StarTalk Radio - The Future of Humanity with Elon Musk

Episode Date: March 22, 2015

Neil deGrasse Tyson explores the future of humanity with one of the men forging that future: billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Co-hosted by Chuck Nice and guest starring Bill Nye. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And I have with me Chuck Nice. That's right. Hey, Chuck. Hey, Neil.

Tweeting at ChuckNiceComic. That is correct, sir. As always. Good. Good to have you on the show. Good to be here. Do you know what this topic is today? There's probably no more important topic we've ever addressed than this topic.

Oh. The future of humanity. Oh. Okay. That's what it is. The future of humanity. And we are featuring my interview with the one and the only Elon Musk. A man who is contributing to the future of humanity. And we are featuring my interview with the one and the only Elon Musk. A man who is contributing to the future of humanity.

He's not contributing to it. He is the future. It's not something that everybody else is doing and then they come in on it. No, no. He's making it. Okay. Okay. And sometimes he's referred to as the real life Iron Man, Tony Stark.

I have to agree with that actually. And he's the founder of PayPal. It's an internet company. He's a founder of SpaceX, a rocket company. He's founder of Tesla Motors, an electric car company. And he's chairman of Solar City, a solar energy company. He is the real Tony Stark. There you go.

And I thought, I mean, I don't love you, but I thought I should bring in some help on this one. Okay. Is that okay? Another man who? Yeah, yeah. Someone else in my life. Now this is awkward. Okay.

It's not that awkward. Oh, here he is. Bill Nye. Yes. Over here biting my lip. Is Dr. Tyson going to introduce me? Am I, should I say anything? No, we'll just talk about you.

We're talking about Elon Musk, who is a heck of a guy. Yeah, good to have you here, because you've got some serious engineering background. And so a lot of the show, we're going to talk about engineering, the future of our civilization. Yeah. And I could make stuff up. Civilization can dream. But I'd rather you say what real stuff. And plus, you're writing a book on sustainability.

Climate change and doing more with less. Do you know what it's going to be called? Unbounded. Unbounded. Unbounded. Very nice. And I want to cultivate. Go ahead.

Subtitle, you're a freaking idiot if you don't believe in climate change. Is that what it is? Well, that might as well be. So it is an extraordinary time. I mean, we're talking about Elon Musk and his vision for the future of humanity. But it's an extraordinary time. As we record this, the state of Florida, just for bad, would not allow state officials to use the phrase climate change. Yes.

Really? Yeah. Or sea level rise. Or sea level. And they're going to, so what's going to happen? The states of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama are going to build fences like we have in Texas. Yes. To keep the Floridians, both the Seminoles and the Gators.

No, Chuck, I think no disrespect to anybody who lives in Florida, Georgia, or Alabama, but I got a feeling it's going to be a chain link fence too. Let's keep this water out. Let's find out. Let's get to the bottom of what created Elon Musk. I wanted to find out where did he come from? Where did he grow up? I didn't know anything about the man.

Let's find out. Elon, what egg hatched you into this world? Where were you before you? Well, I was born in South Africa. Born in South Africa, and you come to America and make a billion dollars. Yeah. I mean, I didn't expect to make a billion dollars, I suppose. I mean, I grew up in South Africa, honestly, seeing a lot of the same TV and movies and reading comic books. And it really didn't feel all that different from, say, Southern California, honestly. So you had a kind of baptism into American pop culture at the time.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I ate a lot of hamburgers and went to steakhouses and read like every comic book, you know. So my father brought me on a trip to the united states when i think i was about 10 i remember it was really awesome experience because the hotels all had arcades so my number one thing was when we went to a new hotel or motel or whatever it is go to the arcades and so the forget any other services forget whether they had bed bugs you're looking for arcade games yeah what did video games do for you i mean they're incredibly engaging and they made me want to learn how to program computers. Because then I thought, well, I could make my own games, and then I could also...

I wanted to see how the games worked. How did you create a video game? That's what led me to learn how to program computers. So you became a programmer. Yeah, so I had one of the first video game consoles. It didn't even have cartridges. It had four games that you could play, and you could pick one of the four games you could play. That was it.

And then it went from there to the original Atari, and then Intellivision. And then I was in a store and saw a Commodore VIC-20. And I was like, holy crow, you can actually have a computer and make your own games. I thought this was just one of the most incredible things possible. I took all of my saved allowance and then hounded my father until we got the Commodore VIC-20,

and then it came with this manual on how to program in BASIC, which I sort of spent all night, several days in a row, just observing that. On your own? No one forced you? No, I would never be forced. This is self-motivated. I've got to know this. This is good for me. I've just been like 9, 9 or 10 or something. So you were fluent in BASIC at age 9 or 10? Yeah.

I kind of went, got OCD on the thing. Maybe it's not technically OCD, but I certainly got obsessive. Let me put that, at least the O part. So programming is power. You get to control something. Yeah, you construct a little universe. And when you first do it, you're like, wow, this is incredible. You can actually make things happen. Like you type these commands and then something happens on the screen.

That's pretty amazing. happen. Like you type these commands and then something happens on the screen. That's pretty amazing. So there is hope for all the parents who have middle school children who are lost in their video game. Absolutely. They too can be a billionaire. I'm sorry, what I was just playing.

