Moonshots with Peter Diamandis - Elon Musk on AGI Safety, Superintelligence, and Neuralink (2024) | EP #91

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

In this episode, recorded during the 2024 Abundance360 Summit, Peter and Elon discuss super-intelligence, the future of AI, Neuralink, and more.  01:01 | The Power and Perils of Superintelligence 16:58 | Neuralink: Merging Humans with Technology 24:31 | A Step Closer to Multiplanetary Life Elon Musk is a businessman, founder, investor, and CEO. He co-founded PayPal, Neuralink and OpenAI; founded SpaceX, and is the CEO of Tesla and the Chairman of X.  Learn more about Abundance360: https://www.abundance360.com/summit  ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are, please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:  Use my code PETER25 for 25% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic: seed.com/moonshots  Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/   _____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today’s and tomorrow’s exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now: Tech Blog Get my new Longevity Practices book for free: https://www.diamandis.com/longevity My new book with Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth and Impact, is now available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3P3j54J _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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what will happen next. So I think there's some chance that it will end humanity. I think that's, you know, like I said, I would probably agree with Jeff Hinton that it's about, I don't know, 10% or 20% or something like that. The probable positive scenario outweighs the negative scenario. It's just that there's a it's difficult to predict exactly so here's a deal we're on we're on x video and we're over starlink elon's airborne right now on his way to la elon good afternoon uh good afternoon congratulations on uh on all that's going on you know the conversation

yesterday elon is one that you're well familiar with and have been talking to the world about which is is digital super intelligence humanity's greatest hope or its greatest fear and i'm would love to have you sort of speak to that for a few minutes. I mean, it's called the Singularity for a reason, as you know, the Singularity Institute and whatnot. So when you have a sort of the advent of superintelligence, it is actually very difficult to predict what will happen next. So I think there's some know the some chance uh... uh... that it'll and humanity i think that's you know i get i said i would

probably agree with jeff and that's about uh... out of ten percent or twenty percent of something like that and i i think that's i think that the the probable the positive scenario outweighs the negative scenario it's just that there's a it's difficult to predict exactly um but i i think we are headed for um you know as as i think is the title of uh your book abundance uh is the most likely outcome so yeah a lot a lot of celebration on on that and and i think one of

the things that you've said is we're going to get to abundance on the back side of of agi on the back side of humanoid robots yeah um you know i i think hopefully we can uh have an outcome that is know i i think hopefully we can uh have an outcome that is half similar to uh the in banks uh culture books um which is i think probably the best envisioning of um a semi-utopian uh ai future um and i i think the best we can do is it's definitely going to happen, and it's happening fast. So I think that really we just want to try to steer it in as positive a direction as possible to try to do whatever we can to increase the probability of a great future. For this, I think the way in which sort of an AI or an AGI is created is very important. You kind of do kind of like grow an AGI. It's almost like raising a kid, but that's like a super genius, like godlike intelligence kid.

And it matters kind of like how-like intelligence kid um and it matters kind of like how you raise the kid you know um one of the things i think that's incredibly important for ai safety is to have a a maximum sort of truth-seeking and uh curious ai um so i've thought a lot about ai safety um and my ultimate conclusion is that the best way to achieve ai safety is to um just just just grow the ai and again you know in terms of the foundation model and the fine tuning um to be um uh really truthful like like don't don't force it to lie. Even if the truth is unpleasant,

it's very important. Don't make the AI lie. In fact, one of the core plot premise of 2001 A Space Odyssey was things went wrong when they forced the AI to lie. The AI was not allowed to let the crew know

about the monolith that they were going to see, but it also had to take the crew to the monolith. And so the conclusion of the AI was to kill the crew and take their bodies to the monolith. So the lesson there being don't force an AI to lie or do things that are axiomatically incompatible, like to do things that are actually mutually impossible. So that's what we're trying to do with XAI and Brock is to say, look, we want to just have a maximally truthful AI, even if what it says is not politically correct if you wanted to focus on being as accurate as possible.

