StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (3)
Transcript
0:02Neil deGrasse Tysonegg hatched you into this world? Where were you before you?
0:07Elon MuskWell, I was born in South Africa.
0:09Neil deGrasse TysonBorn in South Africa and you come to America and make a billion dollars?
0:12Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I didn't expect to make a billion dollars. I suppose I grew up in South Africa, honestly, seeing a lot of the same TV and movies and reading comic books, and it really didn't feel all that different from, say, Southern California, honestly.
0:29Neil deGrasse TysonSo you had a kind of baptism into American pop culture at the time?
0:32Elon MuskYeah, yeah. I mean, I ate a lot of hamburgers and went to steakhouses and read like every comic book, you know. So my father brought me on a trip to the United States when I think I was about 10.
0:42Elon MuskI remember it was a really awesome experience because the hotels all had arcades. So my number one thing was when we went to a new hotel or motel or whatever it is, go to the arcades.
0:51Elon MuskAnd so they had.
0:52Neil deGrasse TysonForget any other services, forget whether they had bed bugs. You're looking for arcade games?
0:56Elon MuskYeah.
0:57Neil deGrasse TysonWhat did video games do for you?
0:59Elon MuskThey're incredibly engaging and they made me want to learn how to program computers because then I thought, well, I could make my own games and then I could also.
1:06Elon MuskI wanted to see how the games worked. Like, how did you create a video game? That's what led me to learn how to program computers.
1:11Neil deGrasse TysonSo you became a programmer?
1:13Elon MuskYeah, so I had one of the first video game consoles. It didn't even have cartridges. It had like four games that you could play and you could pick which one of the four games you could play.
1:21Elon MuskThat was it. And then it went from there to the original Atari and then television. And then I was in a store and saw a Commodore Vic 20 and I was like, holy crow, you can actually have a computer and make your own games.
1:34Elon MuskI thought this was just one of the most incredible things possible. Took all of my saved allowance and then hounded my father until we got the Commodore VIC 20.
1:42Elon MuskAnd then it came with this manual on how to program in basic, which I sort of spent all night, several days in a row just absorbing that.
1:49Neil deGrasse TysonAnd on your own, no one forced you?
1:51Elon MuskNo, I.
1:52Neil deGrasse TysonThis was self motivated. I gotta know this.
1:54Elon MuskThis is good for me. I've just been like 9, 9 or 10 or something.
1:57Neil deGrasse TysonSo you're fluent in basic at age 9 or 10?
2:00Elon MuskYeah, I kind of went. Got OCD on the thing. Maybe it's not technically ocd, it's. But I still got obsessive. Let me put that at least the O part.
2:07Neil deGrasse TysonSo programming has power you get to control something.
2:10Elon MuskYou construct a little universe. And when you first do it, you're like, wow, this is incredible. You can actually make things happen. Like, you type these commands and then something happens on the screen that's pretty amazing.
2:21Elon MuskWhen I was in college, I sort of thought, well, what are the things that are most going to affect the future of humanity? And electric cars, solar power, essentially sustainable.
2:28Neil deGrasse TysonMost people think, I just want a job when I get out. And you're trying to reshape humanity as an undergraduate.
2:34Elon MuskI mean, it's pretty. In America, it's pretty easy to keep yourself alive. So, I mean, my threshold for existing is pretty low. I mean, I figured I could, like, be in some dingy apartment with my computer and be okay and not starve.
2:46Elon MuskIn fact, when I first came to North America, I was in Canada when I was 17. And just to sort of see what it takes to live, I tried to live on $1 a day, which I was able to do.
2:57Elon MuskYou sort of just buy food in bulk at the supermarket?
2:59Neil deGrasse TysonYeah. Rice and beans in there.
3:01Elon MuskYeah. I went more for the hot dogs. Hot dogs and oranges. You get really tired of hot dogs and oranges after a while. And we can also pasta and green pepper and a big thing of source, and that can go pretty far, too.
3:18Elon MuskSo it's like, oh, okay, you know, if I can live for a dollar a day, then at least from a food cost standpoint, well, it's pretty easy to earn, like $30 in a month, you know?
3:26Neil deGrasse TysonYeah, I would think so.
