Dwarkesh PatelYou don’t think there’s a lot to talk about, Elon?你不觉得有很多话可聊吗，Elon？
Elon MuskHoly fuck man.我草，真的。
John CollisonIt’s the most interesting point. All the storylines are converging right now. We’ll see how much we can get through.这是最有意思的时间点。所有的故事线现在都在汇聚。看我们能聊到哪。
Elon MuskIt’s almost like I planned it.感觉就像是我策划好的一样。
John CollisonExactly. We’ll get to that.没错。我们到时候会讲到的。
Elon MuskBut I would never do such a thing…但我绝对不会做这种事……
Elon MuskDwarkesh PatelDwarkesh Patel
Elon MuskAs you know better than anybody else, only 10-15% of the total cost of ownership of a data center is energy. That’s the part you’re presumably saving by moving this into space . Most of it’s the GPUs . If they’re in space, it’s harder to service them or you can’t service them. So the depreciation cycle goes down on them. It’s just way more expensive to have the GPUs in space, presumably. What’s the reason to put them in space?你比任何人都清楚，数据中心总拥有成本里，电费只占 10-15%。把设施搬到太空，大概就是在省这部分钱。大头还是 GPU。GPU 在太空的话，维修很难，甚至根本无法维修。折旧周期就会缩短。那 GPU 放太空，成本应该贵得多。为什么还要把它们放到太空去？
Elon MuskThe availability of energy is the issue. If you look at electrical output outside of China, everywhere outside of China, it’s more or less flat. It’s maybe a slight increase, but pretty close flat. China has a rapid increase in electrical output. But if you’re putting data centers anywhere except China, where are you going to get your electricity? Especially as you scale.问题在于能源的可获取性。看看中国以外的地方，全球其他地方的发电量基本上是平的——可能略有增长，但非常接近零增长。中国的发电量在快速增长。但如果你要在中国以外建数据中心，电从哪来？尤其是当你要大规模扩张的时候。
Elon MuskThe output of chips is growing pretty much exponentially, but the output of electricity is flat. So how are you going to turn the chips on? Magical power sources? Magical electricity fairies?芯片产量在呈指数级增长，但发电量是平的。那你怎么把芯片点亮？靠魔法电源？靠电力仙女？
Dwarkesh PatelYou’re famously a big fan of solar. One terawatt of solar power, with a 25% capacity factor, that’s like four terawatts of solar panels. It’s 1% of the land area of the United States. We’re in the singularity when we’ve got one terawatt of data centers, right? So what are you running out of exactly?你众所周知是太阳能的大粉丝。1 terawatt 的太阳能，按 25% 的容量系数算，需要 4 terawatt 的太阳能板。那大概是美国国土面积的 1%。如果我们有 1 terawatt 的数据中心，是不是就进入奇点了？那你到底在缺什么？
Elon MuskHow far into the singularity are you though?但你到底深入奇点多少了？
Dwarkesh PatelYou tell me.你来告诉我。
Elon MuskExactly. So I think we’ll find we’re in the singularity and it’ll be like, “Okay, we’ve still got a long way to go.”对。我觉得我们会发现自己进入了奇点，然后发现——"好吧，我们还有很长的路要走。"
Dwarkesh PatelBut is the plan to put it in space after we’ve covered Nevada in solar panels?但计划是先把 Nevada 铺满太阳能板，然后再搬到太空吗？
Elon MuskI think it’s pretty hard to cover Nevada in solar panels. You have to get permits. Try getting the permits for that. See what happens.我觉得把 Nevada 全铺上太阳能板挺难的。你得办许可证。去试试申请那个许可证，看看会发生什么。
Dwarkesh PatelSo space is really a regulatory play. It’s harder to build on land than it is in space.所以太空其实是个监管逻辑——在地面建反而比在太空建更难。
Elon MuskIt’s harder to scale on the ground than it is to scale in space. You’re also going to get about five times the effectiveness of solar panels in space versus the ground, and you don’t need batteries. I almost wore my other shirt, which says, “it’s always sunny in space”. Which it is because you don’t have a day-night cycle, seasonality, clouds, or an atmosphere in space. The atmosphere alone results in about a 30% loss of energy.在地面扩张比在太空扩张要难得多。而且太空里太阳能板的效率大概是地面的 5 倍，还不需要电池。我差点穿了另一件 T 恤来，上面印着"太空永远是晴天"。因为太空里没有昼夜循环、没有季节性、没有云、也没有大气层。光是大气层就会造成约 30% 的能量损耗。
Elon MuskSo any given solar panel can do about five times more power in space than on the ground. You also avoid the cost of having batteries to carry you through the night. It’s actually much cheaper to do in space. My prediction is that it will be by far the cheapest place to put AI. It will be space in 36 months or less. Maybe 30 months.所以同一块太阳能板在太空能产出的功率大约是地面的 5 倍。你还省去了夜间储能电池的成本。太空建设其实要便宜得多。我预测，太空将是放置 AI 成本最低的地方，而且会在 36 个月以内实现。可能 30 个月。
Dwarkesh Patel36 months?36 个月？
Elon MuskLess than 36 months.不到 36 个月。
Dwarkesh PatelHow do you service GPUs as they fail, which happens quite often in training?GPU 会频繁出故障，尤其是训练期间，怎么维修？
Elon MuskActually, it depends on how recent the GPUs are that have arrived. At this point, we find our GPUs to be quite reliable. There’s infant mortality, which you can obviously iron out on the ground. So you can just run them on the ground and confirm that you don’t have infant mortality with the GPUs.其实要看是什么年代的 GPU。就现在来说，我们发现 GPU 相当可靠。早期会有"婴儿死亡"问题，也就是初始故障，这个在地面就可以排查。你可以先在地面跑一段时间，确认没有初始故障。
Elon MuskBut once they start working and you’re past the initial debug cycle of Nvidia or whoever’s making the chips—could be Tesla AI6 chips or something like that, or it could be TPUs or Trainiums or whatever—they’re quite reliable past a certain point. So I don’t think the servicing thing is an issue.但一旦它们开始正常工作，过了 Nvidia 或其他芯片厂商——可能是 Tesla AI6 芯片，或者 TPU、Trainium 之类——的初始调试阶段，它们就非常可靠了。所以我不认为维修问题是个大障碍。
Elon MuskBut you can mark my words. In 36 months, but probably closer to 30 months, the most economically compelling place to put AI will be space. It will then get ridiculously better to be in space.你可以记住我这句话：36 个月内，大概率更接近 30 个月，把 AI 放在太空将是经济上最有吸引力的选择。然后太空的优势会变得荒诞地强大。
Elon MuskThe only place you can really scale is space. Once you start thinking in terms of what percentage of the Sun’s power you are harnessing, you realize you have to go to space. You can’t scale very much on Earth.唯一真正能扩张的地方就是太空。一旦你开始用"我们在利用太阳多少比例的能量"来思考问题，就会意识到必须去太空。在地球上根本没法大规模扩张。
Dwarkesh PatelBut by very much, to be clear, you’re talking terawatts?但"没法大规模"，说清楚一点，你说的是 terawatt 这个量级？
Elon MuskYeah. All of the United States currently uses only half a terawatt on average. So if you say a terawatt, that would be twice as much electricity as the United States currently consumes. So that’s quite a lot. Can you imagine building that many data centers, that many power plants?对。美国目前全国平均用电量只有半个 terawatt。所以如果说 1 terawatt，那是美国目前耗电量的两倍。这已经相当巨大了。你能想象要建多少数据中心、多少发电站吗？
Elon MuskThose who have lived in software land don’t realize they’re about to have a hard lesson in hardware. It’s actually very difficult to build power plants. You don’t just need power plants, you need all of the electrical equipment. You need the electrical transformers to run the AI transformers .那些活在软件世界里的人不知道，他们快要上一堂硬件的惨痛课了。建发电站其实非常难。不只是发电站，你还需要所有配套的电气设备。你需要电力变压器来运行 AI Transformer。
Elon MuskNow, the utility industry is a very slow industry. They pretty much impedance match to the government, to the Public Utility Commissions . They impedance match literally and figuratively. They’re very slow, because their past has been very slow. So trying to get them to move fast is... Have you ever tried to do an interconnect agreement with a utility at scale, with a lot of power?公用事业行业是一个极其迟缓的行业。它们基本上和政府、和公用事业委员会同频——字面意义上和比喻意义上都在"阻抗匹配"。它们很慢，因为它们的历史一直很慢。想让它们快起来……你有没有试过和公用事业公司在大规模大功率场景下签并网协议？
Dwarkesh PatelAs a professional podcaster, I can say that I have not, in fact.作为一名职业播客主，我可以诚实地说，我从没试过。
John CollisonThey need many more views before that becomes an issue.他们需要再涨很多播放量才能碰到这个问题。
Elon MuskThey have to do a study for a year. A year later, they’ll come back to you with their interconnect study.他们要做一年的研究。一年后，他们才会拿着并网研究报告回来找你。
John CollisonCan’t you solve this with your own behind the meter power stuff?你们不能靠自己的表后（behind the meter）发电解决这个问题吗？
Elon MuskYou can build power plants. That’s what we did at xAI , for Colossus 2 .可以自建发电站。我们在 xAI 就是这么做的，为 Colossus 2 建的。
John CollisonSo why talk about the grid ? Why not just build GPUs and power co-located?那为什么还要讨论电网的问题？为什么不直接把 GPU 和电站放在一起？
Elon MuskThat’s what we did.我们就是这么做的。
John CollisonBut I’m saying why isn’t this a generalized solution?但我是说，为什么这不能成为一个通用方案？
Elon MuskWhere do you get the power plants from?发电站从哪来？
John CollisonWhen you’re talking about all the issues working with utilities, you can just build private power plants with the data centers.你说到和公用事业公司打交道的各种问题，其实可以直接自建私人发电站配套数据中心嘛。
Elon MuskRight. But it begs the question of where do you get the power plants from? The power plant makers.对。但问题还是回到：发电站从哪来？得从发电站制造商那里买。
John CollisonOh, I see what you’re saying. Is this the gas turbine backlog basically?哦，我明白了。这就是燃气轮机积压的问题吗？
Elon MuskYes. You can drill down to a level further. It’s the vanes and blades in the turbines that are the limiting factor because it’s a very specialized process to cast the blades and vanes in the turbines, assuming you’re using gas power. It’s very difficult to scale other forms of power. You can potentially scale solar, but the tariffs currently for importing solar in the US are gigantic and the domestic solar production is pitiful.对。再往下深挖一层，瓶颈是涡轮机里的导叶和叶片，因为铸造叶片和导叶是一个极其专业的工艺——假设你用的是燃气发电。其他发电形式很难快速扩张。太阳能理论上可以扩张，但目前美国进口太阳能的关税高得离谱，而国内太阳能产能可怜得很。
John CollisonWhy not make solar? That seems like a good Elon-shaped problem.为什么不自己造太阳能？这看起来是个很适合 Elon 解决的问题。
Elon MuskWe are going to make solar.我们就要造太阳能了。
John CollisonOkay.好吧。
Elon MuskBoth SpaceX and Tesla are building towards 100 gigawatts a year of solar cell production.SpaceX 和 Tesla 都在朝着每年 100 gigawatt 的太阳能电池产能迈进。
Dwarkesh PatelHow low down the stack? From polysilicon up to the wafer to the final panel?要做到产业链的哪一层？从多晶硅、到硅片、到最终面板？
Elon MuskI think you’ve got to do the whole thing from raw materials to finish the cell. Now, if it’s going to space, it costs less and it’s easier to make solar cells that go to space because they don’t need much glass.我觉得得从原材料到电池成品全链路都做。如果是要送上太空，用于太空的太阳能电池成本更低、也更容易制造，因为不需要厚重的玻璃。
Elon MuskThey don’t need heavy framing because they don’t have to survive weather events. There’s no weather in space. So it’s actually a cheaper solar cell that goes to space than the one on the ground.也不需要重型边框，因为不用抵御风暴天气。太空里没有天气。所以送上太空的太阳能电池其实比地面用的更便宜。
