真是个挑战！要与最……的人之一交谈，在我看来，在人生中，我们已经见过，在世界的这一地区，伟大的人物，比如发明算法的花剌子密。放眼全球，牛顿。亨利·福特、莱特兄弟、阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦和埃隆·马斯克。你看，你很着急，想去无人到过的地方。你正在重新发明某个行业，从 SpaceX 所在的火箭行业，到 Tesla 所在的汽车行业。

你的人生使命是什么？你为什么要做你所做的一切？当然，首先，谢谢你邀请我。能来到这里是我的荣幸。我和孩子们在迪拜玩得非常开心。真的非常棒。我真的建议所有还没来过的人都来看看，多么了不起的城市！谢谢。至于动机，我过去喜欢这种……算是很长一版的解释，但是……

基本上，我小时候一直在想，生命的意义是什么？比如，我们为什么会在这里？这一切究竟是怎么回事？我得出的结论是，真正重要的是努力理解应该提出哪些正确的问题。我们越能扩大人类意识的范围和规模，就越有能力提出这些问题。而且……所以，我认为有些事情是确保未来美好所必需的。

而且……其中一些事情是，从长远来看，要拥有长期可持续的交通和可持续的能源生产。还要成为一个探索太空的文明。让人类置身于群星之间。并成为一个多行星物种。我认为，成为一个多行星物种并置身于群星之间，对人类的长期生存非常重要。

而且，这是一个原因，有点像是为整个生命买一份人寿保险。为我们所知的生命。但我个人认为最能激励我的部分是，它创造了一种冒险感，也让人们对未来感到兴奋。如果设想 2 种未来，一种是我们永远被限制在地球上，直到最终发生某件可怕的事情。

或者另一种未来，我们身处许多行星之上，甚至可能走出太阳系。我认为太空入侵令人难以置信地兴奋和振奋。而且，人们早晨起床需要有理由。你知道，生活不能只是为了解决问题。否则，意义何在？必须有一些人们认为能带来激励、让生命值得度过的事情。那么，生命对你来说是什么？

我的意思是，你看看我们的生活，我之前听到你讲话。这是一场梦吗？这是真的吗？这是一笔 100 万的交易吗？对埃隆·马斯克来说，生活是什么？我发现，随着年龄增长，我觉得这个问题可能越来越令人困惑、烦恼或不确定。尤其是当你看到电子游戏之类的东西在进步时。

你知道，40 年前就已经有电子游戏了，当时最先进的电子游戏可能就是《Pong》，里面有 2 个矩形和 1 个点。然后你就这样把它来回击打。

我玩过。

对，我也是，没错。

我们所有人。

这多少有点暴露你的年龄。对，我们都玩过同一款游戏。而且那在当时是一款相当有趣的游戏。但现在，你能看到画面如照片般逼真、几乎如照片般逼真的电子游戏，还有数百万人同时游玩。而且，而且你能看到虚拟现实的发展方向。还有增强现实和……如果你把这种趋势按任何程度的进步速度外推到未来，比如保持0。

类似那样的东西每年进步1%，那么最终那些游戏将与现实无法区分。它们会逼真到让你无法分辨那个游戏和我们所知的现实。然后，看起来就像是，嗯，我们怎么知道过去没有发生过这种事？我们自己怎么就不是身处其中一款游戏里呢？有意思。有意思。我的意思是，有可能。生活中一切皆有可能。我的意思是，有……

对，尤其是事情似乎往往在加速奔向某种东西。不是吗？我的意思是，如果我们看看自己的生活，过去100年里，生活似乎一直在飞快地加速。

对。

在过去20年里。

它正变得越来越快。

它更慢了吗？所以，我真正的问题是，从现在起20年、30年、50年后，生活会是什么样？我们的教育、我们的交通。你怎么看？嗯，我认为这是那些相当难以预测的事情之一。比如你想想，莱特兄弟在1903年实现了首次受控动力飞行。然后，66年后，我们把第一批人送上了月球。

我的意思是，如果你问1900年的人，登上月球的可能性有多大，他们会说这太荒谬了。如果你试着跟他们谈互联网，他们甚至不知道你到底在……你在说什么？比如，这听起来太疯狂了。但今天，只要一台价值100美元的设备，你就能和世界上的任何人进行视频会议。

