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Tag: Elon Musk

  • Elon Musk Isn’t Against Flying Cars, He’s Just Worried About Them Falling on Your Head

    Elon Musk Isn’t Against Flying Cars, He’s Just Worried About Them Falling on Your Head

    The everyday futurology musings of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk continue to entertain. See: thoughts on self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.

    This time he’s talking flying cars.

    Speaking with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on his StarTalk show, Musk outlined some of his concerns with the idea of flying cars (via Inc).

    “If there are flying cars, then well obviously you have added this additional dimension where a car could potentially fall on your head and would be susceptible to weather. And of course you’d have to have a flying car [that operates by] autopilot because otherwise, forget it,” he said.

    “Even in autopilot, and even if you’ve got redundant motors and blades, you’ve still gone from near-zero chance of something falling on your head to something greater than that,”

    Flying cars would be potentially dangerous, noisy, and completely dependent upon weather conditions, says Musk. So, what’s the alternative?

    Tunnels. Or at least a combination of both. Musk clarified his StarTalk comments on Twitter:

    So, what do you think? Team Flying Cars? Team Tunnels? Both?

    Image via Elon Musk, Twitter

  • Steve Wozniak Is Also Concerned About Our Future Robot Overlords

    Steve Wozniak Is Also Concerned About Our Future Robot Overlords

    Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has become the latest tech figure to warn us that the computers are learning and they’re going to destroy us all at some point.

    “Computers are going to take over from humans, no question,” said Wozniak in an interview with the Australian Financial Review.

    “Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they’ll think faster than us and they’ll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently.”

    You might recall that others have recently spoken out about the existential threat that unchecked Artificial Intelligence poses to the human race.

    “I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned,” said Bill Gates in a recent reddit AMA.

    Tesla and spaceX founder Elon Musk has been the most vocal about his AI concerns.

    See?

    “Will we be the gods? Will we be the family pets? Or will we be ants that get stepped on? I don’t know about that … But when I got that thinking in my head about if I’m going to be treated in the future as a pet to these smart machines … well I’m going to treat my own pet dog really nice,” says Wozniak.

    Be nice to the machines, guys. They might remember.

  • Elon Musk Thinks Driving Could Be Outlawed at Some Point (Hopefully Not Though)

    Elon Musk Thinks Driving Could Be Outlawed at Some Point (Hopefully Not Though)

    Will there ever come a day when it is actually illegal to get behind the wheel of a car and drive it yourself?

    Tesla founder and possible Terminator Elon Musk says yes, this is a distinct possibility.

    Musk made his comments at the Nvidia GPU conference, where he said it’s just too dangerous. “You don’t want a person driving a two-ton death machine,” he said.

    Musk’s argument is self-driving cars will eventually be shown to be so much safer than actual, human driving that the public will have no choice but to outlaw the latter.

    “[Self-driving cars are] going to become normal,” he said. “It’s like an elevator. We used to have elevator operators, and we developed some simple circuitry … The car is going to be just like that.”

    “We’ll take autonomous cars for granted in a short period of time,” he said. “It’s going to be the default thing and it’s going to save a lot of lives.”

    Of course, this is something that’s far from certain – and even if it happens it would be years and years from now. In the grand scheme of things, companies like Google and Musk’s Tesla are just beginning to focus on this technology. Google is admittedly far ahead of the curve, and its autonomous vehicles are getting very close to road readiness.

    But Musk has said that Tesla will eventually be the leader in self-driving cars.

    Likely taking some flak from auto enthusiasts, Musk walked back his comments a bit on Twitter – making it known that a driverless future is not really something he wants to be a part of.

    No word on how Musk feels we’ll all get around on his home planet of Mars.

    Image via Tesla Motors, Twitter

  • Elon Musk: I’m Not Building a Spaceship to Get Back to My Home Planet Mars

    Elon Musk: I’m Not Building a Spaceship to Get Back to My Home Planet Mars

    Earlier this week, NASA announced that the Hubble Space Telescope had found the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. Sure, it’s buried under 95 miles of ice, but whenever we discover water on a faraway moon or planet the first thing that pops into our minds is possible life.

    This discovery sent Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk into a Twitter frenzy over aliens, the Fermi Paradox, and rumors about his own origins.

    Apparently, Musk isn’t a believer in the whole “Ancient Aliens” theory.