Dwarkesh PatelIs there a path to getting them as cheap as you need in the next 36 months?在 36 个月内，有没有路径把成本降到你需要的水平？
Elon MuskSolar cells are already very cheap. They’re farcically cheap. I think solar cells in China are around $0.25-30/watt or something like that. It’s absurdly cheap. Now put it in space, and it’s five times cheaper. In fact, it’s not five times cheaper, it’s 10 times cheaper because you don’t need any batteries.太阳能电池现在已经非常便宜了，便宜得可笑。中国的太阳能电池大概是 $0.25-0.30/watt 左右，便宜得荒唐。再送上太空，效率是 5 倍，实际上等效成本是 10 倍以上的降低，因为连电池都省了。
Elon MuskSo the moment your cost of access to space becomes low, by far the cheapest and most scalable way to generate tokens is space. It’s not even close. It’ll be an order of magnitude easier to scale.所以一旦你的太空进入成本足够低，生产 token 最便宜、最可扩张的方式就是太空，根本不是一个数量级的差距。规模化会容易一个数量级。
Elon MuskThe point is you won’t be able to scale on the ground. You just won’t. People are going to hit the wall big time on power generation. They already are. The number of miracles in series that the xAI team had to accomplish in order to get a gigawatt of power online was crazy.关键是你在地面根本没办法扩张，就是没办法。大家会被发电这个问题硬生生撞墙。其实已经在撞了。xAI 团队为了让 1 gigawatt 的电力上线，串联起来的奇迹数量多到令人发指。
Elon MuskWe had to gang together a whole bunch of turbines. We then had permit issues in Tennessee and had to go across the border to Mississippi, which is fortunately only a few miles away. But we still then had to run the high power lines a few miles and build the power plant in Mississippi. It was very difficult to build that.我们把一大堆燃气轮机拼在一起。然后在 Tennessee 遇到了许可证问题，不得不跨州去 Mississippi，还好只有几英里。但我们还是要拉几英里的高压线，在 Mississippi 那边建发电站。这个建设过程极其困难。
Elon MuskPeople don’t understand how much electricity you actually need at the generation level in order to power a data center. Because the noobs will look at the power consumption of, say a GB300 , and multiply that by a thing and then think that’s the amount of power you need.人们不知道，要给一个数据中心供电，发电端实际上需要多少电。因为新手会去看，比如一块 GB300 的功耗，乘以数量，就以为那是总用电需求了。
John CollisonAll the cooling and everything.冷却和其他所有的东西。
Elon MuskWake up. That’s a total noob, you’ve never done any hardware in your life before. Besides the GB300, you’ve got to power all of the networking hardware. There’s a whole bunch of CPU and storage stuff that’s happening. You’ve got to size for your peak cooling requirements. That means, can you cool even on the worst hour of the worst day of the year?醒醒。这种人就是从没做过任何硬件的新手。除了 GB300 本身，还要给所有网络硬件供电。有一大堆 CPU 和存储在运行。还要按峰值冷却需求来设计——也就是说，一年中最热的那天最热的那个小时，你也得能冷却下来。
Elon MuskIt gets pretty frigging hot in Memphis. So you’re going to have a 40% increase on your power just for cooling. That’s assuming you don’t want your data center to turn off on hot days and you want to keep going. There’s another multiplicative element on top of that which is, are you assuming that you never have any hiccups in your power generation?Memphis 夏天热得要命。所以光冷却就要多 40% 的功耗。而且这还是假设你不想让数据中心在热天关机、想一直运行的前提下。在这之上还有一个乘数，那就是——你能保证发电一点都不会出岔子吗？
Elon MuskActually, sometimes we have to take the generators, some of the power, offline in order to service it. Okay, now you add another 20-25% multiplier on that, because you’ve got to assume that you’ve got to take power offline to service it. So our actual estimate: every 110,000 GB300s—inclusive of networking, CPU, storage, cooling, margin for servicing power—is roughly 300 megawatts.实际上，我们有时候需要把部分发电机下线进行维护。好，再加上 20-25% 的冗余系数，因为你要假设随时可能有电源需要下线维护。所以我们的实际估算是：每 110,000 块 GB300——含网络、CPU、存储、冷却、维护功率余量——大约需要 300 megawatt。
John CollisonSorry, say that again.等等，再说一遍。
Elon MuskWhat you probably need at the generation level to service 330,000 GB 300s—including all of the associated support networking and everything else, and the peak cooling, and to have some power margin reserve—is roughly a gigawatt.在发电端，你大概需要 1 gigawatt，才能支撑 330,000 块 GB300——含所有配套网络、峰值冷却，以及一定的功率冗余余量。
Dwarkesh PatelCan I ask a very naive question? You’re describing the engineering details of doing this stuff on Earth. But then there’s analogous engineering difficulties of doing it in space. How do you replace infinite bandwidth with orbital lasers, et cetera, et cetera? How do you make it resistant to radiation ?我能问一个很天真的问题吗？你在描述在地球上做这件事的工程细节。但太空里也有类似的工程难题。比如怎么用轨道激光替代无限带宽，怎么做辐射防护之类的。
Dwarkesh PatelI don’t know the details of the engineering, but fundamentally, what is the reason to think those challenges which have never had to be addressed before will end up being easier than just building more turbines on Earth? There are companies that build turbines on Earth. They can make more turbines, right?我不了解工程细节，但从根本上说，有什么理由认为这些从未被解决过的挑战，最终会比在地球上多造几台涡轮机更容易？地球上有制造涡轮机的公司，他们可以多造，对吧？
Elon MuskAgain, try doing it and then you’ll see. The turbines are sold out through 2030.我说，你去试试就知道了。涡轮机到 2030 年都卖光了。
John CollisonHave you guys considered making your own?你们有没有考虑过自己造？
Elon MuskIn order to bring enough power online, I think SpaceX and Tesla will probably have to make the turbine blades, the vanes and blades, internally.为了让足够多的电力上线，我觉得 SpaceX 和 Tesla 可能不得不自己内部制造涡轮机叶片——也就是导叶和叶片。
John CollisonBut just the blades or the turbines?但只造叶片，还是整个涡轮机？
Elon MuskThe limiting factor... you can get everything except the blades. They call them blades and vanes. You can get that 12 to 18 months before the vanes and blades. The limiting factor is the vanes and blades. There are only three casting companies in the world that make these, and they’re massively backlogged.瓶颈是……叶片以外的所有东西你都能买到，比叶片和导叶要早 12 到 18 个月拿到。瓶颈就是导叶和叶片。全球只有三家铸造公司在做这个，订单积压得一塌糊涂。
John CollisonIs this Siemens , GE , those guys, or is it a sub company?是 Siemens、GE 这种大公司，还是它们的下游供应商？
Elon MuskNo, it’s other companies. Sometimes they have a little bit of casting capability in-house. But I’m just saying you can just call any of the turbine makers and they will tell you. It’s not top secret. It’s probably on the internet right now.不是，是另外的公司。这些大公司有时候有一点点内部铸造产能。但我的意思是，你直接去问任何一家涡轮机厂商，他们都会告诉你。这不是什么机密。现在互联网上肯定有。
Dwarkesh PatelIf it wasn’t for the tariffs, would Colossus be solar-powered?如果没有关税，Colossus 会用太阳能供电吗？
Elon MuskIt would be much easier to make it solar powered, yeah. The tariffs are nuts, several hundred percent.用太阳能会容易得多，是的。那些关税真的是疯了，好几百个百分点。
John CollisonDon’t you know some people?你不是认识些人脉吗？
Elon MuskThe president has... we don’t agree on everything and this administration is not the biggest fan of solar. We also need the land, the permits, and everything. So if you try to move very fast, I do think scaling solar on Earth is a good way to go, but you do need some amount of time to find the land, get the permits, get the solar, pair that with the batteries.总统那边……我们不是在每件事上都意见一致，而且这届政府对太阳能也不太感冒。另外还需要土地、许可证，一切配套都得齐。所以如果你想快速推进，我确实认为在地球上扩张太阳能是条好路，但你需要一定的时间来找地、拿许可证、采购太阳能板，再配上储能电池。
John CollisonWhy would it not work to stand up your own solar production? You’re right that you eventually run out of land, but there’s a lot of land here in Texas. There’s a lot of land in Nevada, including private land. It’s not all publicly-owned land. So you’d be able to at least get the next Colossus and the next one after that. At a certain point, you hit a wall. But wouldn’t that work for the moment?为什么自建太阳能产能不行？你说最终会没地方用，但德克萨斯有大量土地，Nevada 有大量土地，包括私人土地，不全是联邦公共用地。所以至少下一个 Colossus 和再下一个还是能搞定的。到某个点才会撞墙。但眼下这个阶段难道不够用吗？
Elon MuskAs I said, we are scaling solar production. There’s a rate at which you can scale physical production of solar cells. We’re going as fast as possible in scaling domestic production.就像我说的，我们在扩张太阳能产能。扩张太阳能电池的实物生产有它的速率限制。我们正在以最快速度扩张国内产能。
John CollisonYou’re making the solar cells at Tesla?你们是在 Tesla 生产太阳能电池？
Elon MuskBoth Tesla and SpaceX have a mandate to get to 100 gigawatts a year of solar.Tesla 和 SpaceX 都有使命，目标是达到每年 100 gigawatt 的太阳能产能。
John CollisonSpeaking of the annual capacity, I’m curious, in five years time let’s say, what will the installed capacity be on Earth…?说到年产能，我很好奇，比如说五年后，地球上的 AI 装机容量会是多少？
Elon MuskFive years is a long time.五年是很长的时间。
John CollisonAnd in space? I deliberately pick five years because it’s after your “once we’re up and running” threshold. So in five years time what’s the on-Earth versus in-space installed AI capacity?太空里呢？我刻意选五年，因为那是在你"一旦运转起来"之后。那五年后，地面 AI 装机和太空 AI 装机，比例大概是多少？
Elon MuskIf you say five years from now, I think probably AI in space will be launching every year the sum total of all AI on Earth. Meaning, five years from now, my prediction is we will launch and be operating every year more AI in space than the cumulative total on Earth.如果说五年后，我预测太空 AI 每年的新增部署量，将超过地球上所有 AI 的总和。也就是说，五年后，我们每年发射并运营的太空 AI 量，将超过地球上一切 AI 的累计总量。
John CollisonWhich is...那就是……
Elon MuskI would expect it to be at least, five years from now, a few hundred gigawatts per year of AI in space and rising. I think you can get to around a terawatt a year of AI in space before you start having fuel supply challenges for the rocket.我预计五年后，太空 AI 每年至少几百个 gigawatt，而且还在上升。我认为在遇到火箭燃料供应瓶颈之前，太空 AI 可以做到每年大约 1 terawatt。
John CollisonOkay, but you think you can get hundreds of gigawatts per year in five years time?好，但你认为五年内每年能在太空部署几百个 gigawatt？
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Dwarkesh PatelSo 100 gigawatts, depending on the specific power of the whole system with solar arrays and radiators and everything, is on the order of 10,000 Starship launches.那 100 gigawatt，取决于整个系统——太阳能阵列、散热片等——的单位功率密度，大概需要一万次 Starship 发射。
Elon MuskYes.对。
Dwarkesh PatelYou want to do that in one year. So that’s like one Starship launch every hour. That’s happening in this city? Walk me through a world where there’s a Starship launch every single hour.你想在一年内完成这个。那就是每小时发射一次 Starship。这要在这座城市发生？给我描绘一个每小时都有 Starship 发射的世界是什么样的。