Bill, we're over here. Put the video game down. Put your PSV down. You know, actually, my son has a video game craze ball how old is he he's nine he's nine yeah it doesn't get better doesn't get better but his favorite game is something called minecraft yeah i know nothing about it however uh i started watching him play this and i went you know what this isn't bad this guy's learning how to create his own universe it's very

imagination driven and now he wants to learn how to code we love the guy it could go it could go diabolical if he wants to create his own universe i just want you to know it's not as easy as it sounds on the radio create your own universe hey great so just a quick resume of of of el So, you know, in 1999, he founded the company that would become PayPal. Wow. And then sold it to eBay. And he went off with $180 million in it. And he was 32 years old.

And so. How did he make a living between university and 32? Well, there's more of this interview that we will find out. But I don't know. He was like making companies and selling them. The way you do. Yeah, yeah. Of course.

That's how you do it. Let's find out. That's hard. So what I wanted to know was while he was in college, what was he thinking about? You know, most of us in college, you want to major, get a job when you come out. Let's find out what he was thinking about. When I was in college, I sort of thought, well, what are the things that are most going to affect the future of humanity? And electric cars, solar power, essentially sustainable consumption.

Most people are thinking, I just want a job when I get out. And you're trying to reshape humanity as an undergraduate. I mean, in America, it's pretty easy to keep yourself alive. So, I mean, my threshold for existing is pretty low. I mean, I figured I could be in some dingy apartment with my computer and be okay and not starve. In fact, when I first came to North America, I was in Canada when I was 17, and just to sort of see what it takes to live,

I'd try to live on $1 a day, which I was able to do. You sort of just buy food in bulk at the supermarket. Yeah, rice and beans. Yeah, I went more for the hot dogs. Hot dogs, okay. Hot dogs and oranges. You do get really tired of hot dogs and oranges after a while. And you can also like pasta and green pepper and a big thing of sauce, and that can go

pretty far too. So I was like, oh, okay, if I, if I can live for a dollar a day, then at least from a food cost standpoint, well, it's pretty easy to earn like $30 in a month, you know. Yeah, I would think. So it'll probably be okay. Okay, so that allowed you to not have to worry about money because you did the experiment.

Yeah, I did the experiment, exactly. So this was an important psychological, philosophical anchor for you, not to put words in your mouth, but that's a starting point to launch anywhere you want to go. Yeah, absolutely. And so now you've got a baseline, a life baseline from which to go new places intellectually, psychologically, financially. So what came first? Thoughts of an electric car or thoughts of space? You know, when you're starting out in college, like in your freshman, sophomore year, you have these sort of sophomoric philosophical wanderings.

And I try to think of, okay, what are the things that it will seem to me would most affect the future of humanity? There were really five things, three of which I thought would be interesting to be involved in. The three that I thought were definitely positive would be the internet, sustainable energy,

both production and consumption, and space exploration, more specifically the extension of life beyond Earth on a permanent basis. And then, although I never thought I'd actually be involved in that, that was something I thought that was important in the abstract, but not something I thought I would ever have an opportunity to be involved in. And then the fourth one was artificial intelligence, and the fifth one was rewriting human genetics. These were just the five things that I thought would most affect the future of humanity. So Chuck, did you want to change humanity when you went to college? I didn't even want to change my underwear when I was in

college. Are you kidding me? Bill, you're an engineer man. Do you agree with this list? Yeah, it's a pretty cool list. That's a cool list. I would have included educating women and girls, raising the standard of living of women and girls so that the human population of the world will slowly become more manageable. A greater tapping the lost intellectual capital. That's right. Among those who have been disenfranchised from it. Or never franchised. Right.

Never franchised in the first place. Pre-franchised. Just a franchise in the first place. Pre-franchise. I love when you say that because it's basically when women are educated, they don't have as many babies. That's it. That's all there is to it. The babies they have are more loved and better cared for. And so that's where the burgeoning of society happens with mom being a happier, healthier person, more educated, end up with better

educated kids, end up with a better world. Just like that. Just like that. Furthermore, the woman has a higher quality of life. She has a better job. She's happier, which just makes everybody happy. So Elon, after he sold PayPal, he had a bajillion, zazillion See, now that's where I stop

You'll be done That's where I'm just done You got a couple hundred million dollars I got 180 million dollars You're good, you're good He's not that kind of guy Push, push, push And so what he wanted to do

He wanted to go into space. Wow. Let's find out how that got started. When I started out, my goal was to do a philanthropic mission with the intent of increasing NASA's budget. That was my goal. I was confused as to why we had not yet sent a person to Mars. It seemed like this was obviously the goal after the moon, and we had not made progress on that. to Mars. It seemed like this was obviously the goal after the Moon, and we'd not made progress on that. And when it became clear that the paper was going to get sold, a friend

of mine asked me what I'm going to do next, and I said, well, I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I'm always curious about what's going on with space and why haven't we made progress. I just wonder when we're going to send a person to Mars. So I went on the NASA website, and I couldn't find a date. I was like, well, maybe it's here somewhere, and I just can't find it. The date that NASA wants to land on Mars. Yeah, there's got to be some schedule or something. Or a game plan.