哪怕对方在世界另一端，而如果你有Wi-Fi连接，那基本上就是免费的。你可以随意与任何人进行即时可视通信，甚至与数百万人进行即时可视通信。你知道，通过社交媒体，你可以同时与数百万人交流。所以，而且你可以用谷歌搜索某件事，提出任何问题。它就像一个智慧神谕，你几乎可以问任何问题，并立即得到回答。

在过去，要预测这些事情会难到不可思议。即便是在相对较近的过去也是如此。所以，我认为我们可以相当确定的一件事是，我们今天对50年后未来面貌所作的任何预测都会是错的。这是肯定的。我想，从大方向上，我可以告诉你我希望未来拥有什么，而不是未来也许会是什么样。这可能只是一厢情愿。

我的意思是，我希望我们能到达火星，或许还能越过火星，到达木星。我希望我们能频繁地在整个太阳系中旅行，也许为前往附近恒星系统的任务做准备。我认为这一切在50年内都有可能实现。而且我认为，做这些事会非常令人兴奋。此外，我认为我们会看到自主技术和人工智能取得巨大发展。比如，那其实是相当近期的事。

我猜大概10年后，生产出来的汽车如果不能完全自动驾驶，就会非常罕见。

10年。

从现在起10年？对。我认为大约10年后，几乎所有生产出来的汽车都将具备完全自动驾驶能力。就目前而言，今天生产的Tesla汽车已经拥有实现完全自动驾驶所需的传感器系统。而且我们认为，它们或许也拥有足够的计算能力，能够比人类驾驶更安全。所以，主要只是开发软件并上传软件的问题。

而如果事实证明需要更强的计算能力，我们可以轻松升级计算机。而且，这适用于自去年10月以来生产的所有Tesla。其他制造商也会跟进并做同样的事。所以，坐进汽车会像走进电梯一样。你只要告诉它你想去哪里，它就会以极高的安全水平把你送到那里。而这将成为常态，就只是常态。

比如，电梯过去有电梯操作员。你走进去，会有一个人操纵控制杆。现在，你只要走进去，按下按钮，人们就对此习以为常了。所以，自主技术将会普及。我认为，最令人不安的问题之一是人工智能。而我指的不是狭义人工智能，比如，我会把车辆自动驾驶归入狭义人工智能这一类。它只是针对性地尝试实现某一特定功能。

但深度人工智能，或者有时所谓的通用人工智能，是指你可以拥有比地球上最聪明的人类聪明得多的人工智能。我认为这是一种危险的局面。为什么危险？我的意思是，存在2种观点，一种观点认为人工智能会帮助人类，另一派观点则认为人工智能对人类是一种威胁。

为什么会这样？

我认为两者都是。你知道，这就像……一种思考方式是，想象我们将会被造访……想象你非常确信超级智能的外星人将会来访，比如说在10年后，或者最迟20年后。

超级智能。

所以，你认为在20年内……

对……

地球上会出现外星人？嗯，数字超级智能会像外星人一样。

它会像外星人一样。

是的。但我的问题是，你认为地球之外还有其他智慧生命吗？这似乎很有可能。我认为，这是物理学和哲学中的重大问题之一，就是，外星人在哪里？也许他们就在我们中间，我不知道。有些人认为我是外星人。不是真的。

不是真的。

但也许我们是外星人。也许我们外星人。我的意思是，如果你看看世界的这个地区。是的。他们相信人类并非来自地球，而是从别处来的。夏娃和亚当从别处来到了地球。所以，从某种意义上说，人类是这片土地上的外星人。你认为我们会在未来50年内与外星人取得联系吗？嗯，这真的很难说。

如果外面有超级智慧的外星人，他们可能已经在观察我们了。这似乎很有可能，而我们还不够聪明，无法意识到这一点。但我可以做一些粗略估算，然后……

任何对拓殖银河系稍有兴趣的先进外星文明，即使不超过光速，即使你只以光速的，比如说，10%或20%移动，也能在，比如说，1000万年内拓殖整个银河系。最多也许2000万年。从宏观角度来看，这根本算不了什么。你曾经说过，你想死在火星上。为什么？澄清一下，我不想死在火星上。