    But I think we have a solution:

    Musk might be The Terminator. But apparently, he’s of this Earth:

    Please follow Elon Musk on Twitter. If you’re not following Elon Musk on Twitter then I’m really not sure what you’re doing with your life.

  • Bill Gates Is Concerned About the Rise of the Machines, and Why the Hell Aren’t You?

    Bill Gates Is Concerned About the Rise of the Machines, and Why the Hell Aren’t You?

    Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, who knows a thing or two about technology, is concerned about the day when our artificial intelligence gets a little too smart for its own good and decides it probably doesn’t have to listen to the dumb humans anymore.

    Also, why aren’t you concerned?, he wonders.

    Gates hosted a reddit AMA on Wednesday, and was asked about the “existential threat” of machine superintelligence. His answer? Hell yeah it’s a issue.

    “I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned,” said Gates.

    As of late, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been the most outspoken rich tech dude when it comes to the dangers of AI. He recently called for extensive research to make sure AI doesn’t kill us all, and even make a huge donation to the cause. In the past, he’s said things like …

    We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.

    and

    You have no idea how fast [AI] is growing at a pace close to exponential. The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. This is not a case of crying wolf about something I don’t understand.

    Gates also had this to say during his AMA:

    “There will be more progress in the next 30 years than ever. Even in the next 10 problems like vision and speech understanding and translation will be very good. Mechanical robot tasks like picking fruit or moving a hospital patient will be solved. Once computers/robots get to a level of capability where seeing and moving is easy for them then they will be used very extensively.”

    Oh goody.

    Image via thegatesnotes, YouTube

  • Elon Musk Shares Gnarly SpaceX Rocket Crash Stills

    Elon Musk Shares Gnarly SpaceX Rocket Crash Stills

    Last week, Elon Musk’s SpaceX tried to land a rocket on a drone ship, floating in the Atlantic Ocean. They failed.

    Now, Musk has posted some images of the Falcon 9’s collision and the gnarly explosion that followed.

    According to Musk, the rocket’s fins lost power, causing the rocket to hit at a near 45 degree angle – smashing the legs and engine section. After that, leftover fuel and oxygen met up and … well, here:

    RUD! You know what they say – you gotta crack a few rockets …

    Image via Elon Musk

  • Elon Musk Is Building a Hyperloop Test Track in Texas

    Elon Musk Is Building a Hyperloop Test Track in Texas

    Check this out:

    Looks like Elon Musk can’t wait for someone else to give it a try, so he’s going to do the damn thing himself.

    The Hyperloop, a conceptual pneumatic high-speed transportation system, was first introduced by Musk in 2013. He never announced any intent to build the thing himself, instead releasing his design and asking others to get to work. It’s estimated that his design, which would supposedly carry people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in a half hour or so, would run about $6 to $7 billion.

    If you’re going what the hell is a hyperloop, please read about it. I hope he can build this test track before the robots get him.

  • Elon Musk Calls for Research to Make Sure Artificial Intelligence Doesn’t Kill Us All

    Elon Musk Calls for Research to Make Sure Artificial Intelligence Doesn’t Kill Us All

    UPDATED BELOW

    For Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, figuring out how to avoid the “potential pitfalls” of artificial intelligence is just as – if not more – important than advancing it.

    Musk, who has been warning us about the possible dangers of AI for some time now, is once again calling for more research into AI safety. Musk has signed and is promoting an open letter from the Future of Life Institute that calls for “research not only on making AI more capable, but also on maximizing the societal benefit … ”

    “The adoption of probabilistic and decision-theoretic representations and statistical learning methods has led to a large degree of integration and cross-fertilization among AI, machine learning, statistics, control theory, neuroscience, and other fields. The establishment of shared theoretical frameworks, combined with the availability of data and processing power, has yielded remarkable successes in various component tasks such as speech recognition, image classification, autonomous vehicles, machine translation, legged locomotion, and question-answering systems,” says the letter.

    “There is now a broad consensus that AI research is progressing steadily, and that its impact on society is likely to increase. The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable. Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.”

    The Future of Life Institute is a “a volunteer-run research and outreach organization working to mitigate existential risks facing humanity.” The group’s current focus is on “potential risks from the development of human-level artificial intelligence.”

    You may be unfamiliar with this specific interest of Musk’s, but the billionaire has been rather outspoken about it – especially in the last year or so. In June of last year, Musk pretty much admitted to investing in an up-and-coming AI company to keep an eye on them.

