Elon Musk isn’t just the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors—two of the most innovative companies in the world—he’s also the founder of OpenAI, a billion-dollar non-profit aiming to ensure that artificial intelligence technology benefits all of humanity rather than just the few who can afford it today.
I caught up with Musk recently to talk about AI, how it will affect our future and if he’s worried about super-intelligent machines taking over the planet one day.
What question would you ask Musk?
Elon Musk’s life story reads like a Hollywood movie. He immigrated to Canada from South Africa as a young man in pursuit of the American dream. But he took his unique visions one step further by starting SpaceX, which is set to send humans to Mars within 15 years; and investing in Tesla Motors, which is bringing self-driving cars to streets across America. In an interview with TIME Magazine published today, Elon Musk revealed his thoughts on artificial intelligence (AI), colonizing space, and what’s next for Tesla Motors. Here are some highlights from that conversation.
So what does Elon Musk think about artificial intelligence? I’m increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s a guy with an amulet who said if you chant these words it will take you to safety or someplace good — it turns out it wasn’t true. If you look at where we are with artificial intelligence it really looks like a demonic outlier…with artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. It will take us a long time to figure out how to control [artificial intelligence] systems properly.
Musk’s answer
What would you like to do that you haven’t done yet? That I really want to go into space. It would be great to have a space launch company or a spacecraft company. I just need to figure out how to persuade millions of people to fly thousands of miles into space—using my personal financial resources—when they can watch pretty much everything there is on television in high definition for less than $50 a month. So that’s what I’m working on right now. Trying to figure out why people are not interested in going into space. There’s no compelling reason for people to want it other than national pride, which seems really thin when you say it out loud like that.
According to Musk, if you had to pick one science fiction film which could act as a predictor of what’s going to happen next in technology? It would be The Matrix. He says The Matrix is more realistic than people think it is…if you assume any rate of improvement at all then games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by a thousand from what it is now. Then you just say okay let’s imagine it’s 10,000 years in the future which is nothing on the evolutionary scale.
Who would you like to see interviewed next?
There are few names in technology more familiar than Elon Musk. I’ve already had a chance to speak with him about his life, SpaceX and Tesla Motors; in 2022 I’ll have another conversation with him (assuming he hasn’t moved us all to Mars by then) that will include his thoughts on artificial intelligence. So who would you like to see interviewed next? Sound off in the comments below! And if you have any questions for Elon—please feel free to submit them here. Be sure to come back tomorrow when I publish Part 2 of my interview with Elon. Tomorrow I’ll ask him some of your questions including why he founded SpaceX, what he thinks about self-driving cars and which entrepreneur he’d most like to invest in.
Elon has been thinking about AI for a long time. In 1999 he said The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year timeframe. 10 years at most. So even then, Elon saw AI as a potential threat. He said I think it’s really just common sense that eventually we will have digital super intelligence that will be as smart as us, if not smarter…That’s obviously where things are heading With his background working on artificial intelligence at XERO, I wanted to get Elon’s thoughts in more detail than could fit into our conversation on AI from 2016. Who would you like to see interviewed next? Do you have any burning questions for Elon?
How did you get started with Tesla?
I got started in electronic circuits when I was 9 or 10. I read a book called The Whole Earth Catalog. It was a directory of tools and technology that you could order directly from what were effectively early versions of mail-order catalogues. At that time, I didn’t think much about it, but it made me realize that one could use electronics to do things like control motors. [What has been your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur?: My biggest challenge as an entrepreneur has been finding good partners who share similar goals and visions for where technology will take us. Over time I’ve learned that truly long-term goals are best achieved through a partnership rather than by trying to do everything yourself—particularly in high-tech projects which require many different skill sets to be successful.
What have been your biggest successes? – I think Tesla has been my biggest success. It is not a conventional company in any sense of the word. It’s not just about building electric cars—it’s about opening up new technology that makes using electric cars easier for people. [What are your next big plans for Tesla?] – In 20 years I want to see if we can avoid getting into wars over oil—by either making it irrelevant or switching to sustainable energy. We will soon be mostly energy self-sufficient with solar power and storage batteries that last longer than fossil fuels like coal and oil.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
You should take life seriously. You shouldn’t be optimizing for fun — that’s silly. That will only make you happy for a couple of minutes. Taking life seriously means that you’re thinking about what would matter to you decades from now. There are some fundamentals around being happy, like having good family relationships; doing meaningful work; avoiding medical problems; and having good friends around you. If you get those things right, then no matter how much money or success comes your way it won’t be able to fundamentally change how happy you are.
What would you do if you weren’t doing what you’re doing now?: If I wasn’t working on SpaceX or Tesla, I’d probably be involved with energy in some way. It’s a very important subject for humanity. We need to figure out new ways to power civilization because our current ways aren’t going to last forever. Solar power is a great solution that works better in some parts of the world than others but it’s hard to beat hydrocarbons in terms of how much energy you can store and transport around. What are your thoughts about space travel?: Going into space is exciting because we haven’t been there before — it’s like exploring an unknown frontier. We’ve gone to other planets before but those were dead planets so we didn’t get our hopes up too much!
Why are solar panels important in sustainable energy production?
Solar panels are obviously vital to sustainable energy production. They generate energy from sunlight which is a renewable source of energy which has never run out. By using solar panels along with other power sources such as wind turbines, hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants, we can create a constant flow of energy to be used for our everyday lives without depleting any natural resources. We can now use electricity for all our appliances without harming our environment in any way. Sustainability is a challenge that we must face now if we want to have clean air 50 years from now or even 100 years from now.
Solar panels are also very useful in our everyday lives because they create electricity. We use electricity for all our daily activities such as cooking, cleaning, watching TV and lighting up rooms. We can also use it to power up electrical vehicles that we use for transportation. With solar panels, we no longer have to rely on non-renewable resources like oil to create energy as we can now create renewable energy from sunlight. Solar panels save us a lot of money since fossil fuels cost a lot more than renewable sources of energy. They’re also good for us because they protect us from harmful gases that pollute our air which leads to global warming and climate change which can affect sea levels to rise drastically thus resulting in flooding around the world which could kill millions of people.
Why does sustainable energy matter?
It might seem trite to state that energy is vital for civilization’s growth. But few people think about how much we rely on technology in our day-to-day lives, or what would happen if that technology were to suddenly disappear. The fact is that everything from cars to smartphones is a result of energy generation and distribution. If you live in a major city in North America or Europe, your quality of life might not be possible without it. And while renewable energy sources like solar panels are becoming increasingly common (and important), they will always be a complement to traditional power generation methods—they don’t replace them outright.
Take solar panels for example. Solar panels are an essential part of any sustainable energy solution because they produce power at a low cost. They’re modular, easy to set up and require little maintenance. That being said, it would be naïve to think that solar panels could power an entire city or even a small country entirely—they simply don’t have enough capacity.
Conclusion
Musk is always looking ahead and has already begun to set up some plans for life after humanity. In one interview he said he hopes to die on Mars, just not on impact. No matter what his status in our future—to be remembered as a genius or dismissed as a mad man—we can all agree that Elon Musk is one of a kind. He’s done much more in life than most people ever will, but if he says we shouldn’t be afraid of dying, maybe we should take him at his word—after all, it comes from someone who knows quite a bit about death.
