Elon Musk: AI and robots 'the only way' to meaningfully boost standards of living

AI and robotics as the path to abundance

00:00Tesla is obviously about uh sustainable technology and uh and and also at this point we've we've sort of added to our mission sustainable abundance. So with robotics and AI um this this is really the path to abundance for all. If you say, you know, people often talk about uh solving global poverty or essentially how how do we make give everyone a very high standard of living? I I think the only way to do this is AI and robotics. Um which which doesn't mean that it is uh without its issues. I mean there's we need to be very careful with AI. We need to be very careful with robotics. We don't want to find ourselves in a James Cameron movie. Uh, you know, Terminator, >> he's he's great. Great movies. Love his

Broadening the economic expansion

00:58movies, but but we don't want to be in Terminator, obviously. Um but but if you have um ubiquitous AI that is essentially free or close to it and ubiquitous robotics uh then uh you will have an an explosion in the in the global economy an expansion in the global economy that is truly beyond all precedent. >> Elen can that expansion be broad? Yes. >> Or is it narrow and how can that be created? How can it broaden the global economy? >> Yeah, it's I mean I mean a way to think of it is that if you have a large number of humanoid robots um the economic output is the average productivity per robot times the number of robots, >> right? Um and and actually my prediction is in the in the benign scenario of the

01:56future that we will the robots we will actually make so many robots in AI that they will actually saturate all human needs. Meaning you won't be able to even think of something to ask the robot for at a certain point like like there will be such an abundance of goods and services because the my prediction is there'll be there'll be more robots than people. So >> but how do you then have human purpose in that scenario? >> Yeah, I mean you know there are nothing's perfect, you know. [laughter] Um but I mean I mean is it it is a a necessary um like you can't have both. You can't have work that has to be done uh um and uh amazing abundance for all. Um because if it's if it's work that has to be done then then then you and and

02:51only some people can do it then then you you you can't have abundance. >> Then it's narrow. >> It's narrow. Exactly. So, um, but if you if you have billions of humanoid robots, and I think there will be, um, then I think I think everyone on Earth is going to have one and going to want one. Um, because, uh, you who wouldn't want a robot to, you know, um, assuming it's very safe, uh, watch over your kids, take care of your pet. Uh if you have elderly parents, uh a lot of friends of mine said they have elderly parents. It's it's uh very difficult to take care of them. >> Expensive. >> Yeah, it's expensive and it's expensive and there just aren't enough people to take care of the there aren't enough

Human purpose and personal robots

03:34young people to take care of the old people, >> right? >> Um so if you if they um if if you had a robot that could take care of and protect an an elderly parent, I think that would be great. That would be an amazing thing to have. Um and and that I think we will have those things. So I mean overall I'm I'm very optimistic about the future. I think we're headed for a future of amazing abundance. Uh which is very cool. Um and uh and and definitely [clears throat] we are in the most interesting time in history. Um I don't think there's more a more interesting time in history. So, >> can we uh can you and I reverse aging in this new history or or or are we going to see it? >> You know, I haven't I haven't put much

Optimism and the most interesting time in history

04:23time into uh the aging stuff. I I do think it is a very solvable problem like like you can I think when when we figure out what causes aging, >> I think we'll find it's incredibly obvious. It's not a subtle thing. Um, the reason I say it's not a subtle thing is because all the cells in your body, you know, with some pretty much age at the same rate. I've never seen someone with with an old left arm and a young right arm ever in my life. >> Um, so why is that? That means that there must be a clock, a synchronizing clock, >> right, >> that is synchronizing across 35 trillion cells in your body. Um and uh you know the but there is some benefit to death by the way. It's like there's there's a reason why we don't actually

05:16have a longer lifespan. Uh because if you if you have if people do live forever for very long time I think there's some risk of an oification of society of of things just getting kind of locked in place. Um and uh you know it it just may become um stalifying just not uh lack lack vibrancy. Um but but that that that said do I think we'll figure out ways to extend life and um and maybe even reverse aging. I think that's highly likely. >> I'm looking forward to that. >> Yeah. Uh so um in the future that you talk about AI models, autonomous machines, rockets depends on massive increases of compute, massive increases in energy, expensive energy, manufacturing scale, what are the bottlenecks to to get

Bottlenecks: compute, chips, and energy

06:19there? And once again with all that expenditures again, how can we make sure that it's broadened, not narrow? Um [clears throat] I I just think the natural thing is it's going to be very broad because uh AI companies will seek as many customers as they possibly can and the cost of AI will get is already very low and it's it's plummeting every year. I mean you almost the cost of AI is almost ch meaningfully changing on a month-to-month basis. >> There's open there's open models now everywhere. Yeah. >> Yes. very there's open models um [clears throat] and the open models only lag they're maybe a year behind right the the private the sort of closed models >> um so so I I think the the the ai companies will seek as as many customers

07:14as possible which means they'll seek they'll provide AI to the world >> but the cost of getting to there the compute the chips um the fab um the powering ing that to me what are the what are the you know those are huge >> the limiting factor yeah I think the limiting factor for um AI deployment is fundamentally electrical power >> it's just right [clears throat] it's energy >> yeah yeah um I mean we're seeing the the rate of AI chip production increase exponentially but the rate of electricity being brought online is uh >> 3% 4% a year max >> yeah it's clear that we're we're for we're very soon, maybe even later this year, uh we'll be producing more chips than we can turn on except for