    “Yeah. I mean, I don’t think – in the movie Terminator, they didn’t create A.I. to – they didn’t expect, you know some sort of Terminator-like outcome. It is sort of like the Monty Python thing: Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. It’s just – you know, but you have to be careful,” he said.

    Soon after, he tweeted that AI was “potentially more dangerous than nukes.”

    Then, a few months later, Musk had this to say as a reply to an article on a futurology site:

    “I am not alone in thinking we should be worried. The leading AI companies have taken great steps to ensure safety. They recognize the danger, but believe that they can shape and control the digital superintelligences and prevent bad ones from escaping into the Internet. That remains to be seen … ”

    Point being – Elon Musk is pretty concerned about the robot apocalypse, and think you should be too.

    “We recommend expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial: our AI systems must do what we want them to do,” says the letter.

    Yeah, not what they want to do. That’s when everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

    UPDATE 1: Musk has just donated $10 million to The Future of Life Institute.

  • Elon Musk to Host Reddit AMA with Focus on Ocean Rocket Landing

    Elon Musk to Host Reddit AMA with Focus on Ocean Rocket Landing

    In the early morning hours of Tuesday, January 6, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will attempt to land a rocket on a platform that floating in the Atlantic Ocean. No big deal.

    And if you want to ask Mr. Musk about that, or presumably anything else about which you’re curious (and there should be a lot), then you should head over to reddit a little before 9pm EST for an AMA session.

    According to Space.com, “the California-based private spaceflight company will try to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean, shortly after the booster launches SpaceX’s robotic Dragon cargo capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:20 a.m. EST.”

    And according to SpaceX, the chances of this happening according to plan is about 50/50.

    “Returning anything from space is a challenge, but returning a Falcon 9 first stage for a precision landing presents a number of additional hurdles. At 14 stories tall and traveling upwards of 1300 m/s (nearly 1 mi/s), stabilizing the Falcon 9 first stage for reentry is like trying to balance a rubber broomstick on your hand in the middle of a wind storm,” says the company.

    Although Musk says the AMA will be focused on the rocket launch, reddit AMAs tend to meander about. If I were you, I’d get in a question or two about Skynet. I think he’ll bite on those.

  • Elon Musk Once Again Warns of the Looming Robot Apocalypse

    Elon Musk Once Again Warns of the Looming Robot Apocalypse

    Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has once again taken to a public forum to warn everyone that they shouldn’t sleep on recent developments in the artificial intelligence field. In short, Musk says that the chance of “something seriously dangerous happening” is likely in five years or so, and a near certainty within a decade.

    Musk posted his warning on science and futurology site edge.org, as a reply to an article titled The Myth of AI. At some point, Musk deleted his comment – but quick redditors over at the futurology subreddit caught it.

    Here’s what he had to say:

    The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast-it is growing at a pace close to exponential. The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. This is not a case of crying wolf about something I don’t understand.

    I am not alone in thinking we should be worried. The leading AI companies have taken great steps to ensure safety. They recognize the danger, but believe that they can shape and control the digital superintelligences and prevent bad ones from escaping into the Internet. That remains to be seen…

    This is by no means Musk’s first warning of the type.

    In August, he tweeted that AI was potentially more dangerous than nukes.

    A few months ago he vocalized his concerns regarding a possible Skynet scenario. In fact, he pretty much admitted to investing in an AI company so that he could keep an eye on them.

    And barely three weeks ago, speaking at MIT’s Aeronautics and Astronautics department’s Centennial Symposium, Musk compared harnessing AI to controlling a demon.

    “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence.

    “Increasingly scientists think there should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like yeah he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out.”

    I don’t know if you’re inclined to buy into the plausibility of a robot apocalypse but if you’re going to listen to someone, Elon Musk has to be near the top of the list. Ignore at your own risk.

  • Elon Musk Makes Bizarre Matrix-Style Prediction

    Elon Musk Makes Bizarre Matrix-Style Prediction

    Elon Musk, Internet darling and CEO of Tesla Motors, was speaking before the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics department’s Centennial Symposium on Friday. In the middle of his session, he distractedly mused on some foreboding thoughts about artificial intelligence.

    “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence.

    “Increasingly scientists think there should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.

    “With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like yeah he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out.”

    This is not the first time that Musk has issued a warning about artificial intelligence. Back in August he tweeted:

    Musk referenced “Superintelligence by Bostrom”, evidently referring to Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom, a recent book.