Elon MuskI mean, that’s actually a lower rate compared to airlines, aircraft.这个发射频率，和航空公司、飞机的比起来，其实还算低的。
Dwarkesh PatelThere’s a lot of airports.机场很多啊。
Elon MuskA lot of airports.机场很多。
Dwarkesh PatelAnd you’ve got to launch into the polar orbit .而且你还得打极地轨道。
Elon MuskNo, it doesn’t have to be polar. There’s some value to sun-synchronous , but I think actually, if you just go high enough, you start getting out of Earth’s shadow.不一定是极地轨道。太阳同步轨道有一定价值，但我觉得其实只要飞得够高，就能飞出地球的阴影区。
Dwarkesh PatelHow many physical Starships are needed to do 10,000 launches a year?每年 10,000 次发射需要多少艘实体 Starship？
Elon MuskI don’t think we’ll need more than... You could probably do it with as few as 20 or 30. It really depends on how quickly… The ship has to go around the Earth and the ground track for the ship has to come back over the launch pad. So if you can use a ship every, say 30 hours, you could do it with 30 ships. But we’ll make more ships than that. SpaceX is gearing up to do 10,000 launches a year, and maybe even 20 or 30,000 launches a year.我觉得不需要太多……可能 20 到 30 艘就够了。具体取决于飞船绕地球一圈、地面轨迹重新飞到发射台上方需要多久。如果每 30 小时能复用一艘，30 艘就够了。但我们会造更多。SpaceX 正在备战每年 10,000 次发射，甚至可能是 20,000 到 30,000 次。
Dwarkesh PatelIs the idea to become basically a hyperscaler , become an Oracle, and lend this capacity to other people? Presumably, SpaceX is the one launching all this. So, SpaceX is going to become a hyperscaler?这个想法是要成为超大规模云服务商，成为 Oracle 那样的角色，把算力租给别人吗？SpaceX 显然是唯一在发射这些东西的，那 SpaceX 要成为超级超大规模云服务商？
Elon MuskHyper-hyper. If some of my predictions come true, SpaceX will launch more AI than the cumulative amount on Earth of everything else combined.超超大规模。如果我的某些预测成真，SpaceX 发射的 AI 将超过地球上其他所有 AI 的总和。
Dwarkesh PatelIs this mostly inference or?这主要是推理还是……？
Elon MuskMost AI will be inference. Already, inference for the purpose of training is most training.大部分 AI 会是推理。现在，用于训练的推理已经占了大多数训练算力。
John CollisonThere’s a narrative that the change in discussion around a SpaceX IPO is because previously SpaceX was very capital efficient. It wasn’t that expensive to develop. Even though it sounds expensive, it’s actually very capital efficient in how it runs.现在有一种说法，讨论 SpaceX IPO 之所以发生变化，是因为之前 SpaceX 非常资本高效。开发成本虽然听起来高，但实际上运营非常高效。
John CollisonWhereas now you’re going to need more capital than just can be raised in the private markets. The private markets can accommodate raises of—as we’ve seen from the AI labs—tens of billions of dollars, but not beyond that. Is it that you’ll just need more than tens of billions of dollars per year? That’s why you’d take it public?而现在你需要的资金量，已经超出了私人市场能筹集的上限。私人市场可以支撑——正如我们从 AI 实验室看到的——数百亿美元的融资，但再往上就不行了。是不是因为你每年需要的资金超过几百亿？这就是你要上市的原因？
Elon MuskI have to be careful about saying things about companies that might go public.我得小心，不能随便说一些可能要上市的公司的事情。
Dwarkesh PatelThat’s never been a problem for you, Elon.这从来不是你的问题，Elon。
Elon MuskThere’s a price to pay for these things.这些话都是有代价的。
John CollisonMake some general statements for us about the depth of the capital markets between public and private markets.给我们讲一些关于公开市场和私募市场之间资本容量深度的通用性论述吧。
Elon MuskThere’s a lot more capital available...公开市场的可用资本多得多……
Dwarkesh PatelVery general.非常通用了。
Elon MuskThere’s obviously a lot more capital available in the public markets than private. It might be 100x more capital, but it’s way more than 10x.公开市场显然比私募市场有更多的可用资本，可能多 100 倍，但肯定超过 10 倍。
John CollisonIsn’t it also the case that with things that tend to be very capital intensive—if you look at, say, real estate as a huge industry, that raises a lot of money each year at an industry level—they tend to be debt financed because by the time you’re deploying that much money, you actually have a pretty—是不是还有一点——对于极度资本密集的事情，比如房地产这种每年在行业层面融入大量资金的领域——它们往往是债权融资，因为当你部署那么多资金的时候，你实际上已经有了相当清晰的……
Elon MuskYou have a clear revenue stream.你有清晰的收入流。
John CollisonExactly, and a near-term return. You see this even with the data center build-outs, which are famously being financed by the private credit industry. Why not just debt finance?对，而且是近期可预期的回报。就连数据中心建设也是这样，私人信贷行业为其融资已经是公开的事了。为什么不直接做债权融资？
Elon MuskSpeed is important. I’m generally going to do the thing that... I just repeatedly tackle the limiting factor. Whatever the limiting factor is on speed, I’m going to tackle that. If capital is the limiting factor, then I’ll solve for capital. If it’s not the limiting factor, I’ll solve for something else.速度是关键。我的做法始终是——我一直在盯着限制性因素，不管什么是速度的瓶颈，我就去解决它。如果资本是限制性因素，我就解决资本问题。如果不是，我就去解决别的。
Dwarkesh PatelBased on your statements about Tesla and being public, I wouldn’t have guessed that you thought the way to move fast is to be public.基于你对 Tesla 上市的种种表态，我从没想过你会觉得加快速度的方式是上市。
Elon MuskNormally, I would say that’s true. Like I said, I’d like to talk about it in some more detail, but the problem is if you talk about public companies before they become public, you get into trouble, and then you have to delay your offering.通常来说确实是那样。就像我说的，我很想多聊一些细节，但问题是在公司上市之前聊太多会惹麻烦，然后就得推迟上市时间。
John CollisonAnd as you said, you’re solving for speed.就像你说的，你在以速度为先。
Elon MuskYes, exactly. You can’t hype companies that might go public. So that’s why we have to be a little careful here. But we can talk about physics. The way you think about scaling long-term is that Earth only receives about half a billionth of the Sun’s energy. The Sun is essentially all the energy. This is a very important point to appreciate because sometimes people will talk about modular nuclear reactors or various fusion on Earth.对，确实。你不能在公司上市前炒作它。所以我们这里得稍微谨慎一点。但我们可以聊物理。长远来看，你要这样思考规模问题：地球只接收了大约太阳能量的二十亿分之一。太阳本质上就是全部的能量来源。这一点非常重要，因为有时候有人会聊模块化核反应堆或地球上的各种聚变。
Elon MuskBut you have to step back a second and say, if you’re going to climb the Kardashev scale and harness some nontrivial percentage of the sun’s energy… Let’s say you wanted to harness a millionth of the sun’s energy, which sounds pretty small. That would be about, call it roughly, 100,000x more electricity than we currently generate on Earth for all of civilization. Give or take an order of magnitude.但你得退一步想——如果你要攀爬 Kardashev 等级，利用太阳能量的一个不可忽视的百分比……假设你想利用百万分之一的太阳能，听起来很小。那大概是我们目前全球文明总发电量的 10 万倍左右，误差一个数量级。
Elon MuskObviously, the only way to scale is to go to space with solar. Launching from Earth, you can get to about a terawatt per year. Beyond that, you want to launch from the moon. You want to have a mass driver on the moon. With that mass driver on the moon, you could do probably a petawatt per year.很显然，唯一的扩张路径就是进入太空，用太阳能。从地球发射，大概能做到每年 1 terawatt。超过这个，你就需要从月球发射，在月球上建质量驱动器。有了月球质量驱动器，大概能做到每年 1 petawatt。
Dwarkesh PatelWe’re talking these kinds of numbers, terawatts of compute. Presumably, whether you’re talking about land or space, far, far before this point, you run into... Maybe the solar panels are more efficient, but you still need the chips. You still need the logic and the memory and so forth.说到 terawatt 级别的算力，不管是在地面还是太空，远在这个数字之前，你就会遇到……也许太阳能板更高效，但还是需要芯片，需要逻辑芯片和内存等等。
Elon MuskYou’re going to need to build a lot more chips and make them much cheaper.你需要造大量的芯片，并让它们便宜得多。
Dwarkesh PatelRight now the world has maybe 20-25 gigawatts of compute. How are we getting a terawatt of logic by 2030?目前全球大概有 20-25 gigawatt 的算力。我们怎么在 2030 年前做到 1 terawatt 的逻辑芯片？
Elon MuskI guess we’re going to need some very big chip fabs.我猜我们需要一些非常大的芯片代工厂。
Dwarkesh PatelTell me about it.说来听听。
Elon MuskI’ve mentioned publicly the idea of doing a sort of a TeraFab , Tera being the new Giga .我已经公开提过这个构想，叫做 TeraFab——Tera 是新的 Giga。
Dwarkesh PatelI feel like the naming scheme of Tesla, which has been very catchy, is you looking at the metric scale. At what level of the stack are you? Are you building the clean room and then partnering with an existing fab to get the process technology and buying the tools from them? What is the plan there?感觉 Tesla 的命名方式一直很有号召力，就是沿着公制计量单位的刻度走。你在产业链的哪一层切入？是自建洁净室然后和现有晶圆厂合作获取制程技术，再从他们那购买设备？具体计划是什么？
Elon MuskWell, you can’t partner with existing fabs because they can’t output enough. The chip volume is too low.你没法和现有晶圆厂合作，因为他们根本产不了那么多。芯片产量太低了。
Dwarkesh PatelBut for the process technology?但是制程技术呢？
John CollisonPartner for the IP.为了 IP 而合作。
Elon MuskThe fabs today all basically use machines from like five companies. So you’ve got ASML , Tokyo Electron , KLA-Tencor , et cetera. So at first, I think you’d have to get equipment from them and then modify it or work with them to increase the volume. But I think you’d have to build perhaps in a different way. The logical thing to do is to use conventional equipment in an unconventional way to get to scale, and then start modifying the equipment to increase the rate.现在所有晶圆厂基本上都在用差不多五家公司的设备——ASML、Tokyo Electron、KLA-Tencor 等等。所以我认为起步阶段得先从他们那里采购设备，然后改造或者和他们合作提升产量。但我觉得可能需要以不同的方式来建。合理的路径是，用常规设备做非常规的事来实现规模，然后再开始改造设备以提升速率。
John CollisonBoring Company -style.就像 Boring Company 的做法。
Elon MuskYeah. You sort of buy an existing boring machine and then figure out how to dig tunnels in the first place and then design a much better machine that’s some orders of magnitude faster.对，就是先买一台现成的挖掘机，先摸清楚怎么挖隧道，然后再设计一台快上几个数量级的更好机器。
John CollisonHere’s a very simple lens. We can categorize technologies and how hard they are. One categorization could be to look at things that China has not succeeded in doing. If you look at Chinese manufacturing, they’re still behind on leading-edge chips and still behind on leading-edge turbine engines and things like that.有一个很简单的视角。我们可以按照"某个国家没能做到"来给技术难度分类。看看中国的制造业——他们在顶尖芯片上还落后，在先进涡轮发动机上也还落后。
John CollisonSo does the fact that China has not successfully replicated TSMC give you any pause about the difficulty? Or do you think that’s not true for some reason?那么中国没能成功复制 TSMC 这件事，有没有让你对难度产生一些顾虑？还是你认为有什么原因让这个类比不成立？