It's this date, even if it's far in the future. It was not to be found anywhere. Anyways, I started learning about that back history and I thought, well, okay, maybe there's something that I can do to send a small mission to the surface of Mars that would get the public excited. And as a result of that public excitement, NASA's budget will be increased,

and we could resume the process of sending people to Mars. Essentially... So you thought you can do that with your lousy billion dollars? No, I didn't have a billion dollars at that time. I had about, well, 180 million, still a lot. And I figured, well, you know, maybe I could spend half of that on a mission to Mars. So I spent a fair bit of time investigating the space industry and eventually decided on this idea of sending a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars. And it was called the Mars Oasis Mission. And so you'd have seeds in dehydrated gel that would land.

You'd hydrate the gel upon landing, and you'd have this great shot of green planets on a red background. And the public responds to precedence and support. So this would be the first life on another planet furthest that life's ever traveled as far as we know and that's how you get a headline yeah exactly it's gotta be something new or something superlative and i thought well okay and that would maybe reinvigorate excitement and the result would be nasa's budget gets increased so the whole goal in the beginning was just how do we get more money for NASA? But after spending a fair bit of time on this, I came to the conclusion that I was actually incorrect.

My initial assumption was wrong, because I thought that where there's a will, there's a way, and that we just sort of lost our will. That's false. There's plenty of will. People needed to believe that there was a way, and a way that would not bankrupt the country or mean that they'd have to

sacrifice something of critical importance like health care. So it became clear that the space transport problem had to be solved. Unless there was a dramatic improvement in the cost of space transport, then none of it would matter. So in your first successful launch, what was the cost per pound to orbit? About $6,000. $6,000. Okay, that's an improvement. Yeah, not bad. Not $100 a pound. No. To get to $100 a pound, you need a big rocket that's fully reusable. Are you there

yet? No. We're making progress though. It's been 12 years. So far we've not recovered a stage, but I think we'll recover a stage within the next year and be able to reflight. Is there a date on your website where someone can say, oh, he's going to land on Mars? Touché. Good point. That sounds like a no. Well, I mean, I've said it publicly many times, although maybe we should put something on the website, which is that I think we've got a decent

shot of being able to send a person to Mars in about 11 or 12 years. So Bill, is he going to do this? To reuse a stage? Yeah, yeah. And then get the cost down. Yeah. Well, the cost down to a hundred. Wait, who's going to get us to Mars? Elon Musk or NASA?

So let us keep in mind. Please. That NASA pays SpaceX. Okay. About two billion bucks so far. Okay. So SpaceX is now2 billion so far. Okay. So SpaceX is now a contractor for NASA. Okay, so our tax money is going to SpaceX.

Okay, so what is this vehicle that's going to get us to Mars? So there's a couple of innovations, just three innovations that I've seen with my own eyes, which must hide another 100,000 innovations that are very much more subtle. First thing is all the same engines, first stage, second stage, how many stages? It's the same engine. Okay. So why didn't somebody else do that?

That's a good question. Everything was a one-off in the past. Yeah. Well, or a five off, Saturn five off. And so then, uh, um then the other thing is let's see if we can reuse a stage. And this is his thing. It almost worked the other day. He, the company, tried to land on a barge just east of Cape Canaveral.

And it landed on the barge just a little faster than anybody wanted because it ran out of fuel to slow itself down. Because you need fuel to get faster, and if you're going fast, you generally need fuel to slow down. Yeah. Unless you're going to aerobrake or something. Yeah, well, coming through the atmosphere after lunch, it's – and the thing is not shaped for aerobraking, really, but it is shaped for retro-rocketing, if I can coin the verb. There you go. But then the other, the fundamental thing, you guys, just when NASA was created, I believe, Dr. Tyson, on the year of your birth,

just within a week or so, yeah. Same week. Yeah. Same damn week. I come out of my mother, NASA comes out of Congress. Coincidence? Perhaps. Anyway, the idea was to keep the thing.

I feel NASA's pain. It's the same age. They put NASA centers all over the U.S. So when they went to manufacture rockets, they put pieces of the rocket all over the U.S. Solid things are made over here. Liquid things are made over here. They're tested over there. They get on train cars and go down there. Just the expression, Houston, we have a problem.

Why isn't it Florida we have a problem? Cape Canaveral we have a problem. Orlando we have a problem. Why isn't it Florida we have a problem? Cape Canaveral we have a problem. Chuck, did you know that the instant the spacecraft clears the gantry, in that instant, full control transfers to Houston. I mean- If there's a human being on board. 1,000 nautical miles away. Right.

The whole countdown and everything, go to launch, go to, all of that is Cape Canaveral. But it's SpaceX. And then the moment it passes the thing, then it's like, all right, guys, we'll take it from here. That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Thanks a lot, guys, for your work. But anyway, it's SpaceX.

It's just south of Los Angeles International Airport. Train car drives up full of stainless steel, full of titanium, full of let's make rocket anium parts. And it comes off the train car and they shape it a bit and do their own thing. I want rocket anium. I want some of that. Yeah. Well, you can get it. 60-61 T6 aluminum.

T7, tempered 7 aluminum. So then it comes down. They make the tank. They attach the plumbing. It comes over here. There's a bunch of electronics. They attach that. They vacuum test it over here. They make the tank. They attach the plumbing. It comes over here. There's a bunch of electronics. They attach that. They vacuum test it over here.