    The Amazon description for Bostrom’s book reads:

    Superintelligence asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us?

    If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful – possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.

    Most of what lay persons “know” about artificial intelligence and the dangers therein lies in movies like The Matrix and the Terminator films and television show. In these imaginings, artificial intelligence grows controlled until it reaches a tipping point where it quickly outpaces man’s ability to control it. It progresses on, unfeeling and cold, reasoning that man is too flawed and weak to be depended upon as a facet of its existence. It then seeks to either eliminate or subjugate humans.

  • Elon Musk Is About to Show You the ‘D’

    Elon Musk Is About to Show You the ‘D’

    On October 9, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is going to unveil the ‘D’.

    And something else, too, according to a tweet:

    The last big announcement from Tesla (in regard to car models) came back in July, when the company confirmed the name of its third-gen electric car – the Model 3. The Model 3 will be Tesla’s more affordable offering – at least when compared to the pricey Model S. Tesla says the Model 3 will start at about $35,000.

    Plus, we already know that the Model X SUV is on the way (before the Model 3, in fact).

    So what’s the ‘D’?

    From the looks of it, it’s surely a new Tesla model. Engadget points out that Musk has previously mentioned that the next generation of Tesla automobiles would include both a budget sedan and another SUV – one that’s a bit smaller than the Model X.

    But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. And if you were wondering, yes, Elon Musk gets why you’re laughing at that tweet.

    Image via Elon Musk, Twitter

  • Elon Musk Continues to Warn of Impending Robot Apocalypse

    Elon Musk Continues to Warn of Impending Robot Apocalypse

    While the rest of the country freaks out about some possible Ebola–Dustin Hoffman–Rene Russo scenario, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk is keeping his eye on the ball.

    Musk, who knows a thing or two about things, continues to warn us about the greatest threat to human existence – the rise of artificial superintelligence and the subsequent robot apocalypse. According to Musk, AI could wind up being more dangerous to the human race than nuclear weapons.

    You tell ’em, Elon.

    You may recall that Elon Musk has been warning of the possible sure dangers of artificial intelligence for some time. Back in June, we learned how the tech tycoon is particularly concerned about Skynet. It’s worth rehashing this conversation Musk had with two CNBC hosts concerning his investments in a new AI company:

    MUSK: Right. I was also an investor in DeepMind before Google acquired it and Vicarious. Mostly I sort of – it’s not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return. It’s really, I like to just keep an eye on what’s going on with artificial intelligence. I think there is potentially a dangerous outcome there and we need to –

    EVANS: Dangerous? How so?

    MUSK: Potentially, yes. I mean, there have been movies about this, you know, like ‘Terminator.’

    EVANS: Well yes, but movies are – even if that is the case, what do you do about it? I mean, what dangers do you see that you can actually do something about?

    MUSK: I don’t know.

    BOORSTIN: Well why did you invest in Vicarious? What exactly does Vicarious do? What do you see it doing down the line?

    MUSK: Well, I mean, Vicarious refers to it as recursive cortical networks. Essentially emulating the human brain. And so I think –

    BORRSTIN: So you want to make sure that technology is used for good and not Terminator-like evil?

    MUSK: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think – in the movie “Terminator,” they didn’t create A.I. to – they didn’t expect, you know some sort of Terminator-like outcome. It is sort of like the Monty Python thing: Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. It’s just – you know, but you have to be careful. Yeah, you want to make sure that –

    In other words, Elon Musk wants to keep an eye on things. Good lookin out.

    Of course, it’s entirely possible that Elon Musk is a Terminator and is simply trying to gain our trust.

    God creates AI, God destroys AI, God creates idiot humans, idiot humans destroy God, idiots humans create AI, robots brutally annihilate idiot humans, Musk inherits the Earth. I think it’s something like that.

  • Elon Musk Will Bankrupt Mr. Burns in a Future Simpsons Episode

    Elon Musk Will Bankrupt Mr. Burns in a Future Simpsons Episode

    Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO and international man of mystery, will be appearing on an upcoming episode of The Simpsons.

    As The Simpsons prepares for an utterly astounding 26th season this fall, we know going in that someone is gonna die. We also know that there’s both Family Guy and Futurama crossovers slated to premiere this year.

    Now, it appears that Musk is heading to Springfield. At last, Musk has finally made something of himself.