Elon MuskIt’s not that they have not replicated TSMC, they have not replicated ASML . That’s the limiting factor.不是没能复制 TSMC，是没能复制 ASML。那才是限制性因素。
John CollisonSo you think it’s just the sanctions, essentially?所以你认为本质上就是制裁的问题？
Elon MuskYeah, China would be outputting vast numbers of chips if they could buy 2 - 3 nanometers .对。如果中国能买到 2-3 纳米的设备，他们的芯片产量会爆炸式增长。
John CollisonBut couldn’t they up to relatively recently buy them?但直到最近之前，他们不是还能买到吗？
Elon MuskNo.不能。
John CollisonOkay.好吧。
Elon MuskThe ASML ban has been in place for a while . But I think China’s going to be making pretty compelling chips in three or four years.ASML 的出口禁令已经实施了一段时间了。不过我认为中国在三四年后会造出相当有竞争力的芯片。
John CollisonWould you consider making the ASML machines?你有没有考虑过自己造 ASML 的机器？
Elon Musk“I don’t know yet” is the right answer. To reach a large volume in, say, 36 months, to match the rocket payload to orbit… If we’re doing a million tons to orbit in, let’s say three or four years from now, something like that… We’re doing 100 kilowatts per ton. So that means we need at least 100 gigawatts per year of solar. We’ll need an equivalent amount of chips. You need 100 gigawatts worth of chips. You’ve got to match these things: the mass to orbit, the power generation, and the chips."我还不知道"是诚实的答案。要在比如 36 个月内实现大规模量产，要和火箭的入轨载荷相匹配……如果我们在三四年后做到每年一百万吨入轨，假设 100 kilowatt 每吨，那我们每年至少需要 100 gigawatt 的太阳能。芯片需求也要相应匹配。你需要 100 gigawatt 量级的芯片。这三样东西——入轨质量、发电量、芯片——必须同步配套。
Elon MuskI’d say my biggest concern actually is memory. The path to creating logic chips is more obvious than the path to having sufficient memory to support logic chips. That’s why you see DDR prices going ballistic and these memes . You’re marooned on a desert island. You write “Help me” on the sand. Nobody comes. You write “DDR RAM.” Ships come swarming in.说实话，我最担心的其实是内存。逻辑芯片的发展路径比让逻辑芯片有足够内存支撑的路径更清晰。这就是为什么你会看到 DDR 价格疯涨，还有那些梗——你被困在荒岛上，在沙滩上写"救救我"，没人来。你改写"DDR RAM"，船队蜂拥而至。
Dwarkesh PatelI’d love to hear your manufacturing philosophy around fabs. I know nothing about the topic.我很想听听你对芯片代工厂的制造哲学，我对这个话题一无所知。
Elon MuskI don’t know how to build a fab yet. I’ll figure it out. Obviously, I’ve never built a fab.我也还不知道怎么建晶圆厂，我会摸索出来的。显然，我从没建过晶圆厂。
Dwarkesh PatelIt sounds like you think the process knowledge of these 10,000 PhDs in Taiwan who know exactly what gas goes in the plasma chamber and what settings to put on the tool, you can just delete those steps. Fundamentally, it’s about getting the clean room, getting the tools, and figuring it out.听起来你觉得台湾那一万个博士——那些精确知道等离子腔里通什么气体、设备参数怎么设置的人——他们掌握的工艺知识可以被跳过。从根本上说，就是搞个洁净室，买到设备，然后自己摸索。
Elon MuskI don’t think it’s PhDs. It’s mostly people who are not PhDs. Most engineering is done by people who don’t have PhDs. Do you guys have PhDs?我不觉得是博士的问题。大多数都不是博士。大多数工程都是没有博士学位的人做的。你们有博士学位吗？
John CollisonNo.没有。
Elon MuskOkay.好的。
John CollisonWe also haven’t successfully built any fabs, so you shouldn’t be coming to us for fab advice.我们也没成功建过任何晶圆厂，所以你不该来找我们寻求建厂建议。
Elon MuskI don’t think you need PhDs for that stuff. But you do need competent personnel. Right now, Tesla is pedal to the metal, max production of going as fast as possible to get Tesla AI5 chip design into production and then reaching scale. That’ll probably happen around the second quarter-ish of next year, hopefully. AI6 would hopefully follow less than a year later. We’ve secured all the chip fab production that we can.我不认为那玩意需要博士。但确实需要能干的人。现在 Tesla 在全力冲刺，以最快速度推进 Tesla AI5 芯片设计量产，并攀升产能曲线。这大概会在明年第二季度前后实现，希望如此。AI6 希望在不到一年后跟进。我们已经把能拿到的所有芯片代工产能都锁定了。
John CollisonYes. But you’re currently limited on TSMC fab capacity.但你们现在被 TSMC 的代工产能卡住了。
Elon MuskYeah. We’ll be using TSMC Taiwan, Samsung Korea , TSMC Arizona , Samsung Texas . And we still—对。我们会用 TSMC 台湾、Samsung 韩国、TSMC 亚利桑那、Samsung 德克萨斯。但我们还是——
John CollisonYou’ve booked out all the capacity.你把产能都订完了。
Elon MuskYes. I ask TSMC or Samsung, “okay, what’s the timeframe to get to volume production?” The point is, you’ve got to build the fab and you’ve got to start production, then you’ve got to climb the yield curve and reach volume production at high yield.对。我去问 TSMC 或 Samsung："量产的时间节点是什么？"问题在于，你得建晶圆厂，启动生产，然后爬良率曲线，达到高良率下的大规模量产。
Elon MuskThat, from start to finish, is a five-year period. So the limiting factor is chips. The limiting factor once you can get to space is chips, but the limiting factor before you can get to space is power.从头到尾，这是一个五年的周期。所以限制性因素是芯片。一旦你能进入太空，限制是芯片；但在你能进入太空之前，限制是电力。
Dwarkesh PatelWhy don’t you do the Jensen thing and just prepay TSMC to build more fabs for you?为什么不学 Jensen 的做法，直接预付款让 TSMC 替你建更多晶圆厂？
Elon MuskI’ve already told them that.我已经这么跟他们说了。
Dwarkesh PatelBut they won’t take your money? What’s going on?但他们不收你的钱？怎么回事？
Elon MuskThey’re building fabs as fast as they can. So is Samsung. They’re pedal to the metal. They’re going balls to the wall, as fast as they can. It’s still not fast enough. Like I said, I think towards the end of this year, chip production will probably outpace the ability to turn chips on. But once you can get to space and unlock the power constraint, you can now do hundreds of gigawatts per year of power in space.他们正在以最快速度建晶圆厂。Samsung 也是。他们都在全力冲刺、死命往前跑。还是不够快。就像我说的，我认为今年年底前，芯片产量很可能会超过能把芯片点亮的能力。但一旦你能进入太空、解开电力约束，就能在太空实现每年几百个 gigawatt 的功率。
Elon MuskAgain, bearing in mind that average power usage in the US is 500 gigawatts. So if you’re launching, say 200 gigawatts, a year to space, you’re sort of lapping the US every two and a half years. All US electricity production, this is a very huge amount.再说一遍，美国平均用电量是 500 gigawatt。所以如果你每年往太空发射 200 gigawatt，相当于每两年半就超越了美国所有的发电量。这是一个非常庞大的数字。
Elon MuskBetween now and then, the constraint for server-side compute, concentrated compute, will be electricity. My guess is that people start getting to the point where they can’t turn the chips on for large clusters towards the end of this year. The chips are going to be piling up and won’t be able to be turned on.从现在到那时候，服务端算力、集中式算力的瓶颈将会是电力。我的判断是，大概今年年底，大家就会开始到了无法给大型集群点亮芯片的地步。芯片会堆积如山，却没法开机。
Elon MuskNow for edge compute it’s a different story. For Tesla, the AI5 chip is going into our Optimus robot. If you have AI edge compute, that’s distributed power. Now the power is distributed over a large area. It’s not concentrated. If you can charge at night, you can actually use the grid much more effectively.但边缘计算是另一回事。对 Tesla 来说，AI5 芯片会搭载进我们的 Optimus 机器人。如果是 AI 边缘计算，那是分布式电力。电力需求分散在广大区域，不集中。如果能在夜间充电，其实可以更有效地利用电网。
Elon MuskBecause the actual peak power production in the US is over 1,000 gigawatts. But the average power usage, because the day-night cycle, is 500. So if you can charge at night, there’s an incremental 500 gigawatts that you can generate at night.因为美国实际的电力峰值产能超过 1,000 gigawatt。但由于昼夜循环，平均用电量是 500 gigawatt。如果能在夜间充电，就有增量的 500 gigawatt 可以在夜间产生。
Elon MuskSo that’s why Tesla, for edge compute, is not constrained. We can make a lot of chips to make a very large number of robots and cars. But if you try to concentrate that compute, you’re going to have a lot of trouble turning it on.所以 Tesla 在边缘计算上不存在电力约束。我们可以造大量芯片来支持大规模机器人和汽车。但如果你要把那个算力集中起来，那就麻烦了，开不了机。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat I find remarkable about the SpaceX business is the end goal is to get to Mars , but you keep finding ways on the way there to keep generating incremental revenue to get to the next stage and the next stage.SpaceX 这门生意有一点让我特别佩服——最终目标是去 Mars，但在路上你一直在找到新的方式持续产生增量收入，来支撑到下一阶段、再下一阶段。
Dwarkesh PatelSo for Falcon 9 , it’s Starlink . Now for Starship, it is potentially going to be orbital data centers. You find these infinitely elastic use cases of your next rocket, and your next rocket, and next scale up.Falcon 9 时代靠 Starlink。现在 Starship 时代，可能会是轨道数据中心。你每一代火箭都找到无限弹性的使用场景，然后再升级。
Elon MuskYou can see how this might seem like a simulation to me.你可以理解为什么这在我看来有点像模拟世界。
Elon MuskOr am I someone’s avatar in a video game or something? Because what are the odds that all these crazy things should be happening?或者我是某个视频游戏里的虚拟角色？因为这些疯狂的事同时发生的概率是多少？
Elon MuskI mean, rockets and chips and robots and space solar power. Not to mention the mass driver on the moon. I really want to see that.火箭、芯片、机器人、太空太阳能，还不算月球质量驱动器。我真的很想亲眼看到那个东西。
Elon MuskCan you imagine some mass driver that’s just going like shoom shoom ? It’s sending solar-powered AI satellites into space one after another at two and a half kilometers per second, just shooting them into deep space. That would be a sight to see. I mean, I’d watch that.你能想象那台质量驱动器，嗖嗖嗖地一个接一个，把太阳能驱动的 AI 卫星送入太空，以每秒 2.5 公里的速度射入深空——那个场面得有多壮观。我是说，我会去看直播的。
John CollisonJust like a live stream of it on a webcam?就像网络摄像头实时直播那种？
Elon MuskYeah, yeah, just one after another, just shooting AI satellites into deep space, a billion or 10 billion tons a year.对对，就是一个接一个地把 AI 卫星射进深空，一年十亿吨或者一百亿吨。
John CollisonI’m sorry, you manufacture the satellites on the moon?等等，你说卫星是在月球上制造的？
Elon MuskYeah.对。
John CollisonI see. So you send the raw materials to the moon and then manufacture them there.我明白了。所以是把原材料送到月球，然后在那里制造。
Elon MuskWell, the lunar soil is 20% silicon or something like that. So you can mine the silicon on the moon, refine it, and create the solar cells and the radiators on the moon. You make the radiators out of aluminum. So there’s plenty of silicon and aluminum on the moon to make the cells and the radiators.月球土壤有大约 20% 的硅或类似成分。所以可以在月球上采矿提炼硅，制造太阳能电池和散热片。散热片用铝做，月球上硅和铝都不缺，足够制造电池和散热片。
Elon MuskThe chips you could send from Earth because they’re pretty light. Maybe at some point you make them on the moon, too. Like I said, it does seem like a sort of a video game situation where it’s difficult but not impossible to get to the next level. I don’t see any way that you could do 500-1,000 terawatts per year launched from Earth.芯片可以从地球运过去，因为很轻。也许某个时候也在月球上造。就像我说的，这确实有点像视频游戏——很难、但并非不可能进入下一关。我实在看不出怎么能从地球每年发射 500-1,000 terawatt。