Blah, blah, blah. Then it goes back on the train car to either Cape Canaveral, close to the equator as the U.S. can get, or up to Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is north of there. That's a continental U.S. because Hawaii is closer. Yeah. Hawaii is closer, but it's not on a train car. Yeah, it's not on a train car. Extraordinary train car. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so- Hover train. The Aqua train. But the- Wait, wait, Bill. So I get that. Well, there's a fundamental lowering of cost. Huge, huge reduction of cost.

Is that low enough to go to Mars like everybody says? He wants to go to Mars. He still wants to go to Mars. Well, I would like to go to Mars, but I want to come back, and I don't want to go to Mars to live. I think that is not all the way thought through, in my opinion. We choose to go to Mars, but I want to come back, and I don't want to go to Mars to live. I think that is not all the way thought through, in my opinion. We choose to go to Mars because it's not easy. Well, that's right.

No, no. We choose to go to Mars because it will kill you. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's really hostile. Instead, I choose to eat a Mars bar. Also, for your consideration, we can talk about this after the break, but Elon Musk is a native of South Africa. South Africa colonized by Dutch people.

I am a descendant from people from northern and central Europe. You guys are much more recently descended from Africa. But we have this human tradition of just spreading out. We don't like it here. We're going to go over there. We'll just keep spreading. Which means, of course, you're a descendant of Africans as well. Oh, yes.

We're all descended from Africa. You have arbitrarily selected. I say more recent descent. Yeah, that was arbitrary. Let the record show that was a completely arbitrary line that you drew. Arbitrary, but historically not insignificant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just, I'm just. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, humankind has spread into Mesopotamia. You have numbers at this table.

Across Eurasia. The Ice Age has the snow froze up. Yep. Just keep going into North America. Right. Spearing mammals,

partying. It's what we do. And so it's not clear that you'll be able to leave the Earth and go live on Mars. So you are skeptical of this, but you would not interfere with the dream state, I presume. However, we do not want to violate in Star Trekian terms. The prime directive? Just so, Doctor. Which is?

We don't want to mess up the ecosystem on Mars. If there is an ecosystem... Wait, wait, excuse me. We have no qualms messing up our own damn ecosystem. Well, that doesn't make it a good thing. I know, but why should Mars be the sacred place and not our own... It's a rule. We're pooping in our own

backyard. It's an arbitrary, but it's not arbitrary. It's a reasonable rule. We can poop there after we determine whether or not there's something alive mars it's nothing more than earth's toilet and with that we'll be back after this on that brilliant note from chuck nice you're listening to star talk the future of humanity edition. We'll be right back. We're back on StarTalk.

I got Chuck Nice right across the table from me. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I got Bill Nye, the science guy. So good to be here. And since we're radio, I must alert people that even in studio, you are in bow tie. Let the record show. Yeah, well, what you see is what you get.

Maybe he's like the guy in Terminator 2 where the- Just a polymetal? No, no, no. The polymetal. the guy in Terminator 2 where the... Just a polymetal? No, no, but the polymetal. No, but his police uniform... Yes, right.

...was part of... It was polymetal. That is the metal. That's how I roll. So maybe Bill and the bow tie are polymetal. But watch out. I can turn my arm into a giant saber, sword, wacky thing of death thing, which is shiny.

We're talking about the future of humanity. We're featuring my interview with Elon Musk. And that does not feature polymetal. No, it does not yet. Not yet. And I snared that interview when I visited him at SpaceX headquarters, which is, what's the name of that town that he's in?

Crenshaw. Hawthorne. Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles. Okay, New Yorker. Where is it? Hawthorne. Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles. Okay, New Yorker. Where is it? Hawthorne. Hawthorne. Hawthorne.

Oh, by the stars. Fine. Fine. So, Bill, if we're going to go to Mars, do you see engineering challenges to that? Oh, no. Or is it only... No, no. Wait, wait, wait.

No, I'm going to... This is a very serious question. Engineers love a challenge. So don't tell me... Don't play that with me. A. no, wait, wait, wait. No, I'm going to, this is a very serious question. Engineers love a challenge. So don't tell me, don't play that with me, A. Don't bring it on. I say bring it on. Don't even. So my question is, is it just a matter of money?

Or even if I gave you as much money as you want, you might not be able to solve some of the engineering problems. Oh, we can solve the problems. Snap. No, we can solve. That's what I figured. Yeah, because we land a rover from a freaking rocket crane. Right. We can solve the problems.

Right. But as far as this colony idea, everybody. Okay. I mean, there's no liquid water as such. Oh, well, Mars was once very wet and we found evidence of ice. All good. But it's not like there's a river there right okay then if there is it's underground and no one has found it yet okay and let me go on to say

it's on its summer day at the equator it's 20 below okay yeah you can get what is it everybody wearing this year uh canada arctic crew that was a Canada Goose Down brand jacket, all very good. That's when things are really good, that's all you got on. That's midsummer attire. But the main thing I think you would pick up on right away, there's no air. You would suffocate in a second. Well, there's air, but there's no oxygen in the air. Well, so you just have to make all that stuff once you get there.

