Elon Musk: On Boring, Batteries, Interplanetary Travel, and the Nature of Technology Itself

This is a fascinating TED talk by Elon Musk – more of an interview really, with him discussing his thoughts on a wide range of topics.

The interview begins with Musk’s latest venture, The Boring Company. If you haven’t seen the teaser video of what this company is looking to do, this is worth a quick watch (note the speeds that the cars eventually get to):

Musk talks a lot about the costs associated with drilling tunnels, and mentions that he has a pet snail named “Gary.” In discussing ways to make the drilling process faster and more efficient, this is by far one of my favorite quotes from the interview:

It begins with The Boring Company, but the talk touches on many more things – driverless cars and trucks, the Gigafactory, batteries and solar power, as well as interplanetary travel.

I’d never really listened to Musk talk before, and found his thought process absolutely riveting. I had this playing as I was working last week, and got distracted at several points – mostly because of how interesting and pleasureable it was to listen to how his brain worked.

It’s a long interview, spanning about 40 minutes. But it’s really worth your time to watch.

Related:
Moral Machine: When, Exactly, Should A Driverless Car Kill People?
The Mathematics of Murder: Autonomous Robots and Choosing Who to Kill