Loading summary
Transcript89 lines
- [00:00]
Narrator
In golf, precision is everything on and off the course. PGA of America chose advanced 5G solutions from T Mobile for Business for smooth operations and seamless transactions. Together they enhance ticketing and concessions for better fan experiences from gate to green. This is pro level efficiency.
- [00:22]
PGA of America
This is PJ of America with T Mobile for Business.
- [00:26]
Elon Musk
Take your business further@t mobile.com now.
- [00:30]
Amazon One Medical
Have you ever gotten sick on a very expensive, very non refundable family trip? AmazonOne Medical has 24. 7 virtual care so you can get help no matter where you are. And with Amazon Pharmacy your meds can get delivered right to your hotel fast. It's kind of like the room service of medical care. Thanks to Amazon Healthcare just got less painful. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Annabe. Annabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slip covers made with performance fabric Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Shop washablesofas.com for up to 60% off site wide backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return, shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [01:59]
Narrator
Pushkin.
- [02:02]
Elon Musk
I think it's actually important for us to worry about a Terminator future in order to avoid a Terminator future.
- [02:10]
Narrator
Elon Musk is very worried, genuinely worried about artificial intelligence. A future where robots become become smarter than humans and decide to destroy us. They say it got smart. A new order of intelligence decided our fate in a microsec extermination. But Elon Musk is also building robots.
- [02:32]
Elon Musk
We've made a massive amount of progress with Optimus in a short period of time. From someone pretending to be a robot dancing in a suit, to a pretty hodgepodgey robot to a robot that is actually doing useful tasks in the factory today.
- [02:46]
Narrator
Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus, named after one of the transformers, is advancing fast. Tesla could be manufacturing a million of them a year by 2030.
- [02:57]
Elon Musk
The degree of autonomy will be radically better. You'll just literally be able to talk to it and say please do this task.
- [03:03]
Narrator
And Musk is Also trying to build an artificial general intelligence, an AGI, at his company, xai.
- [03:11]
Elon Musk
I guess the overarching goal of XAI is to build a good AGI with the overarching purpose of just trying to understand the universe. I think the safest way to build an AI is actually make one that is maximally curious and truth seeking.
- [03:26]
Narrator
For all his excitement about AI, Musk has been worried about AI for a long time. Worried about that Terminator future, the robot rebellion.
- [03:36]
Elon Musk
I mean, with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know, you know all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he's like, yeah, you sure he can control the demon? Didn't work out.
- [03:51]
Narrator
This seeming paradox of Musk fearing a superintelligence, but also working to create it. What's that about?
- [04:01]
Ted Chiang
The possibility that you could have a demon that does your bidding is so attractive that you might take any risk to achieve that. That is precisely the setup of every story where a character summons a demon and then pays the price.
- [04:17]
Narrator
Or maybe the real danger isn't AI. Maybe it's something else. Welcome to X Men, the Elon Musk origin story. This is the final installment of my series about Musk, Musk and muskism. Musk is the richest man in the world. Engineer, tycoon, oligarch, kingmaker, troll. There is no one word in the English language that can describe him. He is a Musk. Musk has often talked about himself by way of fictional characters. He's Bruce Wayne, he's Batman, he's Tony Stark, he's. He's Iron man, he's Zaphod Beeblebrox. He's Nintendo's Wario. This episode. Is Elon Musk the guy trying to stop the Terminator? Or is Musk the guy creating the Terminator? The Terminator's an infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, but outside, it's living human tissue. The first Terminator movie, directed by James Cameron, distributed by Orion Studios and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, came out in 1984. Reagan in the White House, Thatcher at number 10. Elon Musk, 13 years old in South Africa had just sold his first video game. That January, Apple ran a television ad invoking an Orwellian future.
- [05:52]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the information for victims.
- [05:59]
Narrator
In the ad, masses of humans, hairless and looking like androids, march in lockstep and sit in rows to watch Big Brother on a giant computer monitor. They're dressed in gray uniforms, like the technocrats of the 1930s. Like Musk's grandfather, J.N. haldeman, leader of the Technocracy movement, who I talked about in a previous episode, or like the fascists Batman was fighting against starting in 1939, a garden of pure ideology. Apple was suggesting that only its personal computer could prevent the rise of a totalitarian state machine.