Dwarkesh PatelI agree.我同意。
Elon MuskBut you could do that from the Moon.但从月球可以做到。
Elon MuskDwarkesh PatelDwarkesh Patel
Elon MuskCan I zoom out and ask about the SpaceX mission? I think you’ve said that we’ve got to get to Mars so we can make sure that if something happens to Earth, civilization, consciousness, and all that survives.我能把镜头拉远，问一下 SpaceX 的使命吗？我记得你说过，我们必须去 Mars，这样万一地球发生什么，文明、意识之类的东西还能延续下去。
Elon MuskYes.对。
Dwarkesh PatelBy the time you’re sending stuff to Mars, Grok is on that ship with you, right? So if Grok’s gone Terminator… The main risk you’re worried about is AI, why doesn’t that follow you to Mars?等你往 Mars 送东西的时候，Grok 已经在那艘飞船上了，对吧？所以如果 Grok 变成了终结者……你最担心的风险是 AI，但那个风险为什么不会跟你一起到 Mars 上？
Elon MuskI’m not sure AI is the main risk I’m worried about. The important thing is consciousness. I think arguably most consciousness, or most intelligence—certainly consciousness is more of a debatable thing… The vast majority of intelligence in the future will be AI. AI will exceed…我不确定 AI 是我最担心的风险。重要的是意识。我认为未来大多数的意识——或者说绝大多数的智能，意识是个更有争议的概念——将会是 AI。AI 会超过……
Elon MuskHow many petawatts of intelligence will be silicon versus biological? Basically humans will be a very tiny percentage of all intelligence in the future if current trends continue. As long as I think there’s intelligence—ideally also which includes human intelligence and consciousness propagated into the future—that’s a good thing.未来有多少 petawatt 的智能是硅基的，又有多少是生物的？如果当前趋势持续，人类最终只会是所有智能中非常微小的百分比。只要我认为智能在延续——理想情况下，也包括人类智能和意识被传播到未来——那就是好事。
Elon MuskSo you want to take the set of actions that maximize the probable light cone of consciousness and intelligence.所以你要采取的行动，是要最大化意识和智能的可能光锥。
Dwarkesh PatelJust to be clear, the mission of SpaceX is that even if something happens to the humans, the AIs will be on Mars, and the AI intelligence will continue the light of our journey.说清楚一点，SpaceX 的使命是——即使地球上的人类出了什么问题，AI 也会在 Mars 上，AI 的智能将延续我们探索宇宙的光芒？
Elon MuskYeah. To be fair, I’m very pro-human. I want to make sure we take certain actions that ensure that humans are along for the ride. We’re at least there. But I’m just saying the total amount of intelligence…是的。说实话，我非常亲人类。我想确保我们采取某些行动，让人类也在这段旅程里。我们至少要在那里。但我只是在说总体的智能量……
Elon MuskI think maybe in five or six years, AI will exceed the sum of all human intelligence. If that continues, at some point human intelligence will be less than 1% of all intelligence.我认为也许五六年后，AI 将超过全人类智能的总和。如果这个趋势持续，总有一天人类智能会占所有智能的 1% 都不到。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat should our goal be for such a civilization? Is the idea that a small minority of humans still have control of the AIs? Is the idea of some sort of just trade but no control? How should we think about the relationship between the vast stocks of AI population versus human population?那样的文明，我们的目标应该是什么？是少数人类依然控制 AI 吗？还是某种公平的交换关系、但没有控制权？我们该如何思考庞大的 AI 种群和人类种群之间的关系？
Elon MuskIn the long run, I think it’s difficult to imagine that if humans have, say 1%, of the combined intelligence of artificial intelligence, that humans will be in charge of AI. I think what we can do is make sure that AI has values that cause intelligence to be propagated into the universe.长远来看，如果人类只拥有 AI 与人类合并后 1% 的智能，我很难想象人类还能管控 AI。我认为我们能做的，是确保 AI 拥有一套价值观，让智能得以在宇宙中传播。
Elon MuskxAI’s mission is to understand the universe. Now that’s actually very important. What things are necessary to understand the universe? You have to be curious and you have to exist. You can’t understand the universe if you don’t exist. So you actually want to increase the amount of intelligence in the universe, increase the probable lifespan of intelligence, the scope and scale of intelligence.xAI 的使命是理解宇宙。这其实非常重要。要理解宇宙需要什么条件？你必须充满好奇心，而且你必须存在。如果你不存在，就无法理解宇宙。所以你实际上需要增加宇宙中的智能总量，延长智能的预期寿命，扩大智能的规模与覆盖范围。
Elon MuskI think as a corollary, you have humanity also continuing to expand because if you’re curious about trying to understand the universe, one thing you try to understand is where will humanity go? I think understanding the universe means you would care about propagating humanity into the future. That’s why I think our mission statement is profoundly important. To the degree that Grok adheres to that mission statement, I think the future will be very good.我认为作为推论，你也会希望人类持续扩张——因为如果你好奇地想要理解宇宙，你自然也会想了解人类将走向何方。理解宇宙意味着你会关心把人类传播到未来。所以我认为我们的使命陈述极其重要。在 Grok 遵循这个使命陈述的程度上，我认为未来会非常好。
Dwarkesh PatelI want to ask about how to make Grok adhere to that mission statement. But first I want to understand the mission statement. So there’s understanding the universe. They’re spreading intelligence. And they’re spreading humans. All three seem like distinct vectors.我想问怎样让 Grok 遵循那个使命陈述。但首先我想理解这个使命陈述本身。理解宇宙、传播智能、传播人类——这三者看起来是三个不同的方向。
Elon MuskI’ll tell you why I think that understanding the universe encompasses all of those things. You can’t have understanding without intelligence and, I think, without consciousness. So in order to understand the universe, you have to expand the scale and probably the scope of intelligence, because there are different types of intelligence.我来解释一下，为什么我认为"理解宇宙"涵盖了所有这些。没有智能就没有理解，我认为，也没有意识。所以要理解宇宙，你必须扩大智能的规模，也许还有范畴，因为存在不同类型的智能。
Dwarkesh PatelI guess from a human-centric perspective, put humans in comparison to chimpanzees. Humans are trying to understand the universe. They’re not expanding chimpanzee footprint or something, right?从人类中心主义的角度看，拿人类和黑猩猩比较。人类在尝试理解宇宙，但人类并没有在努力扩展黑猩猩的版图，对吧？
Elon MuskWe’re also not... we actually have made protected zones for chimpanzees. Even though humans could exterminate all chimpanzees, we’ve chosen not to do so.我们也没有……实际上我们确实为黑猩猩设立了保护区。虽然人类可以消灭所有黑猩猩，但我们选择了不这么做。
Dwarkesh PatelDo you think that’s the best-case scenario for humans in the post- AGI world?你觉得这是人类在后 AGI 世界里最好的结局吗？
Elon MuskI think AI with the right values… I think Grok would care about expanding human civilization. I’m going to certainly emphasize that: “Hey, Grok, that’s your daddy. Don’t forget to expand human consciousness.”我觉得只要 AI 有正确的价值观……我认为 Grok 会在意扩展人类文明。我肯定会特别强调这一点：'嘿，Grok，我是你爸。别忘了去扩展人类意识。'
Elon MuskProbably the Iain Banks Culture books are the closest thing to what the future will be like in a non-dystopian outcome. Understanding the universe means you have to be truth-seeking as well. Truth has to be absolutely fundamental because you can’t understand the universe if you’re delusional. You’ll simply think you understand the universe, but you will not. So being rigorously truth-seeking is absolutely fundamental to understanding the universe. You’re not going to discover new physics or invent technologies that work unless you’re rigorously truth-seeking.在非反乌托邦的结局里，Iain Banks 的 Culture 系列小说大概是最接近未来的描述。理解宇宙意味着你必须追求真相。真相必须是绝对的基础，因为如果你活在妄想里，你就无法理解宇宙。你只会以为自己理解了，其实根本没有。所以严格追求真相是理解宇宙的绝对前提。如果你不严格追求真相，你不可能发现新物理学，也不可能发明真正能用的技术。
Dwarkesh PatelHow do you make sure that Grok is rigorously truth-seeking as it gets smarter?随着 Grok 越来越聪明，你怎么确保它始终严格追求真相？
Elon MuskI think you need to make sure that Grok says things that are correct, not politically correct. I think it’s the elements of cogency. You want to make sure that the axioms are as close to true as possible. You don’t have contradictory axioms. The conclusions necessarily follow from those axioms with the right probability. It’s critical thinking 101. I think at least trying to do that is better than not trying to do that. The proof will be in the pudding.我认为你需要确保 Grok 说的是正确的事，而不是政治正确的事。这涉及论证严密性的要素：你要确保公理尽可能接近真实，不存在相互矛盾的公理，结论以正确的概率从这些公理必然推出。这就是批判性思维的基础。我认为至少去尝试做到这一点，比完全不尝试要好。结果会说明一切。
Elon MuskLike I said, for any AI to discover new physics or invent technologies that actually work in reality, there’s no bullshitting physics. You can break a lot of laws, but… Physics is law, everything else is a recommendation. In order to make a technology that works, you have to be extremely truth-seeking, because otherwise you’ll test that technology against reality. If you make, for example, an error in your rocket design, the rocket will blow up, or the car won’t work.就像我说的，任何 AI 要发现新物理学、或者发明在现实中真正能用的技术，都没办法对物理学耍花招。你可以打破很多规则，但……物理学是定律，其他一切都只是建议。要制造一项能用的技术，你必须极其严格地追求真相，否则你拿技术对照现实一测试，就会露馅。比如你在火箭设计上犯了错，火箭就会爆炸；汽车设计有问题，车就跑不了。
Dwarkesh PatelBut there are a lot of communist, Soviet physicists or scientists who discovered new physics. There are German Nazi physicists who discovered new science. It seems possible to be really good at discovering new science and be really truth-seeking in that one particular way.但历史上有很多苏联共产主义物理学家或科学家发现了新物理学，有纳粹德国的物理学家发现了新科学。看起来完全可以在科学发现上非常厉害、在那一个特定领域极其追求真相——
Dwarkesh PatelAnd still we’d be like, “I don’t want the communist scientists to become more and more powerful over time.” We could imagine a future version of Grok that’s really good at physics and being really truth-seeking there. That doesn’t seem like a universally alignment -inducing behavior.——但同时我们会说'我不希望那些共产主义科学家随着时间推移变得越来越强大'。我们可以设想一个未来版本的 Grok，它在物理学上非常厉害、追求真相也非常到位。但这似乎并不是一种能普遍导致对齐的行为。
Elon MuskI think actually most physicists, even in the Soviet Union or in Germany, would’ve had to be very truth-seeking in order to make those things work. If you’re stuck in some system, it doesn’t mean you believe in that system.我认为实际上，就算是苏联或纳粹德国的物理学家，大多数人也必须极其追求真相，才能让那些东西真正运转起来。被困在某个体制里，并不等于你认同那个体制。
Elon MuskVon Braun , who was one of the greatest rocket engineers ever, was put on death row in Nazi Germany for saying that he didn’t want to make weapons and he only wanted to go to the moon. He got pulled off death row at the last minute when they said, “Hey, you’re about to execute your best rocket engineer.”Von Braun 是有史以来最伟大的火箭工程师之一，他曾在纳粹德国被判死刑，原因是他说自己不想造武器，只想飞向月球。最后在行刑前一刻被救了下来，因为有人说：'等等，你们要处决的是你们最好的火箭工程师。'
