Elon Musk 'The Real Ironman'

In life, we've seen, within this part of the
world,

great people, like Al-Khawarizmi who invented
algorithm.

Globally, Newton.

Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers,
Albert Einstein and Elon Musk.

See, you are in rush,
You want to go to places that nobody has been.

You are re-inventing a certain industry,
from the rocket industry with SpaceX to the

car industry with Tesla.

What's your life mission?

Why do you do whatever you do?

Sure, first of all, thank you for having me.

It's an honor to be here.

And I'm having a really great time with my
kids in Dubai.

It's really been fantastic.

I really encourage
anyone who hasn't been to visit, what a great

city!

Thank you.

And, in terms of the motivations,
I used to like this sort of...

kind of a long version of the explanation
but...

essentially, when I was a kid I was wondering,
what's the meaning of life?

Like, why are we here?

What is it all about?

And I came to the conclusion that what really
matters is

trying to understand the right questions to
ask.

And the more that we can increase the scope
and scale of human consciousness,

the better we're able to ask these questions.

And...

So, I think there are certain things that
are necessary

to ensure that the future is good.

And...
some of those things are in the long term

having
long term sustainable transport and sustainable

energy generation.

And to be a space exploring civilization.

And for humanity to be out there among the
stars.

And be a multi-planetary species.

I think that being a multi-planetary species
and being out there among the stars

is important for the long-term survival of
humanity.

And, that's one reason, kind of like life
insurance

for life collectively.

Life as we know it.

But then the part that I find personally most
motivating is that

it creates a sense of adventure,
and it makes people excited about the future.

If you consider two futures, one where we
are forever confined to Earth

until eventually something terrible happens.

Or another future where we are out there on
many planets,

maybe even going beyond the solar system.

I think that space invasion is incredibly
exciting and inspiring.

And there need to be reasons to get up in
the morning.

You know, life can't just be about solving
problems.

Otherwise, what's the point?

There's got to be things that people find
inspiring,

and make life worth living.

So, what is life for you?

I mean, you look at our life, and I heard
you before speaking.

Is it a dream?

Is it real?

Is it a million deal?

What is life for Elon Musk?

I find that as I get older I find that question
to be

maybe more and more confusing or troubling
or uncertain.

Particularly when you see the advancement
of something like video games.

You know, 40 years ago, you had video games,
the most advanced video game would be

like Pong, when you had two rectangles and
a dot.

And you're like batting it back and forth.

• I played it.

• Yeah, me too, exactly.

• Us all.

• It sort of dates you a little bit.

Yeah, we both played the same game.

And that was like a pretty fun game at the
time.

But now, you can see a video game that's photo-realistic,
almost photo-realistic,

and millions of people playing simultaneously.

And, and you see where things are going with
virtual reality.

And augmented reality and...
if you extrapolate that out into the future

with any rate of progress at all,
like keeping 0.1% of something like that a

year,
then eventually those games will be indistinguishable

from reality.

They'll be so realistic you won't be able
to tell the difference between

that game and reality as we know it.

And then, it seems like, well,
how do we know that that didn't happen in

the past?

And that we're not in one of those games ourselves?

Interesting.

Interesting.

I mean, it could be.

Everything is possible in life.

I mean there's...

Yeah, particularly like things tend to be
accelerating to something.

Isn't it?

I mean, if we look at our life,
it seems in the past 100 years life has been

accelerating quite fast.

• Yeah.

• In the past 20 years.

• It's getting faster and faster.

• Is it more slow?

So, my question is really, how will life be
20, 30, 50 years from now?

Our education, our transport.

How do you see it?

Well, I think this is one of those things
that are quite difficult to predict.

When you think of, say, the first controlled
power flight was in 1903

with the Wright Brothers.

And then, 66 years later we put the first
people on the moon.

I mean, if you asked people, say, in 1900,
what are the odds of landing on the moon they

would've said that's ridiculous.

If you try to talk to them about the internet
they wouldn't know what the heck you're even...

What are you talking about?

Like, this sounds so crazy.

But today, with a hundred-dollar device you
can video-conference

with anyone in the world.

On the other side of the world, and if you
have a Wi-Fi connection,

it's basically free.