Thank you, Chuck. At least somebody's thinking about the future here. I've got to stop you there. Bill, quiet for a minute. There is oxygen in the air, but it's carbon dioxide. You have to separate it from the carbon. Carbon dioxide, CO2, is one of the most tightly bound molecules ever made. I mean, you can do it, but you've got to put in the energy.

You've got to put in the energy. And then you're going to be living, everybody, you're going to be living in a submarine. But just to be clear, so you have to get that energy from somewhere. Right. Right. So just, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

And you're one and a half times the distance that we are from the sun. So your solar energy, if you just want to run, if you wanted to run solar panels, was 15 squared. So it's a one and a quarter. Two and a quarter times more less sunlight no you need two and a quarter times more solar panels yeah in light of this conversation why do we want to go there well it is the next logical place to look for things. I like Chuck getting high-pitched on us.

Give me that again, Chuck. Chuck. What? Chuck, the reason you want to go there is because you're going to explore. And when you explore, two things happen. Those two things, Doc, Chuck. One. You will make discoveries.

Okay. You will find something you never found before. All right. But the other thing is you will have an adventure. You will have an adventure. It will engage you like nothing else, whether it's your backyard, the video game, or the surface of Mars. You might die, but it'll be an adventure.

Well, but what we want to do as an engineer, and this is what astronauts say, part of their pride as being astronauts is coming back. That's like landing the airplane as part of a pilot's pride. I mean, ejecting and letting the $350 million fighter plane explode is kind of cool on video, but it's not really your goal as a pilot or an astronaut. So if we were to go there with a human, we would be able to make discoveries at an extraordinary rate.

It's estimated 10,000 times faster than our best robot spacecraft. Right now. But if the day comes when we have a 10,000 times better robot, you'd still probably want to explore. You'd still want to send a human there. Okay, so then.

And so here's the thing. If we found evidence of life, fossilized bacterial mats, or cooler yet, something still alive, some Mars probe, then the question would be, and I want to know, do those Mars probes have DNA like you and I do, or are they a whole nother of notherness? Mars probe? That's a Martian microbe.

I don't know. It's a Martian microbe. Mars probe. And then if they have DNA and they're so much like us, does that mean Mars was hit by an impactor, went off into space and you and I are descendants of Martians? We'd all be Martians. Okay. So, you know, he's trying to change humanity by reinventing space exploration. I get that.

I get that. But he's also worried about problems on Earth. Okay. That's okay. Is he allowed? Is he allowed? No, I say bring it on. Okay. So, you know, he's co worried about problems on Earth. Okay, that's okay. Is he allowed? Is he allowed? No, I say bring it on. Okay, so you know he's co-founder of Tesla.

Yeah. The electric car company. The car is just sex with wheels on it. Very cool. He's also... Sex with wheels on it. It's fantastic. He's also chairman of SolarCity.

Let's hear how he just got into this. From a terrestrial standpoint, the biggest problem we need to solve on Earth this century is sustainable production and consumption of energy. This really is quite a serious problem. People really should take this quite seriously. Even if you put the environmental consequences of dramatically changing the chemical composition of the oceans and atmosphere aside, we will eventually run out of oil. Holding that aside. Well, if we don't find a solution to burning oil for transport, and we then run out of oil,

the economy will collapse and civilization will come to an end, or as we know it. With or without global warming. Yeah, exactly. And so if we know that we have to ultimately get off oil no matter what, we know that that is an inescapable outcome. It's simply a question of when, not if. Then why would you run this crazy experiment of changing the chemical composition of the atmospheric oceans

by adding enormous amounts of CO2 that have been buried since the pre-Cambrian era? That's crazy. That is the dumbest experiment in history by far. Can you think of a dumber experiment? I honestly cannot. What good could possibly come of it? So therefore, we need another solution here.

But of course, electric cars still uses coal. That's why you need sustainable power production, like solar and wind. Which can still charge your car. Yes. Bill. Neil. Do you still charge your car. Yes. Bill. Neil. Do you still have your house in California? Yes.

In Studio City? Yes. I've been there. Yes. You're a New Yorker now, not native, but you live in New York. Yes, I'm loving it. Somebody else is living in your house. Yeah, I have a house in New York.

That's a crazy house that you live in. It's cool. It's completely alive with self-generated electricity. Well, it's got four kilowatts of solar. That's great which is more than enough for uh 10 months of the year maybe 10 and a half months of the year and i would have more but my neighbor's house shadows my panels oh i thought you're going to say your neighbor's stealing your electricity well she's stealing sunlight yeah that's the same thing

she travels a lot and i thought maybe while she was out of town i could just cut off this like this one part of the second story easier to ask forgiveness and permission okay bill but oh yeah sorry there's tons of oil still in reserve oh that is yet to be drilled or here's the bad news okay but we'll never run out of fossil fuels oh that is the bad news that's terrible it really is because burning it and burning it is just the worst thing for all of us so you have a plan what's your plan so the plan is because as long as oil is cheap and it's cheaper than my solar panels how do you expect people to so if you're rich you can you can buy

the car that saves gas bear in mind that cost you more buy the car that saves gas. So bear in mind, the reason... That costs you more than the car that doesn't save gas. The sex on wheels. The sex on wheels car. The reason you want a sex on wheels electric car is because... Costing how much? A hundred thousand.

