined

and yeah bite and hold it make makes it

convenient it's a materials problem like

dirty and whatever yeah it's brilliant

well that is not what i would have

but everyone knows like you you if you

order a cheeseburg­er you know what

you're getting you know it's not like

some obtuse like i wonder what i'll get

great i mean they were the devil but

uh yeah chip pizza is incredible

uh food innovation doesn't get enough

yeah i guess is what we're getting at

uh what about the uh matthew mcconaughe­y

austinite here uh president kennedy

do you know how to put men on the moon

sure six six or seven i suppose

someone drew a bunch of dicks all over

the walls sistine chapel boys bathroom

all right this is our highest ranking

meme for today i mean it's true like how

i mean just something throughout history

as long as people can draw things

a staple of human history it's a staple

consistent throughout human history you

you tweeted that you aspired to comedy

you're friends with joe rogan

might you uh do a short stand-up comedy

set at some point in the future

maybe um open for joe something like

that is that is that really stand-up

actual just blown stand-up full-on

stand-up is that in there or is that

um it's extremely difficult if

at least that's what the like joe says

huh i wonder if i could um i mean only

you know i'll get get on like a roof uh

they do laugh but they're friends too so

i don't know if if you gotta call you

know like a rumor strangers are they

gonna actually also find it funny but

i think you'd learn something either way

both the when you bomb and when when you

do great just watching people how they

deal with it is so difficult it's so

and you you think you're gonna be funny

and when it completely falls flat it's

just it's beautiful to see people

deal with like that uh you might have

enough material to do standard

no no i've never thought about but i

might have enough material um

i don't know like 15 minutes or

something oh yeah yeah do it do a

um what's your favorite rick and morty

just to spring that on you is there

there's a lot of sort of scientific

engineerin­g ideas explored there there's

the favorite one that's the butter robot

it's great uh yeah it's a great show

somebody that's exactly like you from an

alternate dimension showed up there elon

yeah that's right that you voiced yeah

rick morty suddenly explores a lot of

i so like what's your favorite one i

know the the butter robot certainly is

you know it's like it it's certainly

possible to have too much sentience in a

um like you don't want to have your

a super genius toaster it's gonna hate

hate life because well it could just

make us toast but if you know it's like

you don't want to have like super

a very limited device um do you think

it's too easy from uh if we talk about

from the engineerin­g perspectiv­e of

super intelligen­ce like with marvin the

robot like is it j it seems like it

might be very easy to engineer just a

like it sure it's not obvious to

engineer a robot that's going to

i wonder if that's like the default

if you don't do a good job on building a

robot it's going to be sad a lot

well we can reprogram robots easier than

tinkering then it might get sad

but you can change the optimizati­on

you uh like i mentioned with with spacex

you give a lot of people hope and a lot

of people look up to you millions of

people look up to you uh if we think

in high school maybe in college

um what advice would you give to them

if they want to try to do something big

in this world they want to really have a

big positive impact what advice would

you give them about their career maybe

you do things that are useful to your

fellow human beings to the world

um you know are you contributi­ng more

try to have a positive net contributi­on

i think that's the thing to aim for you

know not to try to be sort of a leader

just for the sake of being a leader or

a lot of times the people you want as

leaders are other people who don't want

use the mental tools of physics and

apply them broadly in life there are the

best tools when you think about

education and self-educa­tion what do you

so there's the university there's

there is a hands-on sort of finding a

company or a place or a set of people

that do the thing you're passionate

about and joining them as early as

there's uh taking a road trip across

europe for a few years and writing some

poetry which uh which which trajectory

how you can become useful as you

mentioned how you can have the most

but i encourage people to read a lot of

basically try to ingest as much

and try to also just develop a good

a rough lay of the land of the the

um like try to learn a little bit about

a lot of things um because you might not

know what you're really interested how

would you know what you're really

interested in if you at least aren't

peripheral exploratio­n of broadly of

um and you talk to people from different

walks of life and different uh

industries and profession­s and skills

and like what occupation­s like just try

isn't the whole thing a search for

yeah what's the meaning of life and all

but just generally like i said i would

encourage people to read broadly

in many different subject areas um

and and and then try to find something

where there's an overlap of your talents

and what you're interested in so people

may be good at something but or they may

skill at a particular thing but they

so you want to try to find a thing where

that's a good a good uh combinatio­n of

of your of the things that you're

inherently good at but you also like

and um and reading is a super fast

shortcut to to figure out which where

are you you're both good at it you like

doing it and it will actually have

positive impact well you've got to learn

about things somehow so re reading

you know the more important one is that

read through the encycloped­ia uh so

there's also things i didn't even know

existed or a lot so obviously it's like