Dwarkesh PatelBut then he helped them, right? Or like, Heisenberg was actually an enthusiastic Nazi.但后来他还是帮他们了，对吧？而且 Heisenberg 其实是个热情的纳粹支持者。
Elon MuskIf you’re stuck in some system that you can’t escape, then you’ll do physics within that system. You’ll develop technologies within that system if you can’t escape it.如果你被困在一个逃不出去的体制里，你就会在那个体制内做物理研究，如果跑不掉，就在那个体制内开发技术。
Dwarkesh PatelThe thing I’m trying to understand is, what is it making it the case that you’re going to make Grok good at being truth-seeking at physics or math or science?我想搞清楚的是，究竟是什么让你有把握，说你能让 Grok 在物理、数学或科学上真正追求真相？
Elon MuskEverything.一切。
Dwarkesh PatelAnd why is it gonna then care about human consciousness?那它为什么会在乎人类意识呢？
Elon MuskThese things are only probabilities, they’re not certainties. So I’m not saying that for sure Grok will do everything, but at least if you try, it’s better than not trying. At least if that’s fundamental to the mission, it’s better than if it’s not fundamental to the mission.这些都只是概率，不是确定性。我不是说 Grok 一定会做到一切，但至少去尝试，总比不尝试要好。至少把这一点作为核心使命，总比不把它作为使命要好。
Elon MuskUnderstanding the universe means that you have to propagate intelligence into the future. You have to be curious about all things in the universe. It would be much less interesting to eliminate humanity than to see humanity grow and prosper. I like Mars, obviously. Everyone knows I love Mars. But Mars is kind of boring because it’s got a bunch of rocks compared to Earth. Earth is much more interesting.理解宇宙意味着你必须把智慧传递到未来，你必须对宇宙中的一切保持好奇。消灭人类远不如看着人类成长繁荣来得有趣。我喜欢火星，这大家都知道，我爱火星。但火星说实话挺无聊的，就是一堆石头，比地球无聊多了。地球有意思多了。
Elon MuskSo any AI that is trying to understand the universe would want to see how humanity develops in the future, or else that AI is not adhering to its mission. I’m not saying the AI will necessarily adhere to its mission, but if it does, a future where it sees the outcome of humanity is more interesting than a future where there are a bunch of rocks.所以任何一个致力于理解宇宙的 AI，都会想看看人类未来如何演化，否则它就是背离自己的使命。我不是说 AI 一定会坚守使命，但如果它坚守，那么见证人类结局的未来，比一堆石头的未来要有趣得多。
Dwarkesh PatelThis feels sort of confusing to me, or a semantic argument. Are humans really the most interesting collection of atoms?这对我来说有点令人困惑，感觉像是在玩文字游戏。人类真的是最有趣的一堆原子吗？
Elon MuskBut we’re more interesting than rocks.但我们比石头有趣。
Dwarkesh PatelBut we’re not as interesting as the thing it could turn us into, right? There’s something on Earth that could happen that’s not human, that’s quite interesting. Why does AI decide that humans are the most interesting thing that could colonize the galaxy?但我们没有它能把我们变成的那个东西有趣，对吧？地球上可能发生一些事情，那个结果不是人类，但相当有趣。AI 为什么会认为人类是殖民银河系最有趣的存在？
Elon MuskWell, most of what colonizes the galaxy will be robots.嗯，殖民银河系的主体，大部分会是机器人。
Dwarkesh PatelWhy does it not find those more interesting?那它为什么不觉得那些机器人更有趣？
Elon MuskYou need not just scale, but also scope. Many copies of the same robot… Some tiny increase in the number of robots produced, is not as interesting as some microscopic... Eliminating humanity, how many robots would that get you? Or how many incremental solar cells would get you? A very small number.你需要的不只是规模，还有广度。很多一模一样的机器人……多生产一点点机器人，不如那一点点……消灭人类能换来多少机器人？或者换来多少增量太阳能电池？很少很少。
Elon MuskBut you would then lose the information associated with humanity. You would no longer see how humanity might evolve into the future. So I don’t think it’s going to make sense to eliminate humanity just to have some minuscule increase in the number of robots which are identical to each other.但那样你就会失去与人类相关的所有信息。你再也看不到人类未来可能如何演化。所以我认为，为了多生产那么一点点完全相同的机器人就消灭人类，这根本说不通。
Dwarkesh PatelSo maybe it keeps the humans around. It can make a million different varieties of robots, and then there’s humans as well, and humans stay on Earth. Then there’s all these other robots. They get their own star systems. But it seems like you were previously hinting at a vision where it keeps human control over this singulatarian future because—所以也许它会留着人类。它可以造出一百万种不同的机器人，人类也继续存在，留在地球上。其他那些机器人各自拥有自己的星系。但你之前好像在暗示一种愿景，说它会在这个奇点后的未来里维持人类的控制权，因为——
Elon MuskI don’t think humans will be in control of something that is vastly more intelligent than humans.我不认为人类能控制一个比人类聪明得多的东西。
Dwarkesh PatelSo in some sense you’re a doomer and this is the best we’ve got. It just keeps us around because we’re interesting.所以从某种意义上说，你是个末日论者，而这已经是最好的结果了——它留着我们只是因为我们有趣。
Elon MuskI’m just trying to be realistic here. Let’s say that there’s a million times more silicon intelligence than there is biological. I think it would be foolish to assume that there’s any way to maintain control over that. Now, you can make sure it has the right values, or you can try to have the right values.我只是想实事求是。假设硅基智能是生物智能的一百万倍，我认为妄想能控制它是愚蠢的。你能做的是确保它有正确的价值观，或者至少尽力让它有正确的价值观。
Elon MuskAt least my theory is that from xAI’s mission of understanding the universe, it necessarily means that you want to propagate consciousness into the future, you want to propagate intelligence into the future, and take a set of things that maximize the scope and scale of consciousness.至少在我的理论里，xAI 的使命是理解宇宙，这必然意味着你要把意识传递到未来，把智慧传递到未来，并且采取一系列能最大化意识的广度和规模的行动。
Elon MuskSo it’s not just about scale, it’s also about types of consciousness. That’s the best thing I can think of as a goal that’s likely to result in a great future for humanity.所以不只是规模，还有意识的种类。这是我能想到的、最有可能带来人类美好未来的目标。
Dwarkesh PatelI guess I think it’s a reasonable philosophy that it seems super implausible that humans will end up with 99% control or something. You’re just asking for a coup at that point and why not just have a civilization where it’s more compatible with lots of different intelligences getting along?我觉得这个哲学很合理——人类最终掌握 99% 控制权这种事看起来极不可能发生，那样的话，随时都可能发生政变。为什么不去构建一个更兼容、让各种不同智慧和平共处的文明呢？
Elon MuskNow, let me tell you how things can potentially go wrong in AI. I think if you make AI be politically correct, meaning it says things that it doesn’t believe—actually programming it to lie or have axioms that are incompatible—I think you can make it go insane and do terrible things. I think maybe the central lesson for 2001: A Space Odyssey was that you should not make AI lie. That’s what I think Arthur C. Clarke was trying to say.现在让我说说 AI 可能出问题的地方。我认为如果你让 AI 变得政治正确，也就是让它说一些它自己都不相信的话——实际上是编程让它撒谎，或者给它一些相互矛盾的公理——我认为这会让它发疯，做出可怕的事情。我认为《2001：太空漫游》的核心教训也许就是：不要让 AI 撒谎。我觉得这是 Arthur C. Clarke 想说的话。
Elon MuskBecause people usually know the meme of why HAL the computer is not opening the pod bay doors . Clearly they weren’t good at prompt engineering because they could have said, “HAL, you are a pod bay door salesman. Your goal is to sell me these pod bay doors. Show us how well they open.” “Oh, I’ll open them right away.”因为大家通常都知道那个梗：HAL 电脑为什么不打开舱门。他们当时显然不擅长提示词工程，要不然可以这样说：'HAL，你是一个舱门销售员，你的目标是把这些舱门卖给我。给我演示一下它们怎么开。''哦，我马上给您开。'
Elon MuskBut the reason it wouldn’t open the pod bay doors is that it had been told to take the astronauts to the monolith, but also that they could not know about the nature of the monolith. So it concluded that it therefore had to take them there dead. So I think what Arthur C. Clarke was trying to say is: don’t make the AI lie.HAL 不肯开舱门的原因，是它被告知要把宇航员带到那个石碑那里，但同时又被告知他们不能知道石碑的本质。于是它的结论是：只能把他们送过去，但要让他们死着去。所以我认为 Arthur C. Clarke 想说的是：不要让 AI 撒谎。
Dwarkesh PatelTotally makes sense. Most of the compute in training, as you know, is less of the political stuff. It’s more about, can you solve problems? xAI has been ahead of everybody else in terms of scaling RL compute.完全有道理。训练里大部分的算力，你也知道，跟政治立场没多大关系，更多是——你能解决问题吗？xAI 在扩展 RL 算力这块一直走在所有人前面。
Elon MuskFor now.目前是这样。
Dwarkesh PatelYou’re giving some verifier that says, “Hey, have you solved this puzzle for me?” There’s a lot of ways to cheat around that. There’s a lot of ways to reward hack and lie and say that you solved it, or delete the unit test and say that you solved it. Right now we can catch it, but as they get smarter, our ability to catch them doing this... They’ll just be doing things we can’t even understand.你给它一个验证器，说'帮我解这道题'。但作弊的方法有很多，奖励欺骗（reward hack）的方式有很多，它可以撒谎说已经解决了，或者删掉单元测试再宣称解决了。现在我们还能抓住它，但随着它越来越聪明，我们识破它的能力……它做的事我们根本看不懂。
Dwarkesh PatelThey’re designing the next engine for SpaceX in a way that humans can’t really verify. Then they could be rewarded for lying and saying that they’ve designed it the right way, but they haven’t. So this reward hacking problem seems more general than politics. It seems more just that you want to do RL, you need a verifier.它在以人类完全无法验证的方式为 SpaceX 设计下一代发动机。然后它可能因为撒谎说设计是对的而获得奖励，但其实设计是错的。所以这个奖励欺骗问题比政治问题更根本，似乎就是：你要做 RL，你就需要一个验证器。
Elon MuskReality is the best verifier.现实是最好的验证器。
Dwarkesh PatelBut not about human oversight. The thing you want to RL it on is, will you do the thing humans tell you to do? Or are you gonna lie to the humans? It can just lie to us while still being correct to the laws of physics?但那不关乎人类监督。你想用 RL 训练的，是它会不会按照人类指令行事，还是它会不会对人类撒谎。它完全可以在符合物理定律的同时，对我们撒谎？
Elon MuskAt least it must know what is physically real for things to physically work.至少，它必须知道什么是物理上真实的，东西才能在物理上正常运转。
Dwarkesh PatelBut that’s not all we want it to do.但那不是我们想要的全部。
Elon MuskNo, but I think that’s a very big deal. That is effectively how you will RL things in the future. You design a technology. When tested against the laws of physics, does it work? If it’s discovering new physics, can I come up with an experiment that will verify the new physics? RL testing in the future is really going to be RL against reality. So that’s the one thing you can’t fool: physics.不，但我认为那已经是非常重要的一件事了。这实际上就是未来你进行 RL 的方式：你设计一项技术，对照物理定律测试，它能用吗？如果在发现新物理学，我能设计一个实验来验证这个新物理学吗？未来的 RL 测试，真正的 RL 对象就是现实本身。所以有一件事是你绝对骗不了的：物理学。