A hundred thousand, yeah. Everybody's got a hundred thousand. Well, deep breath. Yeah, yeah. Deep breath. Let me get to my mattress. Deep breath. It's 95% efficient or 93% efficient, whereas a gas-powered car constrained by the second law of thermodynamics is at best 28%, 30%.

So you're squandering energy. You just can't get back when you try to get it out of heat at low temperature differences. So with that said, it's been estimated that we could save about 30% of the energy we use through conservation. We can have electric cars. We can improve transportation systems, to be sure. But the big thing, you guys, as we say about climate change, if you are opposed to government regulation now, you don't like governments now, just wait until stuff gets bad. Just wait until Floridians have to abandon their homes and Miami's half underwater and then there's going to be regulation. I'll give you an example of this. World War II. Regulation happened like crazy and everybody

was very proud of it. Want to create the next great generation. So what I neglected to mention here, and I think you should have mentioned too, was if you can start out with a $100,000 car because it's a test of concept, people like it, wealthy can buy it. But the real test is can you make an electric car that's competitive in price to – Absolutely. And I'm told there's a Tesla Model 3 expected to come out and that's priced at price to absolutely and i'm told there's a tesla model 3 expected to come out and that's a price that's 35 000 yeah so i drove a nissan leaf for three years yeah yeah

about that same price about that same price so that's that there you have i mean i i you know i did other stuff i i went to sleep i had meals as i didn't just drive for three years what i really want is the flying car the flying car is a real tough problem. It is, but I think Elon cured me of my urges to find a flying car. Oh, well, just wait until everybody's in traffic flying cars. No, no, no, no, no, no. He told me what the deal is with flying cars. Wing loading?

Let's find out. Of course, what we all really want are flying cars. Do you? Yeah. Actually, let me ask you. So, are you sure you want a flying car? No, but it looks cool. It does look cool.

I mean, you know, whenever you see sort of cities and like some futuristic concept, they always throw the flying car in there. You can't tell me you never thought of it. No, I thought a lot about it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And there's some people I know that are working on flying cars or flying personal transport devices, if you will. Hoverboards. There are people who work on hoverboards.

But I mean, I sort of wonder... After the interview you can show me your hoverboard room. I know someone's working on a hoverboard. I won't tell anybody. The microphone is on mute now. Just between us. It's awesome.

I'm debating like, should there be flying cars or shouldn't there be flying cars? I have two minds on that. Because if there are flying cars, then, well, obviously, you have added this additional dimension where now a car could potentially fall on your head and will be susceptible to weather. And, of course, you'd have to have a flying car where it would be like an autopilot because i mean otherwise forget it you don't want people navigating yeah it's got to be it's got to be autopilot but even in autopilot scenario this and even if you've got redundant motors and blades you're still gone from near zero chance of something falling on your head to something greater than that and there's also a noise challenge so i said we don't know how to fly quietly right okay so i'll wait it out some more something that i do think would definitely than that. And there's also a noise challenge. So I sort of... We don't know how to fly quietly.

Right. Okay. So I'll wait it out some more. Something that I do think would definitely help a lot in cities is more tunnels. Essentially with a flying car, you're talking about going 3D and there's a fundamental flaw with cities where you've got dense office buildings and apartment buildings and duplexes, and they're operating on three dimensions, but then you go to the street and suddenly you're two-dimensional. Because it's a surface. This is how New York City solved this with the subway, going underneath multiple layers of subway. So we are actually traveling in three dimensions,

but below the ground rather than in the air. But I think if you were to extrapolate that to cars and have more car tunnels, then you would alleviate congestion completely. And you wouldn't need the flying car. You would not need a flying car in that case. And it would always work even if the weather's bad. And it would never ice up. It would never ice up and it would not fall on your head.

We're going to get started on that right away. I think those sound like the words of a man who owns a car company. That's all I'm saying. A non-flying car company. If I had a company that made non-flying cars, I probably wouldn't want to have a flying car. You would say build more roads. Exactly. Build more roads and tunnels.

You don't want a car falling on your head. Plus, a point that came out in my conversation with you, but it didn't make the clip, was we have flying cars today. They're called helicopters yeah and they're really noisy yeah and in fact if you want something as heavy as a car to levitate you're going it's going to be making some noise well it's also going to use a lot of energy and a lot of energy well that's because in the word of a uh another physicist i know who flies his own plane he said uh uh helicopters don't fly as much as they beat the air into submission. Who said this?

Who said this? It's true. It's true. It's completely there. The air doesn't submit. It just flows down having enough momentum to hold the helicopter up. He also, Elon Musk brings up another good point. What?

When we have humans operating the Tisonic flying car, which competes with Chuck Nice's subterranean vehicle, who's going to drive the thing without all kinds of trouble? And so it always fascinates me when you look at highways from the air when you're in an airplane or a helicopter. It looks so orderly. Yes. It really does. Cars all emerge. or a helicopter. It looks so orderly. It really does. Cars all emerge. They go along. It's very cool.

But you're using a human brain. This thing is capable of art and radio shows and rocket companies. You're using this brain to do nothing but operate this car on this right-of-way. Stay in the straight line. Stay in the straight line. Stay in the straight line. If you change lanes, look over your shoulder. We'll go head check, head check, head check. Whoa, whoa, head check.