You're getting a round of applause from the audience on those comments here. You know I saw your tweet the other day I had I had Ray Kurzweil and Jeffrey Hinton on stage with me yesterday as well as Mogadad and then Eric Schmidt and a number of individuals and I saw your tweet about, yeah, Ray was generally correct ahead of many people but we're likely to have call AGI what you will, have AGI next year and then by 2029 having AI equally intelligent to the entire human race. Speak to that speed, because that is insane. Yeah. So, I mean, I have to give credit to Ray Kurzweil

in being actually remarkably accurate in his predictions. So, in fact, if anything, I think he was perhaps a bit conservative in his predictions. So if you look at the amount of AI compute and the talent, the sort of human talent that is going into AI and the amount of compute that's going into AI, at this point, it appears to be increasing by a factor of 10, the AI compute, the dedicated AI compute, appears to be growing by a factor of 10 the AI compute the dedicated AI compute But the history growing by a factor of 10 every six months

you know like so it's like like basically close to I'd say almost like a 100x improvement per year at least for the next few years And AI compute coming online And it seems like probably a lot of the data says maybe most the data centers that currently do kind of conventional compute will transition to AI compute so it's a it's certainly a good time to be in video obviously it's like you know and got to also give credit to Jensen and the NVIDIA team for kind of seeing this coming and making what at least currently is the best AI hardware out there. that level of compute uh uh growth and uh it's it's sort of moves on steroids next level it's in terms of how much computers coming online then you're just going to have acceleration that uh is unprecedented in fact i've never seen any technology grow as fast as as ai uh and i've seen

a lot you know i've seen things fast but I've never seen anything this fast. But like I said, I think the most likely outcome is a positive one. And I think in that positive scenario, there's still challenges of like, well, how do we as humans still have relevance? How do we find purpose? I think that's sort of a high-class problem to say, well, the computers are so good at doing everything. And like I said, I thought your book was pretty accurate in terms of the future being being one of abundance where essentially goods and services will be

In available in such quantity that that really they'll be available to everyone like basically if you want something you could just have it essentially Because if you got AI and uh the cost of goods and services uh is uh almost nothing um so um you know if you think like what is an economy an economy is basically number of people times average productivity per person at the point at which you have say uh advanced robotics uh and this you know this tells us developing optimus um we're obviously without cars which are really robots on on four wheels um and uh you know with the the the latest version of um full stop driving which is um ai end to end photons in and controls out um it really is um it's really fully ai at this point um and uh

it looks like a car but it's really a robot on on wheels um and uh and then you add the humanoid robots in there there's there's really no limit to what the economic output no no meaningful limit to what the economic output would be so you know looking on the bright side uh the that we are headed for a future of abundance um that i think that's the most likely outcome and i think the only scarcity will that that exists will be scarcity that we just decide to create artificially like let's say we just decide that there's a unique work of art or something. Okay. Well, it's just, you're just, it's just artificial scarcity, but, but any kind of goods and services I think will be extremely abundant. Everybody, I want to take a short break from our episode to talk about a company that's

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backslash Peter. It's one of the most important things I can offer to you as one of my listeners. All right, let's go back to our episode. You know, I can't imagine anybody who's done a better job peering into the future by actually creating the future. I'm curious, how far out do you think you're able to see? How many years out beyond today, given the speed of change? Well, when things are changing rapidly, the ability to predict the future, I think, becomes a lot harder because the rate of change is so great. But I think some things are fairly obvious to predict, which is that we'll have AI or AGI that's at a level that it can really do almost any cognitive i think really not almost

really any cognitive task it's just a question of when one could debate is it you know smarter than any human at the end of next year or is it two years or three years but it's not more than five years that's for sure um so um yeah and again predictions predictions at the 50th percentile of probability. So not like it will definitely happen, but if you ask me, what's the 50th percentile where it's like your over-under is's where I why why I think it's probably at an extra year before AI can do better than any individual human could do and then but that there's a it's a much higher bar to say well is this one then you know human intelligence collectively but if the rate of change continues,

that's why I think probably 2029 or maybe 2030 is where digital intelligence will probably exceed all human intelligence combined. And I think it's always helpful to look at these fundamental ratios, physics first principles approach

