Elon Musk spoke at TED 2022.
Highlights:
Teslabot – Optimus- will sell for less than a car.
Three years that Elon Musk spent living at the Tesla factory during the Model 3 launch made him understand every part in the car and how it is made. Elon Musk says he could be the most knowledgeable person about manufacturing living at this time.
Elon indicated that Tesla did have secure funding to go private before and the SEC was shown the evidence. The SEC chose to charge them anyway. Elon was forced by his bankers to cooperate with the SEC.
Elon described various plans for Twitter. He would open source the algorithm.
Elon notes that Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. The share structure ensures that Mark Zuckerberg and his descendants would own Facebook.
They would make the process of how tweets are managed open and transparent. Elon has a plan B if Twitters board rejects his offer to buy all of Twitter.
Elon Musks biggest regret was not just starting Tesla will only himself and chief technology officer JB Straubel.
Tesla estimates it will take 300 terawatt hours of batteries to transition world transportation, energy, cooling and heating to electric.
300 terawatt hours is about 1 billion tons of batteries at the current 300 watt hours per kilogram.
Straubel joined Tesla as its fifth employee in 2004, and is named as a co-founder. He was its inaugural chief technical officer until moving to an advisory role in July 2019. At Tesla, Straubel led battery cell design, supply chain and led the first Gigafactory concept through the production ramp of the Model 3. In April 2004, Musk invested $6.35 million of Tesla’s $6.5 million Series A funding round, and became the company’s second chairman of the board.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
"then setting up some spaceborne industry in order to start to tackle the
problem of manufacturing kilometre-scale space colonies." While this is already in progress at ISS, the initial goal is Space Solar, to solve some sort of heater problem. That was O'Neill's too. Seeing only the far off O'Neill without the urgent is to not understand O'Neill. *The* question is not limited at all. "Is the surface of a planet the right place for an expanding technological climate solution?"
Safe enuf for children and expecting females? How long will this take? We can start Globus' ELEO without radiation shielding and 1 g now.
Deception for financial gain is called fraud. We have laws protecting the public from fraud. The laws Elon was accused of violating, are also legitimate. You can't go around saying things to mess with stock values when you own billions of shares, just because there are vulture shorters, trying to kill your company. Or more to the point, you can, but there are consequences. That is called accountability.
Your focus on the rocket rather than ISMRU is the problem. Musk has the same problem. Launch enuf to mimic O'Neill? From where? The Earth does not have the stuff where we can get at it. And, as I have repeatedly shown, it is easier to get to Mars from the Moon's orbit than Earth surface, and going to Moon orbit starts O'Neill too, with Mars never able to catch up thereafter. And that is without considering micr0g mfg or the following question: "Is the surface of a planet the right place for an expanding technological lifeboat civilization?" Have you or Musk ever asked that question? If not, you certainly should, due diligence and all.
Even if lying were easier than telling the truth (in general it isn't), how do you tell which are truths and which are lies? Whom can you trust to always censor the lie and promote the truth?
There will always be people who are intentionally deceptive. This is a fallen world. Instead of hanging your hopes on none of those deceptive people ever getting into the ranks of the censors, your best bet is to allow the contradictory ideas to do battle in the public square. Looking at all sides you will have a much better chance to pick truth from falsehood.
One could make the argument that his grand plans would benefit more if he was putting more money into solar panels to better control the entire energy vertical.
But making a grab for the modern equivalent of the town hall/city square/water cooler of our era to direct the flow of conversation can be a shrewd move. Facebook fell down the specialization hole of niche communities , and long form posting limits don't favor soundbite outrages, only echo chambers (which is not necessarily a curse, but Reddit, or Digg, or other proto-SNS systems did go that path).
It takes a lot of stars to align before a SNS system can become the core platform of a number of connected lifestyle services. The current example being the monster that WeChat has become, being a microblog platform, a payments service, light banking, SSO, and a host of other touchpoints in daily living.
As much as some from the progressive/left/green side of the political spectrum dislike him, he is consistently delivering electric vehicles to the general public which is a linchpin in any climate change action, which is a core tenet of their philosophies.