And so this is why this seems like a real opportunity. One of my favorite bumper stickers ever, caution, driver applying makeup. That's my favorite. I've seen it. I've seen it. I see you've driven behind me. No, is that right, Chuck? That's a lot of info, Chuck.

Okay, so you don't want drivers. A lot of information, Chuck. You don't want humans driving cars. You want driverless cars. Yeah, at a very high level of reliability. You know, I used to work at Boeing, and you get a triple. You worked on the 747. 747, a little bit 7273757, but what you want is.

That's the lingo check. I know. He's showing that off now. Sounded like you were giving me your number. These are all planes. Everyone from Boeing has a 7-something-7 in their plane. Well, yeah, but an interesting point of interest, the 727, the 737, 757 have the same tube. The 717, which was the 707, KC-135, have the same tube.

And so where was I going? When it's triple redundant autopilot, you can count on it. It's going to land the plane. Got you. But the problem with cars is you don't have nearly the traffic control that you have in an airplane. So who do you think is going to win this, Tesla with a driverless car perhaps coming out of their shop or Google? Well, Tesla makes cars. Google makes software.

You can't have one without the other to be driverless. So this is like a chocolate and peanut butter thing. Exactly. Whoa. You got your car in my software. You got your software in my car. But wait. You're both right.

Chuck, I love setting you up. But wait, there's more. When you think about the automotive industry writ large, everybody uses the same parts. The gas gauge, sensor, the speedometer, the tires, the nuts, bolts, all the same standard. There's little competition, but you can get a lot of commonality. And so we will see what happens in the near future. When we come back, we're going to find out what Elon Musk is really worried about. Should I give you a hint?

Go ahead. No, I'm not. When we come back, find out what keeps Elon Musk awake at night on StarTalk. We're back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-host Chuck Nice, in the house. Hey, hey. In the house. In the house. And I got Bill Nye in the house.

I am co-housing. Co-housing, donning a bow tie as usual. In an earlier segment, we were sure that it is surgically attached. Polymetal. Polymetal, surgically attached to him. We're featuring my interview with Elon Musk. And just before the break, I teased you to tell you that we would be saving for this final

segment what he fears the most. Fears? He's a confident guy. He's a confident guy. And to quote Bill, if you've been scoring along with us, you may remember in our first segment, we listed the things he wanted to introduce to change humanity.

One thing he does not want to touch. Let's check it out. I mean, I'm quite worried about artificial superintelligence these days. I think, and I've said this publicly, I think it's maybe something more dangerous than nuclear weapons. So we should be really careful about that. If there was a very deep digital superintelligence that was created that could go into rapid recursive self-improvement in a non-logarithmic way, then that wasn't... And it's self-learning.

Yes. So it just could reprogram itself to be smarter and iterate very quickly and do that 24 hours a day on millions of computers. Then that's all she wrote. That's all she wrote. I mean, we will be like a pet Labrador if we're lucky. A pet Labrador.

I have a pet Labrador, by the way. We'll be their pets. It's like the friendliest creature. No, they'll domesticate us so that we will be lab pets to them. Yes. I mean, or something strange is going to happen. They'll keep the docile humans and get rid of the violent ones and then breed the docile humans. Yeah, I mean, the utility function of the digital superintelligence

is of stupendous importance. What does it try to optimize? And we need to be really careful with saying, oh, how about human happiness? Because it may conclude that all unhappy humans should be terminated and that we should all just be captured and with dopamine and serotonin directly injected into our brains

to maximize happiness because it's concluded that dopamine and serotonin are what cause happiness. Therefore. Therefore maximize them. I'm just saying we should exercise caution. What do you think of that? Wow.

So just to be clear, he's not talking about artificial intelligence. He's talking about artificial super intelligence. The kind that can self-learn. Okay, so 20% of the world's population of people does not have electricity. They've never made a phone call. Not a cell phone call. They've never made a phone call.

Not a cell phone call. They've never made a phone call. So when the super intelligence takes over Chicago or whatever, what are people in East Africa going to give a rip about? Okay, so you guys have managed to kill yourselves. Way to go. We're looking for some corn here. So I get it. But I think people have to keep in mind we all take computers are so reliable and they're so much part of our everyday life now. We take them for granted.

But somebody is literally or in a sense shoveling the coal. What happens if you unplug the supercomputer intelligence thing? It will find a new source of energy. No, no, no, no, no. Because it has its own nuclear reactor. The failure of that logic is the assumption that it would let you unplug it. Right. Yeah, okay, but how did it create that thing to keep it from...

I'm just saying, I don't, you know, I'm with you here. It seems like a solvable problem. So I'm looking here, we have three levels of intelligence. Artificial narrow intelligence, so it's a computer doing one thing better than anything, is not getting anybody's way. A calculator. A calculator, let it do it. And one thing better than anything. It's not getting anybody's way. A calculator. Calculate. Let it do it.

One wins at Jeopardy. No, no. That would be artificial general intelligence, which would be general intelligence, but it's not hell-bent on taking over the world. It's that IBM computer, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It goes across. Yeah, yeah.

Which one was that? Watson. Watson. It's Watson. Okay. Watson. So it's the super intelligence that scares him. And again, I kind of agree with you, Bill.