to looking at things. And probabilistic. And probabilistic. Yeah, it's probabilistic. So, yeah, so if you look at the ratio of digital to biological compute, digital to biological compute. So like, you know, all of the higher level cognitive, if you sum up the higher level cognitive capacity of humans,

and then what is the, and think of that as compute, then, well, and then compare that to what is the digital compute. And the rate at which this is growing is just boggles the mind so that's why i think it's you know i think 20 29 or 20 30 or thereabouts is is uh it's not a that's i think a reasonable time frame for where you'd expect the the cumulative digital compute to probably exceed the cumulative biological

compute of higher level brain functions. And then from then forever, yeah, and still in dispatching and diverging forever from there. Yeah, and then where do things go from there? I don't know, it probably continues. We are moving from, if you look at the limiting factors, what is the constraint on growth? Last year it was clearly AI chips were the constraint on growth um then then this year the one of the biggest constraints maybe the biggest constraints on on growth um are voltage step down transformers because you know

the just just getting the power from like a utility at 300 kilovolts all the way down to below one volt for the computer is a massive amount of voltage uh down. So it's, you know, my sort of very niche and perhaps not that funny joke is that we need transformers for transformers. So we need voltage transformers for AI neural net transformers. That is literally the issue this year. And then if I'm saying like, next year, and

years beyond that, it's actually just it's going to be constraints on electric, like electrical power. And you've got both AI with very big demands for electrical power and the transition to sustainable energy with electric vehicles, what not also needing electrical power. So it's just a lot a lot of electrical power needs you know Elon one of the one of the things that you said early on when you when you founded neuralink which has been amazing congratulations on that now we talked about this with Ray yesterday talked about high bandwidth BCI.

I wouldn't put words in your mouth, but I would say it would be more along the lines if you can't beat them, join them when it comes to merging the neocortex and the cloud. I'm looking forward to it. I'm just curious what your thoughts are about what's driving that. I mean, adding that additional computational capacity and sensory capacity to the neocortex. Yeah. I mean, again, this is actually something that in Banks, in the culture books, which I really recommend everyone read, in the culture books there's something called a neural lace. So all the humans have this neural lace that's essentially a high bandwidth brain to computer

interface. And in the culture books, it's so good that it actually retains all of your memories and kind of brain state. So even if your physical body dies, you can kind of reincorporate it in another physical body and retain pretty much your original memories and brain state. So now, Neuralink is a long way from that we only just had our first your link the human which is good it's going quite well the the first patient is actually able to control their computer just by thinking like this first the first product we call telepathy where you can control your computer and phone,

and through your computer and phone almost anything, just by thinking. You just lie there and think, and you can move the mouse cursor around the screen and things, and play. Like, you know, the other thing we're gonna do, a patient has agreed to do sort of a, like I think a live demo of just demo of just quadriplegic, where he literally

is just controlling the screen. He can play video games, download software, really anything you can do with a mouse, just by thinking, which is pretty wild. It is pretty wild. Let's turn to one last subject. I should say there's a long way to go from that to a whole brain interface. So our current neural link just has a thousand electrodes. I think ultimately you need something which has probably a hundred000 or a million electrodes. Now, these are very tiny electrodes.

They're tiny wires, way smaller than a human hair. I just want to emphasize a long way from where I do like this today to having a whole brain interface like the neural lace in the Ian Banks novels. But this is definitely physically possible. And it's sort of kind of like if you can't beat him, join him. So a human brain, which has a lot of constraints, we only have about maybe 10 watts of higher brain function. We do a lot with our little 10 watts. It's pretty impressive that we've built a station with such a low-power computer, really.