3:27Elon MuskProbably be okay.
3:28Neil deGrasse TysonOkay. So that allowed you to not have to worry about money because you did the experiment.
3:32Elon MuskYeah, I did the experiment, exactly.
3:33Neil deGrasse TysonSo this was an important psychological, philosophical anchor for you. Not to put words in your mouth, but that's a starting point to launch anywhere you want to go.
3:42Elon MuskYeah, absolutely.
3:43Neil deGrasse TysonAnd so now you've got a baseline, a life baseline from which to go new places, intellectually, psychologically, financially. So what came first? Thoughts of an electric car or thoughts of space?
3:54Elon MuskYou know, when you're starting out in college, like in your freshman sophomore year, like, you have these sort of sophomore philosophical wanderings. And I try to think of, okay, what are the things that will seem to me would most affect the future of humanity?
4:06Elon MuskThere were really five things, three of which I thought would be interesting to be involved in. The three that I thought were definitely positive would be the Internet, sustainable energy, both production and consumption, and space exploration, more specifically, the extension of life beyond Earth on a permanent basis.
4:21Elon MuskAnd then, although I never thought I would actually be involved in that. That was really something I thought that was important in the abstract, but not something I thought I would ever have an opportunity to be involved in.
4:30Elon MuskAnd then the fourth one was artificial intelligence, and the fifth one was rewriting human genetics. These were just the five things that I thought would most affect the future of humanity.
4:41Elon MuskWhen I started out, my goal was to do a philanthropic mission with the intent of increasing NASA's budget. That was my goal. I was confused as to why we had not yet sent a person to Mars.
4:51Elon MuskIt seemed like this was obviously the goal after the moon and we'd not made progress on that. And when it became clear that paper was going to get sold, a friend of mine asked me what I'm going to do next.
5:00Elon MuskAnd I said, well, I mean, I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I'm always curious about what's going on with space and why have we made progress.
5:05Elon MuskI just wonder when we're going to send a person to Mars. So I went on NASA website and I couldn't find a date. I was like, well maybe it's here somewhere and I just can't find it.
5:16Neil deGrasse TysonThe date that NASA wants to land on Mars.
5:17Elon MuskYeah, there's got to be like some schedule or something. We're looking for a game plan or it's this date, even if it's far in the future. There was not to be found anywhere.
5:25Elon MuskAnd anyways, I started learning about that back history and I thought, well, okay, maybe there's something that I can do to send a small mission to the surface of Mars that would get the public excited.
5:36Elon MuskAnd as a result of that public excitement, NASA's budget will be increased and we could resume process of sending people to Mars, essentially.
5:43Neil deGrasse TysonSo you thought you can do that with your lousy billion dollars?
5:46Elon MuskNo, I didn't have a billion dollars at that time. I had about 180 million, still a lot. And I figured, well, maybe I could spent half of that on a mission to Mars.
5:57Elon MuskSo I spent a fair bit of time investigating the space industry and eventually started on this idea of sending a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars called the Mars Oasis mission.
6:06Elon MuskAnd so you have seas in dehydrated gel. It would land, you hydrate the gel upon landing and you'd have this great shot of green plants on a red background.
6:14Elon MuskAnd the public responds to precedents and supporters. So this would be the first life on another planet furthest that life's ever traveled as far as we know.
6:21Neil deGrasse TysonThat's how you Get a headline.
6:22Elon MuskYeah, yeah, exactly. It's got to be something new or something superlative. And I thought, well, and that would maybe reinvigorate excitement, and the result would be NASA's budget gets increased.
6:32Elon MuskSo the whole goal in the beginning was just how do we get more money for NASA? But after spending a fair bit of time on this, I came to the conclusion that I was actually incorrect.
6:41Elon MuskMy initial assumption was wrong because I thought that where there's a will, there's a way, and that we just sort of lost our will. That's false. There's plenty of will.
6:49Elon MuskPeople needed to believe that there was a way and a way that would not bankrupt the country or mean that they would have to sacrifice something of critical importance, like healthcare.
6:58Elon MuskSo it became clear that the space transport problem had to be solved. Unless there was a dramatic improvement in the cost of space transport, then none of it would matter.