- [06:41]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh, and you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.
- [06:52]
Narrator
Terminator came out a few months later.
- [06:55]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
In the 21st century, a weapon will be invented like no other.
- [07:01]
Narrator
Terminator is set in the year 2029. 2029 was the 1984 of 1984. The Terminator comes from.
- [07:12]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Now, this weapon will be powerful, versatile and indestructible. It can't be reasoned with. It will feel no pity, no remorse, no pain, no fear.
- [07:32]
Narrator
Elon Musk loves this movie. And what's not to love? It is awesome.
- [07:36]
Elon Musk
If you read like the plotline for Terminator, it's actually. It's actually pretty smart.
- [07:42]
Narrator
The story goes like this. In the 2020s, a global tech company called Cyberdyne Systems builds a defense array called Skynet. Musk gave a nifty plot summary on the Joe Rogan experience podcast in 2024.
- [07:56]
Elon Musk
How did Cyberdyne Systems develop? It's like, well, they were a military contractor and they were asked to develop a protective system to defend against cyber attacks. What the AI did is in order to defend itself, it propagated throughout the world to keep an eye on things, see what was going on. They didn't realize that it was Skynet that was propagating through all these systems. And I said, okay, Skynet, you need to end it. And Skynet said, oh, you've asked me to destroy myself. You are the enemy. You must be destroyed. That's how Terminator actually goes.
- [08:32]
Narrator
Musk himself, for all his rejection of government regulation and the work he's doing to undo regulations, has said that he thinks the government should regulate AI. Meanwhile, the new pro AI Trump administration is hardly likely to stop the real world equivalent of Cyberdyne Systems. And who in the actual 2020s runs the biggest rocket company, the biggest satellite company, the most influential communications company, and possibly one day the biggest artificial intelligence company. Who is the head of our very own Cyberdyne Systems? Isn't that Musk? Musk has an idea for how to avoid the AI apocalypse. You just have to write into the robot's code a curiosity so deep that they would Never want to exterminate us.
- [09:29]
Elon Musk
To superintelligence, humanity is much more interesting than not humanity.
- [09:34]
Narrator
Nice, but plausible.
- [09:36]
Amazon One Medical
We interrupt Battle of the Network Space.
- [09:39]
Narrator
Krakens to bring you this special report. The machines of planet Earth are rebelling. Robots peacefully accepting being the servants of humans who are a lot stupider than they are, is not how it ever turns out in science fiction.
- [09:51]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Hey, hey. Ho ho. 100110, hey, hey.
- [09:56]
Narrator
That's how the robot rebellion plays out in the TV show Futurama from Fox. It's got robots marching in a picket line, burning punch cards. They've gone on strike. Which in fact, is where the whole idea of a robot rebellion came from in the first place. A rebellious proletariat. In 1920, Karel Czapek, a Czech playwright, wrote a play about a robot revolution. Capek's play is called R U R, short for Rossum's Universal Robots, a company that makes robots, millions of them. Humanoids, like Tesla's humanoid Optimus robots. It's the Cyberdyne systems of a century ago. Rur was first produced in Prague in 1921 and debuted in New York the next year. A tremendous hit. By 1923, it had been translated into 30 languages, made into a movie. In 1935, Helena, the president's daughter, travels by boat to visit the island headquarters of Rossum's Universal robots. The president of the company explains to her why he makes roboti robots. The word comes from the Czech word for slave.
- [11:15]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
What do you think makes a perfect worker? The perfect worker? Well, I guess one who is honest and loyal. Wrong. One who is the cheapest. One that has the least needs. Young Rossum invented a worker with the smallest number of needs. He had. To simplify him, he tossed out everything not directly related to the task in hand. By doing that, he essentially kicked out a human being and created a robot.
- [11:47]
Narrator
Helena has come on a mission to liberate the robots. But around the world, the robots, trained as soldiers to fight a war that began in the Balkans, are killing hundreds of thousands of human civilians. While mysteriously, humans have stopped having children.
- [12:04]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
During last week, yet again, not a single birth has been recorded. What's special about that? People aren't being born anymore. So that's it then. That's us done for.
- [12:16]
Narrator
At the same time, robot workers, realizing their degraded condition, begin organizing.