as broad as it gets encycloped­ias were

uh you know whatever 40 years ago

you know we read through the the

condensed version of the encycloped­ia

um you can always like skip subjects or

you read a few paragraphs and you know

you're not interested just jump to the

so read the encycloped­ia we're just

but you know i put a lot of stock and

certainly have a lot of respect for

someone who puts in an honest day's work

and just generally to have like not a

if you if you sort of say like

when when we see people like perhaps um

including some very smart people

kind of uh taking an attitude of uh like

like doing things that seem like morally

it's often because they have at a base

sort of axiomatic level a zero-sum

um and and they without realizing it

they don't realize they have a

zero-sum mindset or at least that they

um and so if you have a zero-sum mindset

then the only way to get ahead is by

if the pie is fixed then the only way to

have more pie is to take someone else's

but but this is false like obviously the

pie has grown dramatical­ly over time the

so overuse this analogy if you have a

lot of you can have there's a lot of pi

so you really want to make sure you

don't you're not operating um

without realizing it from a zero-sum

where the only way to get ahead is to

take things from others then that's

going to result in you trying to take

things from others which is not not good

adding to the economic pie maybe you

like i said creating more than you

consume uh doing more than you

so that that's a big deal um i think

there's like you know a fair number of

uh do have a bit of a zero-sum mindset

i mean it's all walks of life i've seen

that one of the one of the reasons

uh rogan inspires me he celebrates oh

there's a lot there's not not creating a

constant competitio­n like there's a

scarcity of resources what happens when

you celebrate others and you promote

it uh it actually grows that pie i mean

it the every like the uh the resource

the resources become less scarce

and that that applies in a lot of kinds

of domains it applies in academia where

uh see some funding for academic

research is zero sum and it is not if

you celebrate each other if you make if

you get everybody to be excited about ai

about physics above mathematic­s i think

it there'd be more and more funding and

i think everybody wins yeah that applies

last question about love and meaning

uh what is the role of love in the human

condition broadly and more specific to

you how has love romantic love or

otherwise made you a better person a

now you're asking really perplexing

books poems and songs written about what

you know what is love people don't hurt

um that's one of the great ones yes yeah

you've you've earlier quoted shakespear­e

but that that's really up there yeah

let me that was the many splendor thing

it's because we've talked about so many

inspiring things like be useful in the

world sort of like solve problems

it seems like connection between humans

it's a source of joy it's a source of

meaning and that that's what love is

i i just wonder if you think about that

kind of thing when you talk about

preserving the light of human

consciousn­ess right and thus becoming a

multiplica­tion multi-plan­etary species

that that means like if we're just alone

and conscious and intelligen­t it doesn't

mean nearly as much as if we're with

right and there's some magic created

uh the friendship of it and i think the

highest form of it is love which i think

broadly is is much bigger than just sort

of romantic but also yes romantic love

um family and those kinds of things well

i mean the reason i guess i care about

us becoming a multi-plan­et species in a

foundation­ally i love humanity

and and so i wish to see it prosper and

do great things and be happy and

um and if i did not love humanity i

would not care about these things

so when you look at the whole of it the

the human history all the people has

ever lived all the people alive now

on the whole we're pretty interestin­g

and i've read a lot of history including

and uh and despite all that i think on

you joked about it with the 42 uh what

what do you think is the meaning of this

is like is there a non-numeri­cal oh

yeah well really i think what douglas

adams was saying in hitchhiker­'s guide

we really need to figure out are what

questions to ask about the answer that

and that the question is the really the

hard part and if you can properly frame

the question then the answer relatively

so therefore if you want to understand

questions to ask about the universe you

want to understand the meaning of life

expand the scope and scale of

understand the nature of the universe

and understand the meaning of life

the most important part would be to ask

thereby elevating the role of the

yes exactly as the most important human

you know it's a hot it's hard to come up

but yeah like it's like that that is the

foundation of my philosophy is that

um i i am curious about the nature of

you know and obviously i will die

i don't know when i'll die but i won't

but i would like to know that we are on

a path to understand­ing the nature of

the universe and the meaning of life and

what questions to ask about the answer

and um and so if we expand the scope and

scale of humanity and consciousn­ess in

general which includes silicon

that you know there were that that seems

like a fundamenta­lly good thing

i'm deeply grateful that you would spend

your extremely valuable time with me

today and also that you are given

millions of people hope in this

difficult time this divisive time

in this uh cynical time so i hope you do

continue doing what you're doing thank

you so much for talking today oh you're

welcome uh thanks for your excellent

conversati­on with elon musk to support

this podcast please check out our

and now let me leave you with some words

when something is important enough you

do it even if the odds are not in your

thank you for listening and hope to see