Economist Editor Breaks Down Elon Musk's Biggest AI Predictions After Exclusive Interview — AI1G

[0:00] The most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies at least just meet [0:06] or have some sort of call once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues. [0:17] But why haven't you done that yet? I mean, you don't all like each other very much. [0:21] Yeah, but you're not all, I mean, you're also all competing, right? You all want to be first. [0:26] Yes, but that's where I think the competitors can keep each other honest. [0:33] So meaning like if I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't have a deep technical understanding [0:40] and isn't driving the frontier of AI to know whether something should be released or not. [0:47] However, the competitors, I think what can, you know, if given sort of a week or two to review a new model, [0:54] can highlight issues and have an incentive to keep, all the competitors have an incentive to keep the others honest. [1:03] That was Elon Musk going to sit down and interview with The Economist. [1:06] Joining us now is Zannie Petos, editor-in-chief of The Economist, who conducted that interview. [1:12] It's fascinating, Zannie. [1:14] I thought you did an extraordinary job and we were all, you know, glued to the screen. [1:20] I'm curious. I mean, you touched on so many things. [1:23] You touched on the AI piece, the whole idea that he really thinks within five years AI is going to be even smarter, [1:29] potentially even than him and what that means to his own power. [1:33] You got into some of the things that happened with Doge and his role in the government, USAID. [1:39] What was the thing, what was the moment as you were sitting there where you thought, huh, that really surprised me? [1:46] Oh, so many. [1:47] I mean, he's an extraordinary individual and there were lots of times when I was kind of slack-jawed, at least inwardly. [1:56] I was really struck by his vision of the future and actually the fact that he now thinks it is inevitable that, as you say, [2:04] within five years AI is going to be more intelligent than humans and that within 10 years he's painting this picture, [2:11] essentially where, you know, we are, we are like the kind of the Labradors to the AIs. [2:17] You know, money will be irrelevant. [2:19] It'll be such an era of abundance, but they will be in control. [2:23] And, you know, you know, Andrew, you know his background. [2:25] And he's, you know, this is a man who in 2015 said on a podcast that that was one of the scariest things he could imagine. [2:32] In 2023 he wanted to pause AI and now he's, you know, he's, you know, right at the front of this. [2:38] And I said to him, you know, it sounds like you've given up on your concerns and you're, you know, it's going along for the ride. [2:43] And he sort of goes, yeah, I'm going along for the ride. [2:46] And he said, he admitted that within a, within one day he would go from exhilaration to terror. [2:52] But I was, I was very struck by the inevitability he thought that this technology and the speed with which it was progressing would mean that this extraordinary future would, would kind of come within five years. [3:04] I mean, really struck, struck by that. [3:06] And again, at the same time, he laid out, I think for the first time, and you showed that in your clip, a willingness to work with the other frontier model makers to have some kind of, and he wants it an informal, typical Elon, right? [3:20] He wants them all to get on a call and talk to each other and test each other's models for a week. [3:25] And, you know, if they come up with security flaws, tell the model maker that's got them. [3:29] And only then, if, if the model maker doesn't, you know, do anything, then go to the government. [3:33] But I was struck how similar that is actually to the proposal by Devis Asabes last week for a FINRA style public, private partnership. [3:40] And I think this really now has legs. [3:42] I think this is going to go somewhere. [3:44] He did seem to suggest that he'd be even open to talking to Sam Altman. [3:50] At some level. [3:53] Absolutely. [3:53] I mean, I hinted at that. [3:55] No, more than hinted. [3:56] He said that. [3:57] No, he absolutely said that. [3:58] Because I said, look, you know, you are all massive, not just massive competitors. [4:02] 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. [4:08] And he said at the end, he said, well, he explained to me why he disliked Sam Altman. [4:12] But then he said at the end, you know, yeah, maybe we should talk for the good of humanity. [4:17] And so I think there is a sense of responsibility that he recognizes that, you know, the leading model makers do have to do this. [4:27] And I said, does this have to happen quickly? [4:29] And he said, yes. [4:29] And I said, well, yeah, people are telling me this has to be done within the next six months. [4:32] He said six months is a very long time. [4:34] It has to happen now. [4:36] Right. [4:36] I want to show a clip of another piece of this that's going viral has to do with I think you might have used the word right wing politics at some point. [4:45] And he did not react well. [4:48] Let's show that for a second. [4:51] It's just more people. [4:52] And the and here are the principles. [4:55] And tell me which of these sound terrible, that we should have secure borders, that we should have safe cities, that we should have sensible spending. [5:04] Which of those three are far right fringe? [5:08] And I would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the far right. [5:17] It is false and misleading and nonsense. [5:20] Please keep this part in. [5:22] We'll keep all of this. [5:24] Don't cut this part. [5:26] Let me push back on that. [5:27] Let me push back on that. [5:27] Because you have nonsense. [5:29] Elon, you have, what is it, close to 250 million followers on X. [5:34] You say things like, quote, civil war in Britain is inevitable. [5:39] Just a question of when. [5:40] On the current trend, yes. [5:42] When were you last in the UK? [5:46] A few years ago. [5:48] Okay. [5:48] So you obviously reacted in the moment, but now you've had even more time to react and think about that. [5:54] You kept it in. [5:55] So we all got to see it. [5:58] What do you think? [5:59] Well, of course I kept it in because I, you know, I think people should see the whole of the interview. [6:04] 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 really divisive far right politics. [6:21] Because I think that's undoubted. [6:22] And I think many of these politicians wouldn't be anywhere without Elon Musk's support. [6:26] And I asked him why. [6:27] 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. [6:39] And as you heard him say, he has said that England is heading for civil war. [6:43] And I wanted to know when he was last there, because I feel very strongly that this is a profound mischaracterization of Europe. [6:51] And it's irresponsible for someone who has 240 million followers to propagate things that are simply not true. [6:57] 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. [7:08] And this is having consequences, Andrew. [7:10] There are many people I come across in the U.S. 