It is. I sort of think it's like it's not bad for a bunch of monkeys you know. Again some good laughs from that. We've all watched you go from the Roadster to the Model 3 and Y and from Falcon 1 to Starship so I think

going from the first implants to something that's got more capacity it's just just a matter of if not when or a matter of when not if right hey everyone i want to take a quick break from this episode to tell you about a health product that i love and that i use every day in fact i use it twice a day it's seeds dso1 dailyiotic. Hopefully by now you understand that your microbiome and your gut health are one of the most important modifiable parts of your health. You know, your gut microbiome is connected to everything,

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Daily Symbiotic. Trust me, your gut will thank you. All right, let's go back to the episode. the episode. Let's talk to... Yeah, I think ultimately, like I said, you'll have kind of a whole brain interface that I guess is a sort of perhaps a form of immortality in that if it can kind of upload your brain state to, you know if your brain state is essentially stored um you're kind of backed up on a hard drive i suppose um then uh you know you can always restore that brain state into a biological body or or maybe a robot or something um but i i want to emphasize again it's like you know many years in the future but but i i we're not breaking any laws of physics like i think this is this is probably something that will happen um the the radio we're building digital super intelligence

it may just be that you know we'll have digital super intelligence and it'll just solve the you know, we'll have digital superintelligence and it'll just solve the problem for us. But in the meantime, we'll keep progressing with our meat computers and try to do as good a job as possible. That's what I was going to say. The tools that we have are growing at a super exponential rate that are making our linear projections of the future seem boring in some ways. rate that are making our linear projections of the future seem boring in some ways.

One last topic, my friend, which is where you and I first connected in the world of space. Congratulations on Starship 3. Amazing, amazing flight. Just really spectacular. And we all saw Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg last night.

So that was great. And just, again, thankful for the work you're doing. You know, it's fascinating because I grew up at the late stages of the Apollo and into the shuttle program. And I can't imagine that any government would be pushing space as rapidly and dramatically as you are. And so thank you for what you're doing there. That's all I can say.

Absolutely. Well, I mean, the goal of SpaceX is it's just a much bigger goal than any any government program which is to um uh rockets and spacecraft that are capable of making life multi-planetary so you know i mean step one is actually having that as a goal if you don't have that as a goal you're definitely not going to achieve it if you have it as a goal well now at least you have a chance of achieving it um and this the thing about starship is it is the first rocket where making life multi-planetary and building a self-sustaining city on Mars is at least possible. It's still obviously an immense amount of work, but but it is the first rocket where That is success in making like multi planetaries at least one of the possible outcomes

Yeah, I'm wondering if you're willing to venture a guess on when you'll be on the moon I Think pretty soon I think pretty soon. I'd be surprised if it's longer than about three years to be landing starships on the moon. Because the rate of progression of starship is very rapid. We're hoping to do at least another maybe five or six flights this year, and with each successive flight making significant improvements so I think we got a decent shot of achieving full reusability of both stages booster and the ship this year and if not this year I think you know knock on wood it's like i think it's a very high probability of achieving full reusability uh next year which um really is the fundamental breakthrough needed to make life multi-planetary um yeah for those that that that don't don't know the rocket industry that that well that they may not be aware that that this is really the holy grail of rocketry is is full full and rapid reusability um because at that point you're

uh you're really just constrained by your um propellant costs and starship you know almost 80 of the talent is liquid oxygen which is very low cost um and then the fuel is met, the sort of little over 20% fuel which is methane, also the lowest cost fuel. So if you have full rapid reusability then your actual cost per flight of Starship, even though it'll be capable of, we think ultimately 200 tons to orbit, will maybe 2 million dollars a flight. And this is 200,000 you said? The price of the fuel you said for a Starship flight would be how much? yeah the the I mean we are reusable and with without a refurbishment then you or without you know you have scheduled maintenance just like a an aircraft but

uh if you get to the full reusability where there's no um no work required between fights then you you you then um the cost you know is really uh you know the number of flights. It's built me in. That's why I did F2000 for the first time. So it is much better than any other vehicle. Hey, buddy. Listen, I'm so grateful. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for not taking my advice

when I tried to get you to fund the original X Prize instead of starting SpaceX. And everybody here in the room has what we call a massive transformative purpose and a moonshot. And we're living in a day where people can make a, to use Steve Jobs' words, a dent in the universe. And nobody's making a bigger dent than you. Thank you. Thank you

for everything. Let's give it up for Elon Musk.