7:08Neil deGrasse TysonSo in your first successful launch, what was the cost per pound to orbit?
7:13Elon MuskAbout $6,000.
7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson6,000. Okay, that's an improvement.
7:17Elon MuskYeah, not bad.
7:18Neil deGrasse TysonNot $100 a pound.
7:19Elon MuskNo, to get to $100 a pound, you need a big rocket that's fully reusable.
7:23Neil deGrasse TysonAre you there yet?
7:24Elon MuskNo, we're making progress, though it's been 12 years. So far, we've not recovered a stage, but I think we'll recover a stage within the next year and be able to reflight.
7:35Neil deGrasse TysonIs there a date on your website
7:37Elon Muskwhere someone can say he's going to land on Mars? Touche. Good point.
7:42Neil deGrasse TysonThat sounds like a no.
7:43Elon MuskWell, I mean, I've said it publicly many times. Although maybe we should put something on the website, which is that I think we've got a decent shot of being able to send a person to Mars in about 11 or 12 years.
7:54Elon MuskFrom a terrestrial standpoint, the biggest problem we need to solve in Earth this century is sustainable production and consumption of energy. This really is quite a serious problem. People really should take this quite seriously.
8:06Elon MuskEven if you put the environmental consequences of dramatically changing the chemical composition of the oceans and atmosphere aside, we will eventually run out of oil.
8:16Neil deGrasse TysonHolding that aside, well, if we don't
8:20Elon Muskfind a solution to burning oil for transport and we then run out of oil, the economy will collapse and civilization will come to an end. Or as we know it, with or without global warming.
8:30Elon MuskYeah, with or without warming, exactly. I mean, and so if we know that we have to ultimately get off oil no matter what, we know that that is an inescapable outcome.
8:38Elon MuskIt's simply a question of when, not if. Then why would you run this crazy experiment of changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans by adding enormous amounts of CO2 that have been buried since the pre Cambrian era?
8:51Elon MuskThat's crazy. That is the dumbest experiment in history by far.
8:57Neil deGrasse TysonIt's not even.
8:58Elon MuskCan you think of a dumber experiment? I honestly cannot. What good could possibly come of it?
9:04Neil deGrasse TysonSo therefore, we need another solution here. But of course, electric cars still uses coal.
9:11Elon MuskThat's why you need sustainable power production
9:13Neil deGrasse Tysonlike solar and wind, which can still charge your car.
9:15Elon MuskYes, of course.
9:17Neil deGrasse TysonWhat we all really want are flying cars.
9:20Elon MuskDo you?
9:20Neil deGrasse TysonYeah.
9:22Elon MuskActually, let me ask you, so are you sure you want a flying car?
9:25Neil deGrasse TysonNo, but it looks cool.
9:26Elon MuskIt does look cool. I mean, you know, whenever you see sort of cities and like some futuristic concept, they always throw the flying car in there.
9:32Neil deGrasse TysonAnd you can't tell me you never thought of it.
9:34Elon MuskNo, I thought a lot about it. Yeah.
9:35Neil deGrasse TysonYeah. Okay.
9:36Elon MuskAnd there's some people I know that are working on flying cars or flying personal transport devices, if you will.
9:41Neil deGrasse TysonHoverboards.
9:42Elon MuskThere are people working on hoverboards. But, I mean, I sort of wonder.
9:45Neil deGrasse TysonAfter the interview, you can show me your hoverboard room.
9:47Elon MuskOkay. I know some people on a hoverboard.
9:50Neil deGrasse TysonI won't tell anybody. The microphone is on mute now, so
9:53Elon Muskyou can just between. Just between us. It's awesome. I'm debating, like, should there be flying cars or shouldn't there be flying cars? I'm of two minds on that. Because if there are flying cars, then, well, obviously you have added this additional dimension where now a car could potentially fall in your head and will be susceptible to weather.
10:14Elon MuskAnd of course, you'd have to have a flying car where it would be like an autopilot, because, I mean, otherwise, forget it.
10:19Neil deGrasse TysonYou don't want people navigating.
10:21Elon MuskYeah, it's got to be autopilot. But even in autopilot scenario, and even if you've got redundant motors and blades, you've still gone from near zero chance of something falling on your head to something greater than that.