    From Entertainment Weekly’s Comic-Con coverage:

    “The Simpsons panel was unusually light on guest-star news, with exec producer Al Jean making only one announcement: Elon Musk will play himself in an upcoming episode in which Mr. Burns loses all of his money to the Tesla/SpaceX tycoon.”

    Somehow, Musk finds a way to bankrupt Mr. Burns. I’m guessing he pitches him on a long-term investment in gas guzzlers – CAUSE WE ALL KNOW THE FUTURE’S IN EVs!

    In other Elon Musk being an all around cool guy news, he just promised one million dollars to the planned Nikola Tesla museum at the scientific pioneer’s former lab in New York. He’s also out there fighting the good fight, warning the plebs about Skynet and the impending robot apocalypse.

    Image via Elon Musk, Twitter

  • Tesla Confirms Model 3, Its $35,000 Car Slated for 2017

    Tesla Confirms Model 3, Its $35,000 Car Slated for 2017

    Tesla Motors has confirmed the name of its third-gen electric car. It’ll be called the Model 3 and will retail for around $35,000 – much cheaper than the Model S.

    Tesla confirmed a report from Auto Express on Twitter, noting that it will hit showrooms after their Model X SUV.

    So, why the Model 3? Elon Musk says that it has to do with sex and Ford.

    “We had the model S for sedan and X for crossover SUV, then a friend asked what we were going to call the third car. So I said we had the model S and X, we might as well have the E,” Musk told Auto Express. “We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E – I thought this is crazy, Ford’s trying to kill sex! So we’ll have to think of another name. The new model is going to be called Model 3, we’ll have three bars to represent it and it’ll be S III X!”

    I don’t know, Mr. Musk – Model 3 sounds like it could piss off Ford as well.

    Musk says that the Model 3 could have a “realistic range” of over 200 miles, and the lower price point comes from the fact that it’s going to be about 20 percent smaller than the Model S and be produced with cheaper battery technology.

    You can expect the Model 3 to be unveiled in 2016, and be available to purchase in 2017.

    Image via Tesla Motors, Twitter

  • Elon Musk Gives $1M to Nikola Tesla Museum

    Elon Musk Gives $1M to Nikola Tesla Museum

    In 2012, popular internet comic Matthew Inman, better known as The Oatmeal, published his most-viral comic to date – an ode to Nikola Tesla, who he called “the greatest geek who ever lived.” In it, he argued that the only thing Edison ever pioneered was douchebaggery, and that Tesla was the real hero who should be championed.

    Shortly after, Inman announced that he was spearheading an effort to buy back Tesla’s old laboratory and repurpose it as a museum. The lab, located in Shoreham, New York, is known as Wardenclyffe Tower and had recently gone up for sale. Inman felt that it was his duty to preserve this final workplace of the unsung hero who “drop-kicked humanity into a second industrial revolution.”

    He started an Indiegogo campaign, seeking $850,000 to outbid the current buyer and help a non-profit organization erect the Nikola Tesla Science Center.

    The campaign garnered over $1.3 million.

    Here’s the thing – that money raised via crowdfunding is amazing, but it’s only enough to save the location. To build the museum and fully realize the Tesla Science Center, it’s going to take millions.

    Naturally, Inman thought to ask the decidedly not poor founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, for help.

    And today, on Nikola Tesla’s 158th birthday, Musk delivered.

    From a blog post on The Oatmeal:

    Earlier this week I got to speak to the man directly, and he promised two things. 1. He’s going to build a Tesla Supercharger station in the parking lot of the museum. 2. He’s donating $1 million dollars to the museum itself. Elon Musk: from the deepest wells of my geeky little heart: thank you. This is amazing news. And it’s Nikola Tesla’s 158th birthday.

    That’s awesome. What else can we say?

    Images via Wikimedia Commons, (2)

  • Elon Musk Is Pretty Concerned About Skynet

    Elon Musk Is Pretty Concerned About Skynet

    Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, often referred to as the real life Tony Stark, can envision a world where we are all overtaken by our robot overlords.

    Specifically, the whole Terminator scenario.

    CNBC’s Julia Boorstin and Kelly Evans recently asked Musk about a recent investment he made in Vicarious, a company founded in 2010 that is “building software that thinks and learns like a human.” After noting that Musk rarely invests in companies other than his own, Boorstin asked Musk why Vicarious?