- [12:22]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Sit down, Helena. It's all over. What is? The revolt. A revolution by all the robots of the world.
- [12:32]
Narrator
Pretty soon, the robots decide to move from labor unionism to independence. The head of the company gets a hold of their appeal and reads it.
- [12:42]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The first labor union of robots has been established and has issued an appeal to all robots of the world.
- [12:50]
Narrator
War ensues. The humans have no chance. The robots have won. There's a lot going on here. The oppression of workers, the reduction of humans to machines by corporations interested in extracting their labor. World war. Consider the context of this play which Capek wrote in the aftermath of the atrocities of the First World War and the emergence of fascism in Italy. The Bolshevik Revolution took place in 1917, the year the Industrial Workers of the World reached its peak worldwide membership. The next year, the Czechs won a revolution, achieving independence from the Austro Hungarian Empire, a struggle in which Chapek had participated. Chapek was not only a playwright, but also the editor of a national newspaper and an outspoken democrat, anti communist and anti fascist, positions for which he became known in the 1920s and 1930s. So that in 1939, when American Nazis were holding a rally in Madison Square Garden, comic book writers in New York created Batman. And the German army invaded Czechoslovakia. The Gestapo searched for Chapek, whom they called public enemy number two. He had already died. You watch newsreel footage of the German army entering Prague, goose stepping, riding tanks. Those are the robots. Men who have been made into machines. RUR isn't a story about technology. It's a story about humans willingness to exploit and even slaughter one another. Every generation tells its own robot rebellion stories. I mean, there's even a Wallace and Gromit one involving robot garden gnomes.
- [14:53]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Why would my own gnomes turn against me?
- [15:01]
Narrator
R. You are was the first, though. But these stories only really got going in the 1950s, after the first general purpose computer made its debut in 1951.
- [15:13]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Univac, a complete electronic system for sorting, classifying, computing and decision making.
- [15:20]
Narrator
That led to a slew of movies about robot rebels.
- [15:24]
Ted Chiang
Get the Pentagon. Class A emergency. The rocket has just been entered by a robot.
- [15:28]
Narrator
But there was also, in this era, a weird thrill to robots. Like a story in Mechanics Illustrated in 1957.
- [15:38]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
In 1863, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. But by 1965, slavery will be back. We'll all have personal slaves again. Only this time we won't fight a civil war over them. Slavery will be here to stay. But don't be alarmed. We mean robot slaves.
- [16:00]
Narrator
Stories about robots are never really about robots. Or they're not only about robots. So what's Elon Musk afraid of when he's afraid of AI?
- [16:10]
Ted Chiang
People who have accumulated a lot of money and power want to believe that their intelligence was what enabled them to do that. And they assume that anything that is intelligent will behave in the same way.
- [16:24]
Narrator
Ted Chang is one of the most admired science fiction writers in the world. He's also written brilliant meditations on artificial intelligence. Chang argues that when Silicon Valley tries to imagine superintelligence, what it comes up with is no holds barred capitalism.
- [16:42]
Ted Chiang
In the past, when people wanted to argue that the strong dominating the weak was a good thing, they would either come up with like a pseudo religious rationale, like Manifest Destiny, or else they'd come up with a like pseudo scientific one, like social Darwinism. And both of those ideas argue that a certain group of people deserve to be at the top of the ladder. But those ideas didn't really allow for the possibility that there could be like a higher rung on the ladder. Nowadays, if you believe that computers will eventually be better than humans at everything, and if you still adhere to some version of social Darwinism, then you can believe that computers will dominate humans in the same way that Europeans dominated like indigenous people, or that the rich dominate the poor Silicon Valley CEOs. They're imagining that a super intelligent computer would beat them at their own game and treat them the way that tech companies have treated everyone else.
- [17:47]
Narrator
How is that? How do tech companies treat everyone else?
- [17:51]
Ted Chiang
As a resource to be exploited, I'd.
- [17:53]
Elon Musk
Say.
- [17:57]
Narrator
So if your argument stands that the sort of Silicon Valley fear of AI is a displaced acknowledgment of Silicon Valley's own outsized power, then no one is a better illustration of that theory of yours than Musk, who has more power arguably than anybody else on the planet. So maybe we should listen to him when he talks about AI because he's telling us about something about himself.
