Transcription
The most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies um at least just meet uh or have a some sort of call once every few weeks um and just uh discuss any safety and security issues.
But why why haven't you done that yet? I mean, you don't all like each other very much. Yeah. But you're not all you're not all I mean, you're also all competing, right? You all want to be first.
Yes. But that's that's where I think um the competitors can keep it keep each other honest. So meaning meaning like if um like I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't have a deep technical understanding and isn't driving the frontier of of AI to know whether something should be released or not. Um however the competitors I think will can you know if given sort of a week or two to review a new model um can highlight issues and uh and have an incentive to keep all all the competitors have an incentive to keep the others honest.
That was Elon Musk going to sit down interview with the economist and join us now is Zany Pedos uh editor-in-chief of the economist uh who conducted that interview. fascinating. Uh, Zany, I I thought you did an extraordinary job and we were all, you know, glued to the screen. I'm curious. I mean, you touched on so many things. You touched on the AI piece, the whole idea that he really thinks within 5 years AI is going to be even smarter potentially even than him and what that means to his own power. Uh, you got into uh some of the the things that happened with Doge and his role in the government, USAD. What what was the thing? What was the moment as you were sitting there where you thought, huh, that really surprised me?
Oh, so many. I mean, he's he's an extraordinary individual and there were lots of times when I was kind of slack drawn at least inwardly. Um I was really struck by the his vision of the future and actually the fact that he now thinks it is inevitable that as you say within five years AI is going to be more intelligent than humans and that within 10 years he's painting this picture essentially where you know we are we are like the kind of the Labradors to the AIS um you know money will be irrelevant it'll be such an era of abundance but they will be in control and you know you know Andrew you know his background And he's, you know, this is a man who 20 in 2015 said on a podcast that that was one of the scariest things he could imagine. In 2023, he wanted to pause AI. And now he's, you know, he's, you know, right at the front of this. And I said to him, you know, it sounds like you've given up on your concerns and your your, you know, I was going along for the ride. And he sort of, yeah, I'm going along for the ride. And he said he admitted that within a within one day he would go from exhilaration to terror. But I was I was very struck by the inevitability he thought that this technology and the speed with which was it was progressing would mean that this extraordinary future would would kind of come within 5 years. Um I mean really struck struck by that and again at the same time he laid out I think for the first time and and you showed that in your clip a willingness to work with the other frontier model makers to have some kind of and he wanted an inform typical Elon right he wants them all to get on a call and talk to each other and test each other's models for a week and you know if they come up with security flaws tell the model maker that's got them and only then if if the model maker doesn't you know do anything then go to the government but I struck how similar that is actually to the proposal by Dennis Aavis last week for a FINRA style public private partnership and I think this really now has legs. I think this is going to go somewhere.
He did seem to suggest that he'd be even open uh to talking to Sam Alman uh at some level um I mean hinted at that
>> no more than hinted he said that. No, he absolutely said that because I said, "Look, you know, you are all massive, not just massive competitors. You know, many of you dislike each other and you're, you know, frankly, you know, slagging each other off on social media quite often." And he said at the end, he said, well, he explained to me why he disliked Samman, but then he said at the end, um, you know, yeah, maybe we should talk for the good of humanity. And so, I think there is a a sense of responsibility that he recognizes that, you know, the the leading model makers do have to do this. and and I said, "Does this have to happen quickly?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Well, yeah, people are telling me this has to be done within the next 6 months." He said, "Six months is a very long time. It has to happen now."
Right. Um I want to show a clip of uh another piece of this that's going viral. Has to do uh with uh I think you might have used the word right-wing uh politics at some point and he uh did not react. Well, let's show that for a second. It's just normal people and um the and and here are the principles and and tell me which of these sound terrible um that we should have secure borders that we should have safe cities uh that we should have sensible spending. Which of those three are are are far right fringe and and I would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the farright. It is false and misleading and nonsense. Please keep this part in.
We'll keep all of this in. But let me let me let me
Don't cut this part.
Let me push back on that. Let me push back on that because you have nonsense.
Elon, you have what is it? Close to 250 million followers on X.
Yeah.
You say things like
popular guy.
Quote, "Civil war in Britain is inevitable." Just a question.
Yes.
I mean, when were you last in the UK?
Um, a few years ago.
Okay. So, um, you obviously reacted in the moment, but now you've had even more time to react and think about that. You kept it in, uh, so we all got to see it.
Uh, what do you think?