I think they would have preferred he was a one of those people that recognized that things got done faster if you are willing to not take credit for it, but that would be fulfilling a narcissistic desire to take the credit themselves.
Heard it was money. Be woke or be unfunded. Ho-hum.
True that.
most wokeists, and people in general, do often fear transparency and strict rationality, since most are flawed, over-promote themselves, and less-than-perfectly honest… so good records and widely-applied standards -with mercy and chance for redemption- makes everything fair…
My expectation is that, shortly after Starship is flying, you'll see a partial gravity lab in orbit, to finally settle whether Mars gravity is good enough. Musk is an engineer, he understands the need for testing. And he can accomplish that while testing life support and long term propellant storage, by just orbiting a couple Starships outfitted for the Mars trip, spinning bolo style.
If Mars gravity IS enough for health, he'll continue towards Mars colonization. If it isn't, then he might consider orbital habitats.
worry not. collaborations are more effective these days anyway – though typically offline.
Crystals grow far better in micr0g than g. That is where the chips will be "up".
I cannot say you are wrong, but it may similar to situations that lead to the saying "never attribute to evil what can be explained by mere stupidity." It may turn out to be *evil* (Not Invented Here) after all, but in this case O'Neill may actually be beyond his imaginative abilities. He may not be *jealous* as much as unaware of the counter intuitive but encompassing revelation. I don't really pay that much attention to his non Space efforts, so may be missing the point you make entirely, but he seems to do rockets just fine without claiming invention, altho reusable is his. He talked about hyperloop enuf to get others to finally take the very old idea seriously. Boring Co. may be a way to started on that, however. Perhaps not the idea but the productivity he brings? EVs for example, he did not *invent*. O'Neill may be the test of the two theories, he will fight it if he hates it for not being his, he will own the Universe if he understands it and thinks he can do it first.
Musk is unlikely to use an idea that he can't claim he came up with (or that he actually did come up with). That's why I don't see him ever going for something like O'Neill. I shouldn't necessarily say "idea" but something he and his company didn't invent, that he didn't have some semblance of control over.
if someone built a warp drive and debuted it to the public tomorrow, and it was an irrefutable demonstration (this is just a thought experiment), I find it very likely that Elon Musk would either ignore it, lambast it and possibly make fun of the creators, possibly even try to debunk the demonstration (which wouldn't work because, in this thought experiment, the evidence of the warp drive working is somehow irrefutable) , or he might attempt to buy it and its design. I doubt the latter. I believe he would never accept it unless he built it himself.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh.
There are already many robots like this out there, see Agility robotics, boston dynamics, various chinese start-ups simply copy and pasting etc…
Musk is just trying to cash in on an already existing market.
There is really only one hurdle to an AGI capable robot and that's silicon. IMO the factories will be ready around 2030. They'll be busy churning out the silicon for all the level 4 cars until then. Pretty sure we'll have consumer grade neuralinks available until then too otherwise you're gonna have a rebellion.
See all the factories being built right now in Arizona, Texas and Germany. They will be operable at the very best around 2027 and these don't even have 10% of the wafer production capability of just one of the factories in Taiwan.
Without a major revolution in mass production in the silicon sector I don't see how we're gonna have it any earlier. It's just the silicion that is constraining the industry, everything else is an easy problem to fix by comparison.
Agreed but the reality is that a lot of the big media, commercial, and other public websites would likely have collapsed under the negativity and useless reviews/ deception if there hadn't been an over-reaction to trolling and worse before and in the beginning (and even now). It shouldn't be long before super-powerful filters are used throughout forums that allow all to speak but for users to otherwise filter to their level of comfort, applicability, and possibly within their own community-group, as necessary before. Consider how long it took for people to google well, getting the best relevant information on the first page. The point is that the greater evil is to let comments be unvoiced rather than to maintain a civil and relevant forum. There is a bit of extremism in all of us — and that's ok. Protection of your most evil of thoughts and soon, your most evil of comments, is essential to individualism — as it rarely is indicative of actions or practical goals – for otherwise we have Minority Report – the worst of dystopias.
happily, true wokeists and the hyper-feminization and non-merit 'inclusiveness' is actually far rarer in business and economic reality than one might otherwise think with its blaring mainstream journalism headlines and NGO statements. Bastions of techno-heroism will continue – keep the faith.