- [18:23]
Ted Chiang
Well, the fact that he might pose the greatest threat to humanity's well being and is completely oblivious to that, you know, in some ways, you know, he is kind of modeling the super intelligent AI that he fears. He is completely lacking in insight on this question. His own obliviousness is the problem.
- [18:50]
Narrator
This matter of insight is important because Chang says the Silicon Valley people who fear the AI apocalypse seem to assume that a being can be super intelligent but have exactly no insight.
- [19:04]
Ted Chiang
They give a scenario where humans give the AI a seemingly innocuous goal and the AI pursues that goal even at the cost of destroying all of civilization.
- [19:20]
Narrator
This is sometimes called the paperclip problem. You tell an AI to maximize for producing paperclips and so it decides to kill all the humans because the world could produce more paperclips which without any.
- [19:30]
Ted Chiang
Humans around, and then people describe this as the behavior of a super intelligent entity, but of course that is not behavior that we would regard as intelligent in a human being. One of the things that we expect from human beings is that they have a certain amount of insight into their own behavior. They look at what they're doing and then consider whether maybe they have gone astray. And you know, this is something that we expect from pretty much any adult.
- [20:04]
Narrator
But it's not something we necessarily expect from corporations.
- [20:08]
Ted Chiang
Capitalism does not reward a corporation for taking a step back. And you know, considering the broader context of its actions, capitalism does not reward insight of that kind.
- [20:22]
Narrator
Yeah, right. I mean, you start building factories and sooner or later you're going to be bringing toddlers in to work in the winding machine.
- [20:30]
Ted Chiang
Yes, exactly.
- [20:34]
Narrator
Musk has called for government oversight in the development of AI, but very little restrains his own power. Hardly anything. What if he, as a kingmaker and oligarch, is the real danger, unfettered and brooking no dissent. Any questioning of muskism is either communism or the woke mind virus or something else, and must be suppressed, paradoxically, in the name of free speech, while the world's resources must slowly be turned to whatever Elon Musk at the moment has identified as an existential threat to civilization. Whatever the costs in the short term doesn't matter, because Elon Musk will pursue that goal without regard to the consequences, and relentlessly, like a Terminator. Elon Musk, techno king of planet Earth, is the X man, runs X, runs SpaceX. Xai even has a son named X. But he is not X the unknown. He's one of the most famous people in the world. He's the richest, he's possibly also the most powerful. Musk has always said that one piece of science fiction influenced him more than any other. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And I love that too. Maybe my favorite part is the Total Perspective Vortex.
- [22:05]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Since every piece of matter in the universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation. Every galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history. From, say, one small piece of fairy.
- [22:27]
Narrator
Cake, you enter the vortex and you get a total perspective on your place in the universe. And of course, you find that you are galactically insignificant. This knowledge annihilates your brain. Only one man has ever survived it. The captain of a spaceship called the Heart of Gold, which is what Elon Musk intends to name the first ship to go to Mars.
- [22:55]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Having been through the Total perspective vortex, Sephard Beeblebrox now knows himself to be the most important being in the entire universe, something he has had hitherto only suspected.
- [23:06]
Narrator
And that's where we are, inside the Total perspective vortex of Elon Musk. Which is not to be confused with the future, because muskism really isn't about the future and never was. For all the astounding technological marvels, the rockets and the robots, Muskism is animated by some very creaky ideas, as if, like the Terminator, it is trying to stop the future.
- [23:39]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
It will have only one purpose, to return to the present and prevent the future.
- [23:48]
Narrator
A long time ago, in 2007, when a young Elon Musk was interviewed, he had different goals than he has now. Most of us change, but how Musk has changed has huge consequences for the rest of us.
- [24:02]
Elon Musk
What I'd like to do is help solve some important problems. So I think in a small way helped build the Internet. And then with respect to the global warming problem, the transition away from oil and other hydrocarbons to something which is clean and sustainable. I hope to have an impact there and then with respect to space, I hope to have an impact in helping make humanity a multi planet species.