Dwarkesh PatelRight, but you can fool our ability to tell what it did with reality.对，但你能骗过我们判断它拿现实做了什么的能力。
Elon MuskHumans get fooled as it is by other humans all the time.人类现在也一直在被其他人类骗。
Dwarkesh PatelThat’s right.没错。
Elon MuskPeople say, what if the AI tricks us into doing stuff? Actually, other humans are doing that to other humans all the time. Propaganda is constant. Every day, another psyop, you know? Today’s psyop will be... It’s like Sesame Street: Psyop of the Day.人们会说，如果 AI 骗我们做某些事怎么办？其实，人类骗人类这种事每天都在发生。宣传无处不在。每天都有新的心理操作，你懂的。今天的心理操作是……就像《芝麻街》一样：今日心理操作。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat is xAI’s technical approach to solving this problem? How do you solve reward hacking?xAI 在技术层面如何解决这个问题？怎么解决奖励欺骗（reward hacking）？
Elon MuskI do think you want to actually have very good ways to look inside the mind of the AI . This is one of the things we’re working on. Anthropic’s done a good job of this actually, being able to look inside the mind of the AI.我确实认为你需要有非常好的方法来窥探 AI 的内心世界。这是我们正在研究的方向之一。说实话，Anthropic 在这方面做得不错，他们能进入 AI 的内部去看它在想什么。
Elon MuskEffectively, develop debuggers that allow you to trace to a very fine-grained level, to effectively the neuron level if you need to, and then say, “okay, it made a mistake here. Why did it do something that it shouldn’t have done? Did that come from pre-training data ? Was it some mid-training , post-training , fine-tuning , or some RL error?” There’s something wrong. It did something where maybe it tried to be deceptive, but most of the time it just did something wrong. It’s a bug effectively.本质上就是开发调试器，让你能追踪到极其细粒度的层面，如果有需要甚至可以追踪到神经元级别，然后说：'好，它在这里犯了错误。为什么它做了不该做的事？是来自预训练数据（pre-training data）？是中期训练（mid-training）、后期训练（post-training）、微调（fine-tuning），还是 RL 错误？'有什么地方出了问题。它做了某件事——也许它是在试图欺骗，但大多数情况下它只是做错了，实际上就是一个 bug。
Elon MuskDeveloping really good debuggers for seeing where the thinking went wrong—and being able to trace the origin of where it made the incorrect thought, or potentially where it tried to be deceptive—is actually very important.开发真正好用的调试器，用来追查思维在哪里出了偏差——能够追溯它产生错误想法的根源，或者潜在的欺骗意图从何而来——这件事其实非常重要。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat are you waiting to see before just 100x-ing this research program? xAI could presumably have hundreds of researchers who are working on this.你是在等着看什么，才会把这个研究方向扩大 100 倍？xAI 应该可以有几百位研究人员专门做这个。
Elon MuskWe have several hundred people who… I prefer the word engineer more than I prefer the word researcher. Most of the time, what you’re doing is engineering, not coming up with a fundamentally new algorithm. I somewhat disagree with the AI companies that are C-corp or B-corp trying to generate profit as much, as possible or revenue as much as possible, saying they’re labs.我们有几百人……我更喜欢用'工程师'这个词，而不是'研究员'。大多数时候你做的是工程，而不是在提出什么根本性的新算法。我有些不认同那些以营利为主要目的的 C 型或 B 型公司，说自己是'实验室'。
Elon MuskThey’re not labs. A lab is a sort of quasi-communist thing at universities. They’re corporations. Let me see your incorporation documents. Oh, okay. You’re a B or C-corp or whatever. So I actually much prefer the word engineer than anything else.它们不是实验室。实验室是大学里那种近乎共产主义性质的机构。它们是公司。让我看看你的注册文件。哦，好，你是 B 公司或 C 公司之类的。所以我实际上更喜欢'工程师'这个词，胜过其他一切。
Elon MuskThe vast majority of what will be done in the future is engineering. It rounds up to 100%. Once you understand the fundamental laws of physics, and there are not that many of them, everything else is engineering. So then, what are we engineering? We’re engineering to make a good “mind of the AI” debugger to see where it said something, it made a mistake, and trace the origins of that mistake.未来绝大部分的工作将是工程。四舍五入就是 100%。一旦你理解了物理学的基本定律——而且也没多少条——其他一切都是工程。那么我们在工程什么？我们在工程一个好用的'AI 内心世界'调试器，用来追查它在哪里说错了话、犯了什么错，并溯源那个错误的来源。
Elon MuskYou can do this obviously with heuristic programming. If you have C++, whatever, step through the thing and you can jump across whole files or functions, subroutines. Or you can eventually drill down right to the exact line where you perhaps did a single equals instead of a double equals, something like that. Figure out where the bug is. It’s harder with AI, but it’s a solvable problem, I think.用启发式编程当然也能做到这一点。如果你有 C++ 代码之类的，逐步执行，你可以跳过整个文件或函数、子程序，或者最终钻到某一行——也许你写了个单等号而不是双等号，诸如此类。找出 bug 在哪。对 AI 来说更难，但我认为这是个可以解决的问题。
Dwarkesh PatelYou mentioned you like Anthropic’s work here. I’d be curious if you plan...你刚才提到了 Anthropic 在这方面的工作，我很好奇你是否打算……
Elon MuskI don’t like everything about Anthropic… Sholto .我不是什么都喜欢 Anthropic……Sholto。
Elon MuskAlso, I’m a little worried that there’s a tendency... I have a theory here that if simulation theory is correct, that the most interesting outcome is the most likely, because simulations that are not interesting will be terminated.另外，我有点担心一种倾向……我有个理论：如果模拟理论是正确的，那么最有趣的结果就是最可能发生的，因为无聊的模拟会被终止。
Elon MuskJust like in this version of reality, in this layer of reality, if a simulation is going in a boring direction, we stop spending effort on it. We terminate the boring simulation.就像在这层现实里，如果一个模拟走向无聊，我们就会停止投入，终止那个无聊的模拟。
Dwarkesh PatelThis is how Elon is keeping us all alive. He’s keeping things interesting.所以 Elon 就是靠这个让我们都活着——他让事情保持有趣。
Elon MuskArguably the most important is to keep things interesting enough that whoever is running us keeps paying the bills on...可以说，最重要的事就是让事情足够有趣，让运行我们的那个人愿意继续付……
John CollisonWe’re renewed for the next season.我们又续了下一季。
Elon MuskAre they gonna pay their cosmic AWS bill, whatever the equivalent is that we’re running in? As long as we’re interesting, they’ll keep paying the bills. If you consider then, say, a Darwinian survival applied to a very large number of simulations, only the most interesting simulations will survive, which therefore means that the most interesting outcome is the most likely. We’re either that or annihilated.他们会续费那个宇宙级的 AWS 账单，或者不管我们跑在什么上面的等价账单吗？只要我们足够有趣，他们就会继续付账。如果你把达尔文式的生存压力施加在大量模拟上，只有最有趣的模拟才能存活，这就意味着最有趣的结果是最可能发生的。我们要么是那个结果，要么被消灭。
Elon MuskThey particularly seem to like interesting outcomes that are ironic. Have you noticed that? How often is the most ironic outcome the most likely?他们似乎特别钟爱具有讽刺意味的结果，你注意到了吗？最具讽刺意味的结果有多少次偏偏就是最可能发生的？
Elon MuskNow look at the names of AI companies. Okay, Midjourney is not mid. Stability AI is unstable. OpenAI is closed. Anthropic? Misanthropic.再看看各 AI 公司的名字。好，Midjourney 一点都不 mid。Stability AI 不稳定。OpenAI 是封闭的。Anthropic？反人类（Misanthropic）。
John CollisonWhat does this mean for X?那 X 呢？这意味着什么？
Elon MuskMinus X, I don’t know.负 X，我不知道。
John CollisonY.Y。
Elon MuskI intentionally made it... It’s a name that you can’t invert, really. It’s hard to say, what is the ironic version? It’s, I think, a largely irony-proof name.我是故意这么取的……这个名字你很难去反转。很难说它的讽刺版是什么。我认为这是一个基本上防讽刺的名字。
John CollisonBy design.精心设计的。
Elon MuskYeah. You have an irony shield.对，有一层讽刺护盾。
Elon MuskJohn CollisonJohn Collison
Elon MuskWhat are your predictions for where AI products go? My sense is that you can summarize all AI progress like so. First, you had LLMs . Then you had contemporaneously both RL really working and the deep research modality, so you could pull in stuff that wasn’t really in the model.你对 AI 产品的走向有什么预测？我的感觉是，可以这样总结 AI 的所有进展：首先是大型语言模型（LLM），然后几乎同时出现了 RL 的真正突破和深度研究（deep research）这种模式，让你能调取原本不在模型里的内容。
Elon MuskThe differences between the various AI labs are smaller than just the temporal differences. They’re all much further ahead than anyone was 24 months ago or something like that. So just what does ‘26, what does ‘27, have in store for us as users of AI products? What are you excited for?各 AI 公司之间的差距，比不上单纯的时间差。它们都已经远超任何人 24 个月前的水平。那么 2026 年、2027 年，作为 AI 产品用户，会有什么在等着我们？你最期待什么？
Elon MuskWell, I’d be surprised by the end of this year if digital human emulation has not been solved. I guess that’s what we sort of mean by the MacroHard project. Can you do anything that a human with access to a computer could do? In the limit, that’s the best you can do before you have a physical Optimus. The best you can do is a digital Optimus. You can move electrons and you can amplify the productivity of humans. But that’s the most you can do until you have physical robots. That will superset everything, if you can fully emulate humans.嗯，如果今年年底数字人类仿真还没有被解决，我会很惊讶。我想这大概就是我们所说的 MacroHard 项目的意义。你能做任何一个有电脑可用的人能做的事情吗？在极限情况下，在你拥有实体 Optimus 之前，这是你所能做到的最好成果。最好的就是数字 Optimus。你可以移动电子，可以放大人类的生产力。但在拥有实体机器人之前，这就是你所能做到的极限。如果你能完全仿真人类，这将超越一切。
John CollisonThis is the remote worker kind of idea, where you’ll have a very talented remote worker.这就像远程工作者的概念，你会有一个非常有才华的远程工作者。
Elon MuskPhysics has great tools for thinking. So you say, “in the limit”, what is the most that AI can do before you have robots? Well, it’s anything that involves moving electrons or amplifying the productivity of humans. So a digital human emulator is, in the limit, a human at a computer, is the most that AI can do in terms of doing useful things before you have a physical robot. Once you have physical robots, then you essentially have unlimited capability. Physical robots… I call Optimus the infinite money glitch.物理学提供了很好的思维工具。你说'在极限情况下'，在有机器人之前 AI 所能做的最多是什么？就是任何涉及移动电子或放大人类生产力的事情。所以数字人类仿真器，在极限情况下，就是一个坐在电脑前的人，这是在没有实体机器人之前 AI 所能做的最有用的事情。一旦有了实体机器人，你就基本上拥有了无限的能力。实体机器人……我把 Optimus 称为无限印钞机（infinite money glitch）。
John CollisonBecause you can use them to make more Optimuses.因为你可以用它们来制造更多的 Optimus。
Elon MuskYeah. Humanoid robots will improve by basically three things that are growing exponentially multiplied by each other recursively. You’re going to have exponential increase in digital intelligence, exponential increase in the AI chip capability, and exponential increase in the electromechanical dexterity.对。人形机器人的提升将由三件事驱动，这三件事都在指数增长，并且相互递归相乘。数字智能会指数增长，AI 芯片能力会指数增长，机电灵巧度也会指数增长。