At some point, you just unplug the dude. Well, I just think about the Colossus Project, Forbin, the Colossus Project. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so this is where the two superpowers on Earth have nuclear arsenals. They're controlled by computers so they connect

the two computers and you know trouble ensues okay and so you try to unplug it but they have their own nuclear reactors that run them this is the movie war games like all over yeah yeah yeah well it was before war games yeah yeah and so and a movie. But the deal is that running a nuclear power plant is not straightforward. It takes somebody shoveling the coal, or rate, moving the stuff around in the waste. In the pile. Ponds, yeah. So there's also much ado about the singularity. Ray Kurzweil.

I've got to get him on StarTalk because I'm just not with him on this. But I don't want to badmouth him unless he's sitting in front of me. This is everybody. So he can badmouth me back? Okay. Does this happen to you, Neil? When I do a college talk, somebody asks me about the singularity. I know.

And people all freak out. The computer is as smart as a human. Right. And it's always plugged in and has no arms or legs and does something. Right. Somehow, what is it going to do? Is it going to chase you down the street? What's it going to do?

and does something. Right, right. Somehow, what is it going to do? Is it going to chase you down the street? Like, what's it going to do? Well, no, it's going to actually get the machines to do its bidding for it. Yes, it'll control your thermostat. It will control your thermostat and your self-driving car.

I'm cool with that. But this notion that somehow the world is fundamentally different before and after this singularity. But from a historical standpoint, I could buy it. No, we'll be different, but we're not going to be running out of the, screaming out of the apartment. No, when machines took over our physical labor, did we say, oh my gosh, this is a crazy day?

No, no, it happened slowly and we're fine. Right. Now we've got people repairing machines. And there's still artisans carving the thing. We've got to get them on the show. I want to get them on the show and then we'll give them a piece of our mind. But we can't leave people freaked out over the fate of the machines that we create and their capacity to turn us into domesticated pets.

Let's find out if Elon has any positive thoughts about the future at all. Thank God. I'm positive thoughts about the future at all. Thank God. I'm quite optimistic about the future. I mean, I don't think we're about to enter a dark age. It could happen, but it's not, I think, not likely anytime soon. Not before you get to Mars. Hopefully not before we get to Mars. But bear in mind that...

And part of the act of trying to get to Mars is a force to keep us out of the dark ages. I mean, there's always a chance that something calamitous could happen to Earth, And part of the act of trying to get to Mars is a force to keep us out of the Dark Ages. I mean, there's always a chance that something calamitous could happen to Earth, either a natural or man-made catastrophe. Certainly we see that in the fossil record. And we've invented all sorts of ways of doing ourselves in that the dinosaurs didn't have. And we haven't managed to solve the asteroid problem. So, therefore, our risk is higher, okay?

I'm sure people realize this. If you haven't solved the problems that have caused the prior extinctions, and you've added new ones, you've not improved the situation. And that's sort of where we are right now. And, you know, there are some really smart people that are a lot more pessimistic than I am, like, you know, the Stephen Hawking's of the world and Martin Rees, the role of astronomy, they're all quite pessimistic. I'm a naturally optimistic person. But I do think that there's value in establishing life insurance, which if life as we know it

is on more than one planet, then the light of consciousness as we know it is likely preserved into the future for much longer. The light of consciousness is preserved? No, it's a beautiful talk. What? That was his optimism? What. What? That was his optimism? What? What?

That was optimistic? Oh, you know, the thing that took out the dinosaurs, that's still a thing. It's still a thing. It's still a thing. And by the way, we'll probably take ourselves out before that. And that's still a thing, too. Yeah. But you know what?

I'm pretty optimistic. No, no. But you guys, back in the day, there were no humans when the ancient dinosaurs were taken out. Yeah. There's no evidence that the ancient dinosaurs

had a space program. At all. They didn't even have opposable thumbs, much less. It doesn't seem like they did. And so, we have that leg up.

Also, they're going on 9 billion people. If you kill almost everybody through extraordinary means, somebody's going to leak through. Much more easy to leak through here

on Earth than on Mars. Here's what I'm saying. You want to become a multi-planet species, whatever effort that takes, I've said this before, it seems that it would be less effort to deflect the asteroid than to terraform Mars and ship a billion people there. I'm with you on that. Deflect the damn asteroid and get on with life. If you have the power to terraform Mars,

you have the power to fix Earth. Martian atmosphere is getting scraped off all the time. That's what I'm with you on that. Deflect the damn asteroid. Get on with life. If you have the power to terraform Mars, you have the power to fix Earth. Yeah, and Martian atmosphere is getting scraped off all the time. That's what I'm saying. What fears you the most? What fears you the most? We got to wrap it up. What fears you the most? The dark.

The dark. Sorry, I go with the simple stuff. It's the truth. The monster under your bed. All right, Bill, what fears you the most? Climate change, then asteroids. You know what fears you the most? Climate change, then asteroids. You know what I fear the most? What?

That we lack the wisdom to understand our own fate so that we then become victims of it rather than conquerors. This sounds like those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it. It's a version of that, I think. We got to call it quits there. Bill Nye, thanks for being on the show. Chuck Nice, as always. Always a pleasure. My co-host.

You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.