    And he basically went all Sarah Connor on them. You have to read this amazon interaction, courtesy Business Insider:

    MUSK: Right. I was also an investor in DeepMind before Google acquired it and Vicarious. Mostly I sort of – it’s not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return. It’s really, I like to just keep an eye on what’s going on with artificial intelligence. I think there is potentially a dangerous outcome there and we need to –

    EVANS: Dangerous? How so?

    MUSK: Potentially, yes. I mean, there have been movies about this, you know, like ‘Terminator.’

    EVANS: Well yes, but movies are – even if that is the case, what do you do about it? I mean, what dangers do you see that you can actually do something about?

    MUSK: I don’t know.

    BOORSTIN: Well why did you invest in Vicarious? What exactly does Vicarious do? What do you see it doing down the line?

    MUSK: Well, I mean, Vicarious refers to it as recursive cortical networks. Essentially emulating the human brain. And so I think –

    BORRSTIN: So you want to make sure that technology is used for good and not Terminator-like evil?

    MUSK: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think – in the movie “Terminator,” they didn’t create A.I. to – they didn’t expect, you know some sort of Terminator-like outcome. It is sort of like the Monty Python thing: Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. It’s just – you know, but you have to be careful. Yeah, you want to make sure that –

    “I don’t know. But there are some scary outcomes. And we should try to make sure the outcomes are good, not bad,” said Musk.

    Elon Musk invested in an AI company to keep an eye on them. Oh my god that’s incredible.

    Musk was one of a handful of high-profile tech names to participate in a reported $40 million investment in Vicarious this spring. Musk joined Mark Zuckerberg and Ashton Kutcher as investors in the company that’s ““developing machine learning software based on the computational principles of the human brain.” PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz are also investors in Vicarious.

  • Tesla Opens Up All Its Patents, Which Elon Musk Calls ‘Landmines’ of Innovation

    Tesla Opens Up All Its Patents, Which Elon Musk Calls ‘Landmines’ of Innovation

    On the heels of news that Tesla Motors would be opening up its Supercharger patents in order to help speed up the electric car revolution, the company’s CEO Elon Musk has apparently decided what the hell, let’s just release all the patents.

    Musk has made the announcement in a Tesla blog post entitled All Our Patent Are Belong To You (spectacular, by the way). To summarize Musk’s argument, the current patent system only serves to stifle innovation, the advancement of electric cars needs to accelerate, and Tesla can’t do it alone.

    “Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology,” says Musk.

    He goes on to state that Tesla will not sue anyone who, in good faith, uses their technology.

    “Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.”

    After explaining that the original purpose of Tesla’s patents were always defensive, as opposed to offensive, Musk makes it clear that this move isn’t going to hurt Tesla.

    At best, the large automakers are producing electric cars with limited range in limited volume. Some produce no zero emission cars at all.

    Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.

    We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.

    Nearly every reaction I can find is praising the move.

    “This is a testimony to Tesla’s commitment to its mission. People don’t buy what you make they buy why you make it!! Patents are really shackles to progress and power of collective innovation. Thanks for taking a lead on this Tesla!,” says one commenter.

    “This is beyond outstanding! Well done Tesla! This won’t make as big a splash in the media as it deserves to and few people will understand how important this decision is. This is so opposite the offensive patent strategy executed by companies like Apple and I dare say Tesla holds far more useful and world changing proprietary tech,” says another.

    On the contrary, I think this is going to be a very highly-publicized decision. The ‘good faith’ stipulation has yet to be hashed out, so Musk and Tesla could simply be choosing to ignore most cases of malfeasance.

    But after such a public declaration, it would be hard to imagine Tesla initiating a patent lawsuit anytime soon.

    Image via Tesla

  • Elon Musk Wants to Standardize Supercharger Market

    Elon Musk Wants to Standardize Supercharger Market

    Elon Musk, co-founder of companies such as PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX (and sometimes known as the modern-day Tony Stark, aka Iron Man), has has fulfilled his promise of “doing something fairly significant on this front which would be kind of controversial with respect to Tesla’s patents”.

    While he has not decided to release all the patents for his Tesla line of automobiles, Musk has decided to go through with a proposal which would drastically alter the future of electric vehicles for generations to come. At the UK launch of the Model S on Sunday, Musk announced his intentions to free the patents Tesla Motors currently holds on its supercharger systems, allowing any and all of his competitors access to the technology behind the world’s most successful electric vehicle.

    The news may not seem significant at first, but with Tesla’s recent surge in supercharging efficiency, the announcement could lead to many more electric vehicles on the road in the very near future.