这就像，如果……我们所有人终有一天都会死，如果你要挑一个地方死，那为什么不选火星呢？你知道，如果你出生在地球上，为什么不死在火星上？似乎可能会相当令人兴奋。但是，我想如果要在死于地球和死于火星之间选择，我会说，是的，当然，我会死在火星上。但这不是什么火星死亡愿望。而且如果我确实死在火星上，我只是不想死于撞击。

实际上，让我们回到地球。你发推文说，你正在华盛顿特区地下修建一条隧道。为什么？那是什么？

这是一个秘密阴谋。

好的。

只在我们之间说。

没人帮你？是的，没错，我们保守这个秘密吧。我认为这听起来会有点……我的意思是，它似乎太微不足道或太愚蠢了，但是……我多年来一直这样说，但我认为，城市拥堵的解决方案是在城市下方修建隧道网络。而且当我这样说时，我指的不是隧道的2-D平面，我指的是向地下延伸许多层的隧道。所以，你总是可以向下挖得比向上建得更深。

比如，最深的矿井比最高的建筑还深。所以，你可以拥有一个20、30、40、50层的隧道网络，实际上，你想要多少层都可以。因此，鉴于这一点，你可以克服世界上任何城市的拥堵状况。挑战是，怎样才能快速、低成本且高度安全地修建隧道？

所以，如果隧道技术能够改进到可以快速、廉价且安全地修建隧道的程度，那么这将彻底消除城市里的任何交通状况。因此，这就是为什么我认为它是一项重要的技术。而华盛顿特区、洛杉矶和美国大多数主要城市，以及世界上大多数主要城市，都深受严重交通问题困扰。

而这主要是因为，你有这些建筑，也就是这些3-D的高层建筑，却只有一层道路网络。然后，人们通常想在完全相同的时间进出这些建筑。所以接着就会出现交通堵塞。让我们回到……你在迪拜的这一年。我第一次见到你是在2015年6月4日，在你位于 SpaceX 的办公室里。而且，我问你，你们会在阿联酋开展业务吗？

而你的回答是：我正忙于中国的事务。近期也许不会，而差不多1年半之后，我们来到了这里，时间似乎过得相当快。为什么是现在？我认为实际上中国的情况进展得非常顺利。所以，我们在弄清楚充电和服务基础设施以及其他各种事情方面遇到了一些初期挑战，但现在实际上进展得非常顺利，而且……

所以现在似乎是一个好时机，可以真正从迪拜开始，在这个地区进行一次重大亮相。在你看来，技术领域接下来将会出现的新的扰乱性事物是什么？技术的下一步是什么？

科技领域接下来会发生什么？

那将扰乱我们的生活方式、思考方式和经商方式。嗯，从技术角度看，最接近产生影响的是自动驾驶汽车，比如完全自动驾驶汽车。我认为这会比人们意识到的快得多。所以，而且那……乘坐自动驾驶汽车会非常方便，但有很多人的工作就是驾驶。所以，如果……

事实上，我认为以各种形式从事驾驶可能是雇用人数最多的单一职业。所以，接下来我们需要为这些人做什么制定新的规则。但这一切都会极具颠覆性，而且会发生得非常快。我应该说明一下我所说的“快”是什么意思。因为有……“快”对不同的人意味着不同的事情。全世界大约有20亿辆车。事实上，世界上的轿车和卡车正在接近25亿辆。

新车总产能约为1亿辆。这是合理的，因为一辆轿车或卡车在最终被刮掉之前的寿命约为20-25年。所以，所以我们看到完全自动驾驶出现的那个时间点，并不会是社会发生大规模动荡的时间点，因为制造出足够多的自动驾驶汽车来冲击就业需要很长时间。

所以，我所说的那种冲击将在大约20年间发生。不过，20年仍然是一段很短的时间，我认为届时全球劳动力中会有大约12%到15%失业。谢谢。这是规模最大的全球政府峰会，有超过139个政府来到这里。如果要建议政府官员为未来做好准备，你能给他们哪3条建议？

嗯，我认为第一条建议是要真正密切关注……人工智能的发展。我认为这件事，我们需要非常谨慎地……采用人工智能，并确保研究人员不会忘乎所以，因为有时会出现这样的情况：科学家可能过于沉浸在自己的工作中，不一定意识到他们所做之事的后果。

所以，我认为为了公共安全，我们……你知道，政府密切关注人工智能，并确保它不会对公众构成危险，这一点很重要。让我想想，其次，我会说我们确实需要从总体上思考交通运输。