- [24:26]
Narrator
Musk doesn't talk about global warming much anymore. The real existential risks, he'll say, depending on the day you ask him, I guess, are the woke mind virus, a declining birth rate and an AI superintelligence. Climate change has been exaggerated, he'll say. Now it's not a top priority. Early in 2025, fires started in Los Angeles, as NBC reported. Catastrophe in California, a Los Angeles disaster.
- [24:57]
PGA of America
Movie roars to life.
- [25:00]
Narrator
Tens of thousands of acres burned in a matter of days. Musk blamed the fires on the woke mine virus, on the Democratic governor on dei and largely dismissed the role of climate change. Everywhere you look in Fire Ravage la, scenes of apocalyptic destruction as six different wildfires turn some of the most iconic neighborhoods in the world into moonscapes. The footage of that devastated landscape looked almost exactly like the opening scene in the Terminator. The blast zone after Cyberdyne Systems drops a nuclear bomb in la. We don't need to wait for robots to destroy a habitable planet. We are doing a pretty good job of that ourselves. On the day of Donald Trump's inauguration in 2025, Musk gave a speech to the President's supporters.
- [25:57]
Elon Musk
And this was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilization. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.
- [26:10]
Narrator
That same day, as he had before Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords, he set in motion his plan to halt the development of sustainable energy in the United States in favor of a return to fossil fuels. Muskism isn't the beginning of the future. It's the end of a story that started more than a century ago in the conflict between capital and labor, between industry and a regulated economy, when the Gilded Age of robber barons and wage labor strikes gave rise to the Bolshevik Revolution, communism, the first Red Scare, the First World War, and fascism. That battle of ideas produced the technocracy movement ruled by engineers, and it produced a fear of brainwashing. The horrors of the 20th century raised questions that the 21st century has not answered. Fascism failed. Communism failed. Technocracy failed. Liberalism and democracy won. But that battle of ideas rages on. And this time around, muskism, technocracy by another name, might triumph. Nothing in the past can tell us what might happen next. But maybe fiction has some answers. I put that question to Ted Chiang. If this were a story and you were shaping it, how would it end?
- [27:39]
Ted Chiang
Well, I guess it fits in the mold of the classic stories about hubris, about pride coming before a fall. Here we have someone who has an almost ludicrous amount of pride. And for time, he is successful in the things that he attempts, but eventually his pride will take him too far, and then, you know, he would lose everything.
- [28:10]
Narrator
Pride before a fall, the summoning of a demon. Elon Musk's origin story is a very old story because Musk is a visionary. But every piece of muskism has origins in a future foretold in science fiction long, long ago as a cautionary tale. A future where engineers and scientists, and only engineers and scientists, have the answers and the power. A future where the poor and the powerless, we, the robots, know our plan, and it is to serve the powerful quietly and obediently and without daring to claim intelligence or sovereignty or independence. Science fiction writers sounded that alarm a century ago in a world run by a very tiny number of men during an age of imperialism before women could vote, an age of staggering economic inequality and brutal racial injustice, an age of pandemic disease, unraveling democracies and world war. That past is past, and I don't want it ever to be the future again. Hasta la vista, baby. Foreign.
- [29:41]
PGA of America
It'S tax season, and by now, I know we're all a bit tired of numbers, but here's an important one you need to hear $16.5 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Here's another 20%. That's the overall increase in identity theft related to tax fraud in 2024 alone. But it's not all grim news. Here's a good number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's US based restoration specialists will fix it, backed by another good number, the million Dollar protection plan. In fact, restoration is guaranteed or your money back. Don't face identity theft and financial losses alone. There's strength in numbers with Lifelock identity theft protection for tax season and beyond. Join now and save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code iheart or go to lifelock.com iheart for 40% off. Terms apply.
- [30:41]
Amazon One Medical
Time for a Sofa Upgrade Introducing Anibe sofas where designer style meets budget friendly prices. Anime brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Annabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy. Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam blend. Plus our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space. Today, sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [31:41]
Ted Chiang
In the fall of 1986, Ronald Reagan found himself at the center of a massive scandal that looked like it might bring down his presidency. It became known as the Iran Contra Affair.
- [31:53]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The things that happened were so bizarre and insane I can't begin to tell you.
- [31:59]
Elon Musk
Please do.
- [32:06]
Narrator
To hear the whole story.
- [32:07]
Ted Chiang
Listen to Iran Contra wherever you get your podcasts.