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. [7:19] It's just not true. [7:21] On the facts, you know, London is a safer place than major U.S. cities. [7:25] Europe is not the hellhole he's painting it to be. [7:28] And I just I got exercised about it, probably more exercised than I should have done, because it seems to me that this is not just wrong. [7:35] It's irresponsible and it's having really serious consequences. [7:39] And I think it's just unfortunate that someone who is so farsighted and expansive and thoughtful, if slightly terrifying, on where AI could go, can kind of basically play in this sort of dystopia about Europe and say things that are just not right. [7:54] And you've known Elon for a long time. [7:56] I've known Elon for a long time. [7:57] And I think we both agree that in many ways he's very brilliant and very thoughtful. [8:01] And so my question to you, to the degree that you disagree with him on about his assessment, where do you think that assessment comes from? [8:10] Why do you think he thinks that? [8:12] I think he has a very firmly held belief that if you have a large scale migration of people from cultures that then don't integrate, it is going to have problematic consequences for a society. [8:28] And, you know, to some degree, one can agree with bits of that. [8:32] Uncontrolled migration is sort of societally untenable. [8:37] But that's not what's happening in Europe. [8:39] And my issue with him is his, I think, erroneous and caricatured description of what's actually going on in Europe. [8:46] 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 the continent, which isn't accurate and which is in turn feeding, you know, the whole MAGA view that, you know, there's civilizational erasure in Europe. [9:07] We're all, you know, it's a dying continent that's in a catastrophic shape. [9:12] Of course, there are problems. And I'm the first person to admit that there are problems. [9:16] There are free speech issues in this country. There are problem areas in this country. [9:19] There are problems with definitely some problems with migration. [9:22] But it is not what he paints it to be. [9:24] And nor, frankly, is he being disingenuous when he says that all he is in favor of is, you know, secure borders and limited spending and safe cities. [9:34] Because on two of those three, Europe does better than the U.S. [9:37] You also got into a bit of a fiery exchange with him over Doge. [9:42] And USAID. [9:45] Well, we did that. He got fired. I was just really just asking him. [9:50] And he mentioned that, you know, his view that Doge was just the USAID was a political organization. [9:57] And he said zero, there had been zero deaths as a result of shutting down USAID. [10:02] And I simply pushed back and I said, you know, it happened overnight. [10:06] USAID was a very big, you know, provider of health care funding in Africa. [10:12] I find it very hard to believe that there were no deaths and no suffering. [10:17] And he, you heard him, he just said zero, zero deaths. [10:20] And again, I think that's, you know, you can agree that USAID needed reform or perhaps even needed shutting down. [10:28] But the way it was done clearly to me, to my mind, and I think indisputably has led to unnecessary suffering. [10:36] When you think about SpaceX, the IPO just happening and Tesla, we keep having a sort of a parlor game about whether he ultimately buys that business. [10:45] What do you think? Does it all become one? [10:48] We didn't talk about it explicitly, but my strong sense from the way that he described his vision was that it was one set of businesses. [10:57] 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, [11:02] over 80 percent of voting shares and you essentially, you can go crazy and you still can't be removed. [11:08] And he talked about why he needed this control. And he spoke about it in a five to ten year time horizon. [11:14] He said, I need it for the next five to ten years because we have to, you know, extend consciousness to the universe. [11:21] And he described all the elements, which included elements from SpaceX and from Tesla. [11:27] You could tell, I think, that he has a lot of respect for you, but you guys had a lot of debate. [11:34] I want to know how it ended. [11:36] Oh, I think you saw it at the end. It ended perfectly amicably. [11:39] He said, at least I'm not boring. And then we carried on talking for another 15 minutes while he had his pictures taken. [11:45] I mean, look, I think he's an extraordinary individual. I am not a Musk hater. [11:49] I think he's an extraordinary, extraordinary individual who has done probably more than any other person to build the future. [11:55] So I'm I love talking to him. It was an incredible privilege to have, what, 90 minutes talking to him. [12:01] And, you know, we ended perfectly amateur. I hope he'll talk to me again. We'll see. [12:05] It was really interesting. But I think it was important to push back on these areas where I think it deserves being pushed back on, because I just think it's not right what he's saying. [12:14] I think it's not right. [12:15] I think it's not right. [12:15] I think it's not right. [12:16] I think it's not right. [12:17] I think it's not right. [12:18] It's not right. [12:19] It's not right. [12:20] It's not right. [12:21] It's not right. [12:22] It's not right. [12:23] It's not right. [12:24] It's not right. [12:25] It's not right. [12:26] It's not right. [12:27] It's not right. [12:28] It's not right. [12:29] It's not right. [12:30] It's not right. [12:31] It's not right. [12:32] It's not right. [12:33] It's not right. [12:34] It's not right. [12:35] It's not right. [12:36] It's not right. [12:37] It's not right. [12:38] It's not right. [12:39] It's not right. [12:40] It's not right.