    At the 2014 annual stockholders meeting, Musk delivered the answer to the mystery surrounding a quite vague and mysterious tweet he composed earlier last month:

    Musk plans to unveil this method on June 20th. If rumor is to be believed, however, Tesla has found a way to up the speed of a supercharger to a 120kw rate, much higher than the 50 kw rate of most fast-chargers available on the market today. If Tesla has succeeded, the rate of charging one’s electric vehicle would indeed be comparable to the rate of filling one’s tank.

    The opened patents would not come without a price, however. Barriers to entry for Tesla’s competitors would come in having to provide capital for the construction of multiple charging stations across the US, along with upping the price of one’s vehicles to include a lifetime of free chargers – a business model Tesla already practices.

    If Musk is able to convince his competitors to come onboard with the standardization of superchargers, odds are he will be able to vault Tesla to the top of the electric car industry for many years to come. One can only hope for this to become true as Musk has several intriguing projects on the table at the moment, including the Hyperloop, a supersonic air travel system, new space shuttles developed by SpaceX, and even flying and underwater vehicles.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Mark Zuckerberg Hastens the Arrival of Our Robot Overlords

    Mark Zuckerberg Hastens the Arrival of Our Robot Overlords

    If you’re impatiently waiting for computers to actually start thinking, reasoning, and feeling like humans, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a couple of other high-profile investors have decided to help speed up the process. Zuckerberg, alongside Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Ashton Kutcher have joined for a $40 million investment in Vicarious, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    Vicarious is a company that is “building software that thinks and learns like a human.”

    More specifically, Vicarious is looking to code the human brain. Using a new computational paradigm that they call the Recursive Cortical Network, Vicarious is “developing machine learning software based on the computational principles of the human brain.”

    “Our first technology is a visual perception system that interprets the contents of photographs and videos in a manner similar to humans,” says the company.

    Vicarious was founded in 2010.

    Late last year, Vicarious touted that their AI had passed the first Turing Test by reliably solving CAPTCHAs.

    “Understanding how brain creates intelligence is the ultimate scientific challenge. Vicarious has a long term strategy for developing human level artificial intelligence, and it starts with building a brain-like vision system. Modern CAPTCHAs provide a snapshot of the challenges of visual perception, and solving those in a general way required us to understand how the brain does it,” said Vicarious co-founder Dr. Dileep George.

    Why Mark Zuckerberg? What could Facebook possibly want with software that can mimic human reasoning? Check this little bit from the WSJ’s report:

    A Facebook spokesman said Zuckerberg’s investment in Vicarious, which hasn’t been previously reported, is a personal one and does not reflect Facebook’s interest in using Vicarious software.

    Suuuuuuure…..

    PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz are already investors in the company. They put their money in back in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

    If you want to reach me, I’ll be in my basement trying desperately to construct the eye scanner from Blade Runner.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Yes, Tesla Talked to Apple, But Acquisition Is Unlikely

    Yes, Tesla Talked to Apple, But Acquisition Is Unlikely

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that people at Tesla did meet with people at Apple, but it’s unlikely that any rumored merger will take place. Musk did say that “if” the talks had anything to do with a possible acquisition, he’d be unable to talk about it anyway.

    This comes in response to a big rumor floating around the tech world–one that suggests Apple was in talks to acquire electric vehicle company Tesla. This past weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted an anonymous source who claimed that Adrian Perica, Apple’s merger and acquisitions chief, met with Elon Musk in Cupertino last spring.

    “If one or more companies had approached us last year about such things there’s no way we could really comment on that…We had conversations with Apple, I can’t comment on whether those revolved around any kind of acquisition,” said Musk in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

    Musk reiterated that Tesla is not for sale, as their main focus in “achieving a compelling, creating a compelling mass-market electric car.”

    “I would be very concerned and any kind of acquisition scenario that we would become distracted from that task, which has always been the driving goal of tesla,” said Musk.

    True or not, the rumors pushed Tesla stock over $200 for the first time ever earlier this week.

    Last month, Musk announced plans to build “the biggest battery plant in the world by far,” saying that Tesla would “do it in partnership with the with some other companies.” We’ll know what that looks like soon, but it’s at least possible that Apple could be one of those “other companies.”

    If you were wondering how the financials would look if this were to happen, Apple has stockpiled about $160 billion in cash, and Tesla’s market cap sits at an estimated $24 billion. But once again, this is a highly unlikely pairing.

    Image via Elon Musk, Twitter