而且，目前正朝着电动汽车、可持续交通发展，我认为这会出于很多原因带来好处，但同样，这并不是会立即发生的事情，它会比自动驾驶汽车发展得更慢。因为那可能是要用30或40年才会发生的事情。向电动汽车的转型。所以，在这个背景下思考……电力需求将急剧增长。

所以，目前就全球能源使用总量而言，大约1/3，大约1/3用于交通运输，大约1/3用于供暖。所以，随着时间推移，这些将转向几乎全部……不是全部，但主要使用电力，这意味着电力需求可能会增加到3倍。所以，思考如何生产多得多的电力将会非常重要，而且……

看来他们的工作会很轻松，就是这样，他们不会再面临挑战。不，嗯，我想也许……这些事情确实会在一定程度上相互影响，但该如何应对大规模失业？这将是一个巨大的社会挑战。而且我认为，我们最终将不得不实行某种全民基本收入，我认为我们别无选择。

全民基本收入。我认为这将是必要的。所以，这意味着世界各地的失业者都会领到钱。

是的。

因为没有工作。机器、机器人正在接管一切。机器人无法做得更好的工作将会越来越少。这就是……而且我想说清楚，这些并不是我希望发生的事情。这些只是我认为很可能会发生的事情。所以，如果我的判断是正确的，而它们很可能会发生，那么我们就需要问，我们打算对此做些什么。

而且我认为某种全民基本收入将是必要的。到那时，商品和服务的产出将会极高。所以，随着自动化到来，物质将会极大丰富。将会……几乎所有东西都会变得非常便宜。这个……所以……我认为最大的……我想我们最终就是会实行全民基本收入。这将是必要的。更困难的挑战，困难得多的挑战，是人们到那时如何获得意义？

比如，很多人从工作中获得意义，所以，如果你不再……如果不再需要你，如果不再需要你的劳动，你要如何……意义是什么？你还有意义吗？你会觉得自己毫无用处吗？这是一个难处理得多的问题。然后，我们要如何确保未来会是我们想要的未来？是我们如此喜欢的未来。

你知道，我的意思是，我确实认为这里存在一条潜在路径，也就是，我真的要谈到科幻小说或某种先进科学方面的东西了。但是，让生物智能与机器智能以某种形式融合。在某种程度上，我们已经是半机械人了。想想你拥有的数字工具，比如你的手机和电脑，以及你拥有的应用程序。

比如我之前提到的这个事实：你可以提出一个问题，然后立即从 Google 或其他东西那里得到答案。而且，而且所以你已经有了一个数字触觉层。我说触觉层，是因为你可以把边缘系统看作某种动物脑或原始脑，然后是大脑皮层，也就是大脑中负责思考、规划的部分，再然后，你的数字自我是第3层。

所以，你已经拥有它了，而且我认为，如果某个人去世了，他们的数字幽灵仍然存在。他们的所有电子邮件、发布的照片以及社交媒体。那些仍然存续着，即使他们已经去世。所以，随着时间推移，我认为我们可能会看到生物智能与数字智能更紧密地融合。而这主要关乎带宽，也就是你的大脑与你的数字……之间的连接速度

你自身的数字延伸。尤其是输出方面，而且，如果说有什么正在变得更糟，你知道，我们过去经常使用键盘，现在我们在手机上主要通过拇指进行输入。而且，那实在非常慢。一台计算机能以每秒1万亿比特的速度通信，但你的拇指可能只能做到每秒10比特，或者往宽了说是100比特。

所以，我认为，某种连接大脑的高带宽接口将有助于实现人类与机器智能之间的共生，并且也许能解决控制问题和实用性问题。我说得相当深奥了，我不知道这是不是……差不多，我们明白了。你总是跳出框架思考。你的想法太宏大了。你想去太空，你决定去太空，你做到了。

你决定要让火箭降落回来，——你失败了 7 次，8 次？

是的，差不多吧。

然后它着陆了。

我愿意算在内的是 4 次。你是怎么想出这些点子的？有时它们是在挑战人类极限。你总是在挑战人类极限，为什么？嗯，我……我会思考，要实现那个特定目标，需要什么技术解决方案，然后努力朝那个方向取得尽可能多的进展。