You're free to have an instant visual communication
with anyone,

or even with millions of people.

You know, with social media you can communicate
to millions of people

simultaneously.

So, and you can google something and ask any
question.

It's like an oracle of wisdom,
that you can ask almost any questions and

get an instant response.

It would be incredibly difficult to predict
these things in the past.

Even the relatively recent past.

So, I think the one thing that we can be quite
certain of

is that any predictions we make today for
what the future will be like in 50 years

will be wrong
That's for sure.

I think directionally,
I can tell you what I hope the future has,

as opposed to maybe what it will be.

This may just be wishful thinking.

I mean I hope we are out there on Mars and
maybe beyond Mars, Jupiter.

I hope we're traveling frequently throughout
the solar system,

perhaps preparing for missions to nearby star
systems.

I think all of that is possible in 50 years.

And I think it's going to be very exciting
to do that.

And, I think we'll see autonomy and artificial
intelligence

advance tremendously.

Like that's actually quite near term.

My guess is in probably 10 years,
it will be very unusual for cars to be built

that are not fully autonomous.

• 10 years.

• 10 years from now?

Yeah.

I think almost all cars built will be able
of full autonomy

in about 10 years.

As it is, the Tesla cars that are made today,
have the sensor system necessary for full

autonomy.

And we think probably enough compute power
to be safer than a person.

So, it's mostly just the question of developing
the software

and uploading the software.

And if it turns out that more compute power
is needed,

we can easily upgrade the computer.

And, so that's all Teslas built since October
last year.

And other manufacturers will follow and do
the same thing.

So, getting in a car will be like getting
in an elevator.

You just tell it where you want to go and
it takes you there

with extreme levels of safety.

And that will be normal, that will just be
normal.

Like, for elevators, they used to be elevator
operators.

You get in, there will be a guy moving a lever.

Now, you just get in, you press the button
and that's taken for granted.

So, autonomy will be wide-spread.

I think one of the most troubling questions
is artificial intelligence.

And I don't mean narrow AI, like,
vehicle autonomy I would put in the narrow

AI class.

It's narrowly trying to achieve a certain
function.

But deep artificial intelligence,
or what is sometimes called artificial general

intelligence,
where you can have AI that is much smarter

than the smartest human on Earth.

This, I think, is a dangerous situation.

Why is it dangerous?

I mean, there are two views,
one view is that artificial intelligence will

help humanity,
and there's another school of thought that

artificial intelligence is a threat to humanity.

• Why is that?

• I think it's both.

You know, it's like...
one way to think of it is imagine we're going

to be visited...
imagine you're very confident that we're going

to be visited by
super intelligent aliens,

in let's say 10 years or 20 years at the most.

• Super intelligent.

• So, you think within 20 years...

• Yeah... - we'll have aliens on Earth?

Well, digital super intelligence will be like
an alien.

• It will be like an alien.

• Yeah.

But my question is, do you think
there is other intelligent life outside the

Earth?

It seems probable.

I think this is one of the great questions
in physics and philosophy,

is, where are the aliens?

Maybe they are among us, I don't know.

Some people think I'm an alien.

Not true.

• Not true.

• But maybe we are aliens.

Maybe we aliens.

I mean, if you look at this part of the world.

Yeah.

They believe that human beings are not from
Earth,

they came from somewhere else.

Eve and Adam came from somewhere else to Earth.

So, in a way, human beings are aliens to this
land.

Do you think we'll make contact with aliens
within the next 50 years?

Well, that's a really tough one to say.

If there are super intelligent aliens out
there,

they're probably already observing us.

That would seem quite likely and we're not
smart enough to realize it.

But I can do some back of the envelope calculations
and...

any advanced alien civilization that is at
all interested

in populating the galaxy,
even without exceeding the speed of light,

even if you're only moving at, say, 10 or
20 per cent of the speed of light,

you could populate the entire galaxy in let's
say 10 million years.

Maybe 20 million years max.

This is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Once you said you wanted to die on Mars.

Why?

To be clear, I don't want to die on Mars.

It's like, if... we're all going to die someday,
and if you're going to pick some place to

die,
then why not Mars?