10:34Elon MuskAnd there's also a noise challenge. So I saw.
10:37Neil deGrasse TysonWe don't know how to fly quietly.
10:39Elon MuskRight.
10:40Neil deGrasse TysonOkay, so I'll wait it out some longer.
10:41Elon MuskSomething that I do think would definitely help a lot in cities is more tunnels, essentially, with a flying car, you're talking about going 3D. And there's a fundamental flaw with cities where you've got dense office buildings and apartment buildings and duplexes, and they're operating on three dimensions.
10:59Elon MuskBut Then you go to the street and suddenly you're two dimensional because it's
11:01Neil deGrasse Tysona flat, it's a surface. This is how New York City solved this, with the subway going underneath multiple layers of subway. So we are actually traveling in three dimensions, but below the ground rather than in the air.
11:11Elon MuskBut I think if you were to extrapolate that to cars and have more car tunnels, then you would alleviate congestion completely.
11:19Neil deGrasse TysonAnd you wouldn't need the flying car.
11:20Elon MuskYou would not need a flying car in that case. And it would always work. Even if the weather's bad, it would never ice up. It would never ice up and it would not fall on your head.
11:29Neil deGrasse TysonWe're going to get started on that right away.
11:33Elon MuskI mean, I'm quite worried about artificial super intelligence these days. I think, and I've said this publicly, I think it's maybe something more dangerous than nuclear weapons. So we should be really careful about that.
11:43Elon MuskIf there was a very deep super digital super intelligence that was created that could go into rapid recursive self improvement in a non logarithmic way, then that was.
11:54Neil deGrasse TysonAnd it's self learning.
11:55Elon MuskYes. So like it just could reprogram itself to be smarter and iterate very quickly and do that 24 hours a day on millions of computers.
12:03Neil deGrasse TysonWell, that's all she wrote.
12:05Elon MuskThat's all she wrote. I mean, we will be like a pet Labrador if we're lucky. I have a pet Labrador, by the way.
12:13Neil deGrasse TysonWe'll be their pet.
12:14Elon MuskShe's like the friendliest creature.
12:17Neil deGrasse TysonNo, they'll domesticate us so that we will be lap pets to them.
12:22Elon MuskYes. I mean, or something strange is going to happen.
12:26Neil deGrasse TysonThey'll keep the docile humans and get rid of the violent ones and then breed the docile humans.
12:30Elon MuskYeah. I mean, the utility function of the digital superintelligence is of stupendous importance. What does it try to optimize? And we need to be really careful with saying, oh well, how about human happiness?
12:43Elon MuskBecause it may conclude that all unhappy humans should be terminated and that we should all just be captured with dopamine and serotonin directly injected into our brains to maximize happiness.
12:54Elon MuskHappiness. Because it's concluded that dopamine and serotonin are what cause happiness.
12:58Neil deGrasse TysonTherefore.
12:59Elon MuskTherefore maximize. I'm just saying we should exercise caution. I'm quite optimistic about the future. I mean, I don't think we're about to enter a dark age. It could happen, but it's not, I think, not likely anytime soon before you get to Mars.
13:16Elon MuskHopefully not before you get to Mars, but Bear in mind that and part
13:19Neil deGrasse Tysonof the act of trying to get to Mars is a force to keep us out of the Dark ages.
13:24Elon MuskI mean, there's always a chance that something calamitous could happen to Earth. Either a natural man made catastrophe. Certainly we see that in the fossil record and we've invented all sorts of ways of, of doing ourselves in that the dinosaurs didn't have.
13:36Elon MuskAnd we haven't managed to solve the asteroid problem. So therefore our risk is higher. Okay, I'm sure people realize this. If you haven't solved the problems that have caused the prior extinctions and you've added new ones, you've not improved the situation.
13:53Elon MuskAnd that's sort of where we are right now. And you know, there are people, there are some really smart people that are a lot more pessimistic than I am.
14:00Elon MuskLike the Stephen Hawkings of the world and the Martin Reese, the astronomer. They're all quite pessimistic. I'm a naturally optimistic person, but I do think that there's value in establishing life insurance, which if life as we know it is on more than one planet, then the light of consciousness as we know it is likely preserved into the future for much longer.