所以，就太空飞行而言，太空飞行所必需的关键突破，是火箭的快速不完全重复使用。就像我们对飞机所做的那样。你可以想象，如果飞机只能使用一次，几乎没有人会坐飞机。因为你可以买一架，比如说，747 可能要……2.5 亿美元、3 亿美元，差不多这个数。往返一趟你需要 2 架。

但没有人会为一张乘飞机出行的票支付数百万美元。所以，但是因为飞机可以重复使用数万次，……航空旅行就变得便宜得多。而且，火箭也是如此。我们的火箭成本……大约 6000 万美元。所以，如果只能使用一次，资本成本就是 6000 万美元。但如果它能使用 1000 次，资本成本就是 6 万美元。

所以，如果一次飞行能搭载很多人，那么就可以让太空飞行的成本与航空飞行的成本相差不远。所以，这确实是根本性的，因为地球的重力井相当深。地球的重力相当高。让火箭可重复使用的难度远远大于让飞机可重复使用的难度。这就是为什么完全可重复使用的火箭还没有被研发到那种程度。

但如果你使用最先进的材料、最先进的设计技术，并且把一切都做得恰到好处，那么我相信你可以造出完全可重复使用的火箭。幸运的是，如果地球重力再强 10%，我会说那并非不可能。你需要一个围绕着你的团队来落实很多想法。你如何选择自己的团队？依据是什么？

嗯，老实说，我想这往往更多是一种直觉，而不是其他任何东西。所以，我面试某个人时，主要的问题总是一样的。你会问什么？我会说：告诉我你的人生故事。还有，你一路上做过哪些决定，以及为什么做出那些决定。然后，也告诉我一些你处理过的最困难的问题，以及你是如何解决它们的。而且，我认为这个问题非常重要，因为……

真正解决了问题的人，他们确切地知道自己是如何解决的。他们知道那些细微的细节。而那些假装解决了问题的人，他们也许能讲到一个层面，然后就卡住了。那么，你人生中最大的挑战是什么？人生中最大的挑战？

没有挑战？

嗯，不，有很多。我正在判断哪一个最糟糕。我想，只是思考如何分配时间。我认为最大的挑战之一，是确保你有一个纠正性反馈循环，然后随着时间推移维持这个纠正性反馈循环，即便人们不会告诉你你恰好想听的话。

那非常困难。

是的。时间到了。我只再问你最后一个问题。如果你允许的话。在世界政府峰会上，我们有很多来自……实际上有很多来自全球各地的年轻人。如果你有一条建议要送给他们，送给全球那些想成为埃隆·马斯克的年轻人，你会给他们什么建议？我想，他们或许不该想成为那样的人。

成为你？

我觉得听起来比实际情况要好。好的。是的，做我没有你想象的那么有趣。

我不知道。

你不这么认为吗？当然，情况也可能更糟。但这……我不确定自己想不想成为我。好的。但是……你知道，我认为我的建议是，如果你想在事情上取得进展，我会说，对未来而言，最好的分析框架是物理学。我建议研究物理学的思维过程。

比如，不只是方程式，方程式当然非常有帮助，但物理学中的思维方式，是理解违反直觉之事的最佳框架。而且，你知道，始终采取这样一种立场：你在某种程度上是错的，而你的目标是随着时间推移少错一些。人们通常会犯的最大错误之一，而我也会犯，就是一厢情愿。

你知道，比如你希望某件事是真的，即使它并不是真的。于是你忽视那些……你忽视真实的真相，因为你希望某件事是真的。这是一个非常难以避开的陷阱。而且就像我说的，这当然也是一个我发现自己身陷其中、应付起来有困难的陷阱。但是，如果你只是采取那种态度，认为自己始终在某种程度上是错的，而你的目标是少错一些。

并且征求批评性反馈，尤其是向朋友征求。比如，朋友，如果某个人爱你，他们会希望你得到最好的。他们不想告诉你那些不好的事情。所以，你必须问他们并说：我真的很想知道。然后他们就会告诉你。非常感谢。这一直是……

世界政府峰会能够邀请到一位正在为人类创造未来的传奇人物，分享他的想法、理念、愿景、挑战，以及他对生活的希望，真是太棒了。非常感谢。谢谢你们邀请我。

What a challenge! To talk to one of the most, in my opinion, 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. 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.