You know, if you're born on Earth, why not
die on Mars?

Seems like may be quite exciting.

But, I think given the choice between dying
on Earth and dying on Mars,

I'd say, yeah, sure, I'll die on Mars.

But it's not some kind of Mars death wish.

And if I do die on Mars, I just don't want
to go on impact.

Let's come back to Earth, actually.

You tweeted that you are building a tunnel
under Washington D.C.

Why?

What is it?

• It's a secret plot.

• Okay.

• Just between us.

• Nobody helps you?

Yeah, exactly, let's keep that a secret.

I think this is going to sound a little...

I mean, it seems like so much trivial or silly,
but...

I've been saying this for many years now but
I think that

the solution to urban congestion is a network
of tunnels under cities.

And when I say that I don't mean a 2-D plan
of tunnels,

I mean tunnels that go many levels deep.

So, you can always go deeper than you can
go up.

Like, the deepest mines are deeper than the
tallest buildings.

So, you can have a network of tunnels that
is 20, 30, 40, 50 levels,

as many levels as you want, really.

And so, given that, you can overcome the congestion
situation

in any city in the world.

The challenge is how do you build tunnels
quickly and at low cost

and with high safety?

So, if tunnel technology can be improved to
the point where

you can build tunnels fast, cheap and safe,
then that would completely get rid of any

traffic situations in the cities.

And so, that's why I think it's an important
technology.

And, Washington D.C., L.A and most of the
major American cities,

most major cities in the world suffer from
severe traffic issues.

And it's mostly because you've got these buildings
which are,

these tall buildings that are 3-D and you
have a road network that is one level.

And then, people generally want to go in and
out of these buildings

at the exact same time.

So, then, you get the traffic jam.

Let's come back to...
your year in Dubai.

The first time I met you it was the 4th of
June 2015,

at your office in SpaceX.

And, I asked you would you have a presence
in UAE?

And your answer was: I'm busy with China.

Maybe not in the near future, and almost a
year and a half later,

we are here, seems time goes quite fast.

Why now?

I think actually things are going really well
in China.

So, we have some initial challenges figuring
out charging

and service infrastructure and various other
things, but

now it's actually going really well, and...
so the timing seems to be good to really make

a significant debut
in this region, starting in Dubai.

In your opinion, what is the new disturbing
thing

that will come next in technology?

What's next in technology?

• What's next in technology?

• That will disturb the way we live,
  the way we think, the way we do business.

Well, the most near to impact from a technological
standpoint

is autonomous cars, like fully self-driving
cars.

I'd say that's going to happen much faster
than people realize.

so, and that's...
it's going to be a great convenience to be

in an autonomous car,
but there are many people whose job is to

drive.

So, if... in fact I think it might be the
single largest employer

of people is driving in various forms.

And so, then we need to figure out new rules
for what do these people do.

But it will all be very disruptive and very
quick.

I should characterize what I mean by quick.

Because there are...

Quick means different things to different
people.

There are about two billion vehicles in the
world.

Approaching in fact 2.5 billion cars and trucks
in the world.

The total new vehicle production capacity
is about a hundred million.

Which makes sense, because the life of a car
or truck

before it's finally scraped is about 20-25
years.

So, so the point at which we see full autonomy
appear

will not be the point at which there is massive
societal upheaval,

because it will take a long time to make enough
autonomous vehicles

to disrupt employment.

So, that disruption I'm talking about will
take place over about 20 years.

Still, 20 years is a short period of time
to have I think something like

12 to 15 per cent of the world force be unemployed.

Thank you.

This is the largest global government summit
we have over 139 governments here.

If you want to advise government officials
to be ready for the future,

what three pieces of advice can you give them?

Well, I think the first bit of advice is to
really play close attention to...

the development of artificial intelligence.

I think this is, we need to be just be very
careful in...

how we adopt artificial intelligence,
and to make sure that researchers don't get

carried away,
because sometimes what happens is that scientists

can get so
engrossed in their work,

they don't necessarily realize the ramifications
of what they're doing.

So, I think it's important for public safety
that we...

you know, governments keep a close eye on
artificial intelligence

and make sure that it does not represent a
danger to the public.