Interesting, but mostly disagree. The only restricted speech should be legally privileged and government secrets – fundamentally protecting civilized society. All else is the jungle. The only protected people (who would be kept away from public forums) are those who would otherwise be unable to get into a binding 'western' contract, minors and the incapable, etc.- people who couldn't really 'handle' the discussions. Fundamentally, people are adults and they are only words. Resilience, callousness, and emotional toughness are essential to functioning in society – and this is sparse as it is. Nice people finish last – however, civil people flourish – a difference. Increased censorship, nanny-style 'moderation', and other 'pain' protections only serve to create a 'thin-skinned' society – a slippery slope to endless restriction, cancellation, and deepening hyper-sensitivity. The risk of unending comment boards of spam, venomous personal attacks, false information, and deceptive/non-applicable debate is very real and likely promiennt – but that is ok because that is how people, the majority of people, truly are. Of course, that makes many, if not most, sites fundamentally useless for information to depend on – but why would you depend on amazon or ebay or cnbc or cnn or nextbigfuture for 'truth'. Entertainment maybe. This is why academic papers are peer-reviewed. Expert consensus. All else is banter. Comment sites can be more useful with user-controlled filters – not yet refined
If only. It was just a war or an aspirational truth. That there was some endgame or defined finish or logical conclusion so that productivity and advancement could continue. Some worthwhile future or goal… But wokeism is just a never-ending, shrill complaint or slight or objection that cannot be satisfied. Even when we get a group of them together, there is no consensus or growth or resolution. There isn't even self-sustaining work. Just the attention-demanding tantrum of toddlers endlessly malcontent. Please let the narcissistic, for-profit, hyper-productive, techno-visionaries take this world over the next decade from Greta and her ilk — giving us space, money, energy, life, and liberty.
Logically, it is inconsistent to have an almost sacred value for truth, and to be utterly gung-ho regarding free speech. A lot of what is said when there are no bounds is intentionally deceptive, often to make money, or manipulate views.
And I have also found that it takes roughly 15x more space to refute a lie, than to tell one. That means there will always be more garbage than useful information without any controls.
Free speech is way over rated. We should be accountable for what we say. Sure, incarceration for speech should have an extraordinarily high bar, like known false info directly leading to deaths or injury. But, that does not mean we should give everyone a bullhorn.
I also think it is equally important that people are not stifled because they are saying something that causes those who own the forum to potentially lose money, or is opposed to a political view or empower other viewers to remove their comment. I see this sort of thing all the time on sites that sell stuff. And then there are people pretending to be customers leaving reviews, who are just employed by the seller. I reported some of these on Amazon, but it was my comment that was removed, not the fraudulent ones. eBay years ago, changed things so it is exceedingly hard to leave negative reviews. Now it is my last choice.
I think that certain types of nondisclosure agreements should be nullified. They should only be legitimate if they involve classified information, intellectual property, or business strategy stuff. The things like hushing anything about sleeping around, crimes and other slimy dealings, should not be protectable.
And just as a matter of principle, the US government should never do things in secret that would be shameful, and reflect badly if the public found out.
Also, law enforcement should not lie unless under cover. Anyone brought in for questioning should not be manipulated by lies.
A mini excavator would get more done faster, be cheaper, and likely be a lot more fun.
I have been watching this channel with a bit of envy for years: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewCamarata/videos
I live in the burbs, so any tractor I would buy would have to be very small.
Why wouldn't I be interested? I wrecked my right shoulder last summer splitting an oak tree into firewood, and I'm right-handed. There are a lot of yard work chores that could use somebody "who" could do them without agonizing pain.
