It seems Elon Musk is a bit like 'Marmite' (or 'vegemite' if you are in Australia) in that you either 'love him or hate him'. I personally here are lot of positives and negatives - so I thought I'd take the time to listen to his recent appearance on the Joe Rogan show. I have had my issues with Joe in the past, but this show has a nice flow and feels more honest than most interviews I see.
Not only does Elon talk about AI, his Tesla cars, underground tunnels and flamethrower merchandise, but he smokes some cannabis too and claims it makes no difference... But I think you will see from the chronology of the quotes below that there is some change post weed ;)
The full 2.5 hour interview is below.
On AI
I tried to tell them, nobody listened
Elon says that he spoke with Obama and many other US government 'officials' about the existential threat of AI and he thinks that mostly they didn't really understand it. As Joe points out, this moment in the podcast is like a scene from many sci-fi movies.
The real threat from AI comes from humans using it against other humans
Elon says he perceives that the weaponisation of AI by corrupt humans is the greatest threat posed.
Humans and Google/Facebook/Twitter are all giant cybernetic collectives
A hive mind of humanity interacting with AI is already with us!
Best case scenario: We merge with AI
Elon states that in his mind, the best that can happen is that humans merge with advanced AI and increase their intelligence as a result. His company is part way through creating technology to achieve this.
Most people are already cyborgs - their phone is a cybernetic extension of themselves
He points out that humans are already partially cyborgs by the way we often use Smartphones throughout the day to extend our mindspace and capacity.
Elon Musk's Spirit on Weed & Whisky
I prefer to be an optimist than a pessimist
In response to Joe pointing out the huge potential for destruction resulting from development of AI, Elon says he has given up being fatalistic about the highly risky outcome and chooses optimism instead.
The universe as we know it will dissipate into a fine mist of cold nothingness eventually
Elon shows that perhaps he is a little more of a pessimist than his rose tinted glasses is letting in ;)
weed has no effect on me
Joe offers Elon a weed/tobacco smoke and Elon takes a hit. He later claims that weed has no effect on him and he doesn't use it (hardly ever).
love is the answer
Despite the weed 'having no effect' - Elon concludes that love is the way. Maybe the weed did have some tiny effect after all! :)
it's easy to demonise people, you are usually wrong about it
Maybe this is partially a reference to himself in that so many people do openly demonise him on social media.
The Full Interview
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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