Let's see, secondly I would say
we do need to think about transport in general.

And,
there's the movement towards electric vehicles,

sustainable transport,
I think that's going to be good for many reasons,

but again,
not something that happens immediately, that's

going to happen slower than
the self-driving vehicles.

Because that's probably something that happens
over 30 or 40 years.

The transition to electric vehicles.

So, thinking about that in context...
the demand for electricity will increase dramatically.

So, currently, in terms of total energy usage
in the world,

it's about 1/3, about 1/3 transport, about
1/3 heating.

So, over time that will transition to almost
all...

not all, but predominantly electricity,
which means that the demand for electricity

will probably triple.

So, it's going to be very important to think
about how do you make

so much more electricity
And...

It seems they'll have an easy job, that's
it,

there are no more challenges for them.

No, well, I think maybe...
these things do play into each other a little

bit,
but what to do about mass unemployment?

This is going to be a massive social challenge.

And I think ultimately will have to have some
kind of universal basic income

I don't think we're going to have a choice.

• Universal basic income.

• Universal basic income.

I think it's going to be necessary.

So, it means that unemployed people will be
paid across the globe.

• Yeah.

• Because there are no jobs.

Machines, robots are taking over.

There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a
robot cannot do better.

That's simply...

And I want to be clear, these are not things
that I wish would happen.

These are simply things that I think probably
will happen.

And so, if my assessment is correct and they
probably will happen,

then we need to say what are we going to do
about it.

And I think some kind of universal basic income
is going to be necessary.

Now, the output of goods and services will
be extremely high.

So, with automation,
there will come abundance.

There will be... almost everything will get
very cheap.

The...

So...

I think the biggest...

I think we'll just end up doing
a universal basic income.

It's going to be necessary.

The harder challenge, much harder challenge,
is how do people then have meaning?

Like a lot of people they derive their meaning
from their employment,

so, if you don't have... if you're not needed,
if there's not a need for your labor, how

do you...

what's the meaning?

Do you have meaning?

Do you feel useless?

That's a much harder problem to deal with.

And then how do we ensure that the future
is going to be the future that we want?

That we so like.

You know, I mean do think that there's a potential
path here which is,

I'm really getting into science fiction or
sort of advanced science stuff.

But, having some sort of merger with biological
intelligence,

and machine intelligence.

To some degree, we are already a cyborg.

You think of like the digital tools that you
have,

your phone and your computer, the applications
that you have.

Like the fact that as I mentioned earlier
you can ask a question

and instantly get an answer from Google or
from other things.

And, and so you already have a digital touchery
layer.

I say touchery because you can think of the
limbic system,

kind of the animal brain or the primal brain
and then the cortex,

kind of the thinking, planning part of the
brain,

and then your digital self as a third layer.

So, you already have that, and I think if
somebody dies,

their digital ghost is still around.

All of their e-mails and the pictures that
they posted and their social media.

That still lives, even if they died.

So, over time I think we'll probably see
a closer merger of biological intelligence

and digital intelligence.

And it's mostly about the bandwidth,
the speed of the connection between your brain

and your digital...
the digital extension of yourself.

Particularly output, and, if anything is getting
worse,

you know, we used to have keyboards that we
used a lot,

now we do most of our input through our thumbs,
on a phone.

And, that's just very slow.

A computer can communicate at a trillion bits
per second,

but your thumb can maybe do maybe 10 bits
per second or a hundred

if you're being generous.

So, some high bandwidth interface to the brain
I think will be

something that helps achieve symbiosis,
between human and machine intelligence and

maybe solves
the control problem and the usefulness problem.

I'm getting pretty esoteric here, I don't
know is this is...

It's close, we got it.

Always you think out of the box.

Your ideas are so huge.

You want to go to space, you decided to go
to space, you did it.

You decided that you wanted to land your rocket
back,

• you failed, 7 times, 8 times?

• Yeah, something like that.

• Then it landed.

• 4 times that I care to count.

How do you come with these ideas?

Sometimes they are pushing the human limit.

You are always pushing the human limit, why?

Well, I...

I think about what technology solution is
necessary in order to achieve

that particular goal,
and then try to make as much progress in that

direction as possible.