So you were hoping to buy a robot? Isn't it a little like hiring a 5th grader? You will have to watch every move they make…and in the end, you could have gotten it done better, faster and with far less stress, if you had done it yourself…or hired someone known to be competent?
And if it is something you are having it do for someone else…there is the sadness that it was not actually you doing it…from you or them or both.
Why would you want any of these headaches? Your kids should be playing catch with you not your robot.
Maybe version 18, in 20 years, for tasks it is known to perform well. Of course, if it is really capable and productive at that time, it won't be cheap either.
I am actually quite unimpressed, as there is no way a humanoid shape is ideal for a robot…even one substituting for a human. Wheels are always going to be more efficient than legs. At the very least, it needs little wheels to pop out of the bottom of the feet. And how many times have I needed a third arm? 3 or 4 would have to be better than 2.
What would happen if the more affordable Optimus was capable of driving your car?
Reaction speed would be a issue maybe, unless there was some sort of interface making Optimus move faster when driving a vehicle.
Interconnecting the highway system with a sensor network via Optimus would make sense though.
And then there's home/ household 'butlering'…or Rosie the Roboting from the Jetsons, that'd be cool.
Wokeism won the cultural war, didn't you get the memo?
Now it's the only and absolute truth, whatever our Esteemed Leaders say is virtuous & woke this week.
worse than that. If you compare the talks from 3, 5, 10, and 20 years ago, the whole concept has changed. These talks used to be small, exclusive, and highly sought-after by top thinkers and doers. Just getting an invite to the audience over 10 years ago was an accomplishment. The idea was top people in a field would discuss their innovation to other top people in other professions sitting in the audience – with the notion of inter-field thinking/ collaboration. Really innovative. Then they released the talks to the public. Then they franchised to talks so there were hundreds per year, easy to find at many middling institutions and public forums. Then they added an ESG vibe and a time limit. Total sell-out – but maybe it was going to collapse anyway?? who knows? Also, its Leonardo da Vinci's 570th bDay today.
Yeah. There are a few new editors/ producers there that took over the brand over 3 years ago. I guess they thought that the old audience would embrace the new 'vision'.
Agreed. I have to delete 90% of the downloaded podcasts for this subscription because they focus on stories of how best to force gender-/race-based substitution (cyncially called inclusion), increase non-merit-based employment/ services, and overall just how to dismantle the patriarchy. Newsflash: there is no patriarchy – just individuals with ambition and drive, who care not for identity politics and feel-good policies.
I agree, if he just wants free speech he could probably spend $4 billion on various efforts around that and make some nice progress.
So Elon could save $38 billion for more world changing things. I don't get why he would want to sink so much $ into a platform like Twitter that has been around for a long time. I thought he was thinking more about the future and the pop sci version of it. Not apps.
Kind of surprised that Elon got invited/ accepted. TED has become very woke, hyper-progressive, and to some degree anti-establishment/ anti-tech. Many talks are about 'traditional' environmental values and dirty-hippy stewardship. TED has certainly lost innovation- and disruption-cred – even worse than WIRED.
I'm not sure I feel happy about the Twitter offer.
At best is a distraction, at worse a money sink that keeps him away from the Mars plans for several years.
But it's not the first time the guy comes with contrived plans that end up helping out the rest.
Most likely he will be denied, by the real puppet master interests behind Twitter.
I really wish he stops at that time and keeps doing what he's doing,
Socialists, right or left wing, are simply the neurotic power addicted mentally ill. All mentally healthy people are libertarian.
Watching lefties lose it for free speech is beyond staggering
"Teslabot – Optimus- will sell for less than a car."
I'd be excited about that, if it weren't for the fact that, by "a car", he means a Tesla, and I can't afford a Tesla.
"Elon Musk says he could be the most knowledgeable person about manufacturing living at this time." Does he understand micr0g ISMRU and the clear advantages of free energy and vacuum, not to mention room, O'Neill Space offers? That one thing, if indeed still not true, makes me, overall, superior in that regard. Forget Mars.