Well, of course I kept it in because I, you know, I think people should see the whole of the interview. I said to him that he supports not just the populist right in Europe, but the far right fringe groups that are, you know, nowhere near the mainstream and do actually propagate not just, you know, the three characteristics he said, but but really divisive far-right politics. I think that's undoubted and I think many of these politicians wouldn't be anywhere without Elon Musk support. And I asked him why. And the reason I did that is because he also propagates a kind of caricatured view of Europe that it is some sort of hellhole overrun with Muslim immigrants, incredibly violent. Uh and as as you heard him say, he has said that England is heading for civil war. And I wanted to know when he was last there because I I feel very strongly that this is a profound mischaracterization of Europe. and not it's irresponsible for someone who has 240 million followers to propagate things that are simply not true. He put up as you know for 48 hours on X a film citizen vigilante which is glorifying vigilante violence and has a completely dystopian picture of Europe and this is having consequences Andrew there are many people I come across in the US now who are worried about coming to London who are worried about allowing their kids to go to London because they think that Europe is a sort of dangerous place it's just not TRUE ON THE FACTS you know London is a safer place than major US cities Europe is not the hell hole he's painting it to be. And I just I I got exercised about it, probably more exercised than I should have done because it seems to me that this is not just um wrong, it's irresponsible and it's having really serious consequences. And I think it's just unfortunate that someone who is so far-sighted and expansive and thoughtful if if slightly terrifying on where AI could go can kind of basically play in this sort of dystopia about Europe and and say things that are not right.
And and you've known Elon for a long time. I've known Elon for a long time and I I I think we both agree that in many ways he's very brilliant and very thoughtful. And so my question to you uh to the degree that you disagree with him on uh about his assessment, where do you think that assessment comes from? Why do you think he thinks that?
So I think he has a very firmly held belief that if you have a largecale migration of people from cultures that then don't integrate it is going to have problematic consequences for a society. And you know to some degree one can agree with bits of that um uncontrolled migration is is sort of society untenable but that's not what's happening in Europe. And my issue with him is his, I think, erroneous and caricature description of what's actually going on in Europe. And, you know, the fact that he hasn't been here. And the fact that he is reposting things and propagating things that are just not true, kind of reinforces this negative spiral, particularly on X, which I think paints a picture of a of the continent, which isn't accurate, and which is in turn feeding, you know, the whole MAGA view that, you know, there's civilizational erasia in Europe. We're all, you know, it's a it's a dying continent that's cat in a catastrophic shape. Of course, there are problems, and I'm the first person to admit that there are problems. There are free speech issues in this country. There are problem areas in this country. There are problems with definitely some problems with migration, but it is not what he paints it to be. And nor, frankly, is he being he's being disingenuous when he says that all he is in favor of is, you know, secure borders and um limited spending and safe cities. because on two of three two of those three, Europe does better than the US.
You also got into a bit of a fiery exchange with him uh over Doge and USAD.
We Well, we did that. He got fired. I was just really just asking him um and he mentioned that, you know, his view that Doge was was just the USAD was a political um organization and he said zero there had been zero deaths as a result of shutting down USAD. And I simply pushed back and I said you know it happened overnight. It USAD was a very big in um you know provide provider of healthcare funding in Africa. I find it very hard to believe that there were no deaths and no suffering and he you heard him he just said zero zero deaths and I again I think that's you know you can you can agree that USAD needed reform or perhaps even needed shutting down but the way it was done clearly to me to my mind and I think indisputably has led to unnecessary suffering.
When you think about SpaceX uh the IPO just happening and Tesla uh we keep having a sort of a parlor game about whether he ultimately buys that business. What do you think? Does it all become one?
We didn't talk about it explicitly, but I my strong sense from the way that he described his vision was that it was it was one set of businesses. And when he talked about the reason for his control, and this was really interesting because I said, you know, you have whatever it is over 80% of voting shares and as and you you essentially you can go crazy and you still can't be removed. And he talked about why he needed this control and he spoke about it in in a 5 to 10 year uh time horizon. He said, "I need it for the next 5 10 years because we have to, you know, extend consciousness to the to the universe." And he he described all the elements which included elements from SpaceX and from Tesla.
Um, you could tell uh I think that he uh has a lot of respect for you, but you guys had a lot of debate. I want to know how it ended.
Oh, I I think you saw it at the end. It ended perfectly amicably. He said, "At least I'm not boring." And then we carried on talking for another 15 minutes while he had his pictures taken. I mean, look, I I think he's an extraordinary individual. I am not a musk hater. I think he's an extraordinary extraordinary individual who is done probably more than any other person to build the future. So, I'm I love talking to him. It was an incredible privilege to have what 90 minutes talking to him. And, you know, I we ended perfectly amateur. I hope he'll talk to me again. We'll see. Um, it was really interesting, but I think it was important to push back on these areas where, you know, I think it deserves being pushed back on because I just think it's not right what he's saying.