So, in the case of space flight, the critical
breakthrough

that's necessary in space flight,
is rapid incomplete reusability of rockets.

Just as we have for air crafts.

You can imagine that if an air craft was a
single use,

almost no one would fly.

Because you can buy like, say, 747 might be...

250 million Dollars, 300 million Dollars,
something like that.

You need two of them for a round trip.

But nobody is going to pay millions of Dollars
for a ticket to fly.

To do air travel.

So, but because you can re-use the air craft
tens of thousands of times,

the...

Air travel becomes much more affordable.

And, the same is true of rockets.

Our rocket costs...

60 million Dollars, roughly.

So, a capital cost if it can be used once
in 60 million Dollars.

But if the capital cost if it can be used
a thousand times is 60 thousand Dollars.

So, then if you can carry a lot of people
for a flight,

then you can get the cost of space flight
to be something not far

from the cost of air flight.

So, it's truly fundamental,
because earth gravity is quite deep.

Earth has a fairly high gravity.

The difficulty of making a rocket reusable
is much greater than the difficulty of making

an air craft reusable.

That's why a fully reusable rocket hasn't
been developed that far.

But if you use the most advanced materials,
the most advanced design techniques,

and you get everything just right,
then I'm confident that you can do a fully

reusable rocket.

Fortunately, if Earth gravity was even 10
per cent stronger,

I would say it wouldn't be impossible.

You need a team around you to deliver a lot
of ideas.

How do you choose your team?

Based on what?

Well, I suppose honestly that it tends to
be a gut feeling more than anything else.

So, when I interview somebody,
the main questions are always the same.

What do you ask?

I say: Tell me the story of your life.

And, the decisions that you made along the
way

and why you made them.

And then,
and also tell me about some of the most difficult

problems you worked on
and how you solved them.

And,
that question I think is very important, because...

the people that really solved the problem,
they know exactly how they solved it.

They know the little details.

And the people that pretended to solve the
problem,

they can maybe go one level and then they
get stuck.

So, what was your biggest challenge in life?

Biggest challenge in life?

• No challenge?

• Well, no, there's a lot of them.

I'm trying to sort which is the worst.

I think just thinking about how to spend time.

One of the biggest challenges I think is making
sure you have

a corrective feedback loop,
and then maintaining that corrective feedback

loop over time,
even when people won't to tell you exactly

what you want to hear.

• That's very difficult.

• Yes.

Time is over.

I'll ask you just one last question.

If you allow me.

In the World Government Summit we have
so many people from... so many young people

actually
from across the Globe.

If you have an advice to them,
young people globally who want to be like

Elon Musk.

What's your advice to them?

I think that probably they shouldn't want
to be.

• You?

• I think it sounds better than it is.

Okay.

Yeah, it's not as much fun being me as you'd
think.

• I don't know.

• You don't think so?

It could be worse, for sure.

But it's...

I'm not sure I want to be me.

Okay.

But...

You know, I think my advice is if you want
to make progress in things,

I think that the best analytical framework
for, I'll say in the future is physics.

I'd recommend studying the thinking process
around physics.

Like, not just the equations, the equations
are certainly very helpful,

but the way of thinking in physics, it's the
best framework

for understanding things that are counter–intuitive.

And, you know, always take the position that
you are to some degree wrong,

and your goal is to be less wrong over time.

One of the biggest mistakes people generally
make and I'm guilty of it too

is wishful thinking.

You know, like you want something to be true,
even if it isn't true.

And so you ignore the things that...

You ignore the real truth, because of what
you want to be true.

This is a very difficult trap to avoid.

And like I said, it's certainly one that I
find myself in, having problems with.

But, if you just take that approach of that
you're always to some degree wrong

and your goal is to be less wrong.

And solicit critical feedback, particularly
from friends.

Like, friends, if somebody loves you they
want the best for you.

They don't want to tell you the bad things.

So, you have to ask them and say: I do really
want to know.

And then they will tell you.

Thank you very much.

It's been...

It's great for the World Government Summit
to have a legend,

who's creating the future for humanity,
to share his thoughts, his ideas, his visions,

challenges,
and his hope for life.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me.