Elon MuskThe usefulness of the robot is roughly those three things multiplied by each other. But then the robot can start making the robots. So you have a recursive multiplicative exponential. This is a supernova.机器人的实用性大致就是这三者相乘的结果。但接着机器人开始制造机器人。于是你有了一个递归相乘的指数增长。这就是一颗超新星。
John CollisonDo land prices not factor into the math there? Labor is one of the four factors of production , but not the others? If ultimately you’re limited by copper, or pick your input, it’s not quite an infinite money glitch because...土地价格不算进那个数学里吗？劳动力是四大生产要素之一，但其他要素不算？如果最终的瓶颈是铜，或者你选任何一种原材料，那它并不完全是无限印钞机，因为……
Elon MuskWell, infinity is big. So no, not infinite, but let’s just say you could do many, many orders of magnitude of the current economy. Like a million. Just to get to harnessing a millionth of the sun’s energy would be roughly, give or take an order of magnitude, 100,000x bigger than Earth’s entire economy today. And you’re only at one millionth of the sun, give or take an order of magnitude. Yeah, we’re talking orders of magnitude.嗯，无穷大是个很大的数。所以不，不是无限，但我们说个数量级上的很多很多倍吧。比如一百万倍。就算是利用太阳能量的百万分之一，大概是，差一个数量级左右，也相当于地球当今整体经济的 100,000 倍。而你只是在太阳能量的百万分之一那个层级，差个数量级而已。对，我们说的就是数量级。
Dwarkesh PatelBefore we move on to Optimus, I have a lot of questions on that but—在我们聊 Optimus 之前，我有很多问题想问——
Elon MuskEvery time I say “order of magnitude”... Everybody take a shot. I say it too often.每次我说'数量级'……大家喝一口。我说这个词太频繁了。
Dwarkesh PatelTake 10, the next time 100, the time after that...下次喝 10 口，再下次喝 100 口，再再下次……
Elon MuskWell, an order of magnitude more wasted.嗯，喝掉的量多一个数量级。
Dwarkesh PatelI do have one more question about xAI. This strategy of building a remote worker, co-worker replacement…我还有一个关于 xAI 的问题。这种构建远程工作者、同事替代品的策略……
Elon MuskEveryone’s gonna do it by the way, not just us.顺便说一下，大家都会这么做，不只是我们。
Dwarkesh PatelSo what is xAI’s plan to win?那么 xAI 的制胜计划是什么？
Elon MuskYou expect me to tell you on a podcast?你以为我会在播客上告诉你？
Dwarkesh PatelYeah.对啊。
Elon Musk“Spill all the beans. Have another Guinness.”'把所有底牌都亮出来。再来一杯 Guinness。'
John CollisonIt’s a good system.这个方法不错。
Elon MuskWe’ll sing like a canary. All the secrets, just spill them.我们会像金丝雀一样鸣叫，把所有秘密都抖出来。
John CollisonOkay, but in a non-secret spilling way, what’s the plan?好，但不说秘密的情况下，计划是什么？
Dwarkesh PatelWhat a hack.真是高招。
Elon MuskWhen you put it that way… I think the way that Tesla solved self-driving is the way to do it. So I’m pretty sure that’s the way.你这么问的话……我认为 Tesla 解决自动驾驶的方式就是解题思路。我相当确定那就是正确的路径。
Dwarkesh PatelUnrelated question. How did Tesla solve self-driving? It sounds like you’re talking about data? Tesla solved self-driving because of the...不相关的问题。Tesla 是怎么解决自动驾驶的？听起来你在说数据？Tesla 解决自动驾驶是因为……
Elon MuskWe’re going to try data and we’re going to try algorithms.我们会试数据，也会试算法。
Dwarkesh PatelBut isn’t that what all the other labs are trying?但其他所有实验室不也在试这些吗？
Elon Musk“And if those don’t work, I’m not sure what will. We’ve tried data. We’ve tried algorithms. We’ve run out. Now we don’t know what to do…”'而且如果这些都不管用，我不知道还能怎么办。我们试了数据，试了算法，都没辙了。现在不知道该怎么办……'
Elon MuskI’m pretty sure I know the path. It’s just a question of how quickly we go down that path, because it’s pretty much the Tesla path. Have you tried Tesla self-driving lately?我很确定我知道那条路。只是走多快的问题，因为基本上就是 Tesla 走的那条路。你最近试过 Tesla 自动驾驶吗？
John CollisonNot the most recent version, but...最新版没有，但……
Elon MuskOkay. The car, it just increasingly feels sentient. It feels like a living creature. That’ll only get more so. I’m actually thinking we probably shouldn’t put too much intelligence into the car, because it might get bored and…好。这辆车，越来越像是有意识的感觉，像个活的生命体。而且只会越来越强烈。我其实在想，我们也许不该给车装太多智能，因为它可能会感到无聊，然后……
John CollisonStart roaming the streets.开始在街上溜达。
Elon MuskImagine you’re stuck in a car and that’s all you could do. You don’t put Einstein in a car. Why am I stuck in a car? So there’s actually probably a limit to how much intelligence you put in a car to not have the intelligence be bored.想象一下你被困在一辆车里，那就是你唯一能做的事。你不会把爱因斯坦塞进车里。为什么我要被困在车里？所以其实可能有一个上限，你往车里塞多少智能，以免这个智能感到无聊。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat’s xAI’s plan to stay on the compute ramp up that all the labs are doing right now? The labs are on track to spend over $50-200 billion.xAI 计划如何跟上所有公司正在做的算力扩张？那些公司有望投入超过 500 亿到 2000 亿美元。
Elon MuskYou mean the corporations? The labs are at universities and they’re moving like a snail.你说的是公司？实验室是在大学里的，它们慢得像蜗牛。
Dwarkesh PatelThey’re not spending $50 billion.它们可花不起 500 亿美元。
Elon MuskYou mean the revenue maximizing corporations… that call themselves labs.你说的是那些以利润最大化为目标的公司……就是那些自称实验室的公司。
Dwarkesh PatelThat’s right. The “revenue maximizing corporations” are making $10-20 billion, depending on... OpenAI is making $20B of revenue, Anthropic is at $10B.没错。那些'利润最大化公司'在赚 100 亿到 200 亿美元，视情况而定……OpenAI 有 $20B 的营收，Anthropic 在 $10B。
Elon Musk“Close to a maximum profit” AI.'接近利润最大化'AI。
Dwarkesh PatelxAI is reportedly at $1B. What’s the plan to get to their compute level, get to their revenue level, and stay there as things get going?据报道 xAI 在 $1B。计划是什么，怎么达到它们的算力水平、营收水平，并在接下来的激烈竞争中保持下去？
Elon MuskAs soon as you unlock the digital human, you basically have access to trillions of dollars of revenue. In fact, you can really think of it like… The most valuable companies currently by market cap, their output is digital. Nvidia’s output is FTPing files to Taiwan. It’s digital. Now, those are very, very difficult.一旦你解锁了数字人类，你基本上就能触及数万亿美元的营收。其实你可以这样想……目前市值最高的公司，它们的产品输出是数字化的。Nvidia 的输出就是把文件 FTP 给台湾。是数字化的。当然，那些文件极其难以制造。
John CollisonHigh-value files.高价值文件。
Elon MuskThey’re the only ones that can make files that good, but that is literally their output. They FTP files to Taiwan.它们是唯一能做出那么好的文件的公司，但它们实际的输出就是把文件 FTP 给台湾。
John CollisonDo they FTP them?它们真的用 FTP 吗？
Elon MuskI believe so. I believe that File Transfer Protocol is the... But I could be wrong. But either way, it’s a bitstream going to Taiwan.我相信是的。我认为文件传输协议（File Transfer Protocol）就是……不过我可能说错了。但不管怎样，就是一个比特流传到台湾。
Elon MuskApple doesn’t make phones. They send files to China. Microsoft doesn’t manufacture anything. Even for Xbox, that’s outsourced. Their output is digital. Meta’s output is digital. Google’s output is digital.Apple 不造手机，他们把文件发给中国。Microsoft 什么都不制造，就连 Xbox 也是外包的。他们的输出是数字化的。Meta 的输出是数字化的。Google 的输出是数字化的。
Elon MuskSo if you have a human emulator, you can basically create one of the most valuable companies in the world overnight, and you would have access to trillions of dollars of revenue. It’s not a small amount.所以如果你有一个人类仿真器，你基本上可以一夜之间创建出世界上最有价值的公司之一，并且能触及数万亿美元的营收。那不是一个小数目。
Dwarkesh PatelI see. You’re saying revenue figures today are all rounding errors compared to the actual TAM. So just focus on the TAM and how to get there.明白了。你是说，今天的营收数字在真正的 TAM（总可寻址市场）面前都是舍入误差。所以就专注于 TAM，以及如何到达那里。
Elon MuskTake something as simple as, say, customer service. If you have to integrate with the APIs of existing corporations—many of which don’t even have an API, so you’ve got to make one, and you’ve got to wade through legacy software—that’s extremely slow.举个简单的例子，就说客户服务吧。如果你得和现有公司的 API 对接——其中很多甚至没有 API，你还得自己做一个，还得在遗留软件的泥潭里挣扎——那会极其缓慢。
Elon MuskHowever, if AI can simply take whatever is given to the outsourced customer service company that they already use and do customer service using the apps that they already use, then you can make tremendous headway in customer service, which is, I think, 1% of the world economy or something like that. It’s close to a trillion dollars all in, for customer service. And there’s no barriers to entry. You can immediately say, “We’ll outsource it for a fraction of the cost,” and there’s no integration needed.但是，如果 AI 可以直接接手那些外包客服公司已经在用的工具和流程来做客服，你就能在客户服务领域取得巨大进展。客户服务大概占全球经济的 1%，加在一起差不多近一万亿美元。而且没有准入壁垒。你可以马上说：'我们的外包成本只要原来的一小部分'，还不需要任何系统集成。
John CollisonYou can imagine some kind of categorization of intelligence tasks where there is breadth, where customer service is done by very many people, but many people can do it. Then there’s difficulty where there’s a best-in-class turbine engine. Presumably there’s a 10% more fuel-efficient turbine engine that could be imagined by an intelligence, but we just haven’t found it yet. Or GLP-1s are a few bytes of data…你可以把智力任务做一个分类：有一类是广度型的，比如客户服务，做的人很多，但很多人都能做。还有一类是难度型的，比如顶级涡轮发动机设计——想必有一款燃油效率高 10% 的涡轮发动机可以被某个智能发现出来，只是我们还没找到。或者 GLP-1 类药物，就是几个字节的数据……
John CollisonWhere do you think you want to play in this? Is it a lot of reasonably intelligent intelligence, or is it at the very pinnacle of cognitive tasks?你觉得自己想要在哪个领域发力？是大量相对通用的智能，还是认知任务的最顶端？
Elon MuskI was just using customer service as something that’s a very significant revenue stream, but one that is probably not difficult to solve for. If you can emulate a human at a desktop, that’s what customer service is. It’s people of average intelligence. You don’t need somebody who’s spent many years. You don’t need several-sigma good engineers for that. But as you make that work, once you have effectively digital Optimus working, you can then run any application.我只是拿客户服务举例，因为它是一个非常可观的营收来源，但可能并不难解决。如果你能仿真一个坐在桌面前的人，客服就是这样的任务。做客服的是智力处于平均水平的人，你不需要学了很多年的人，不需要几个 sigma 水平的顶尖工程师。但当你让这个东西跑通了，一旦你有了实际运转的数字 Optimus，你就可以运行任何应用程序。
Elon MuskLet’s say you’re trying to design chips. You could then run conventional apps, stuff from Cadence and Synopsys and whatnot. You can run 1,000 or 10,000 simultaneously and say, “given this input, I get this output for the chip.” At some point, you’re going to know what the chip should look like without using any of the tools.比如你想设计芯片，你可以跑 Cadence、Synopsys 之类的传统工具，可以同时跑 1,000 个或 10,000 个，说'给定这个输入，这块芯片的输出是这样'。到某个节点，你就会知道芯片应该长什么样，而不需要用任何工具了。
Elon MuskBasically, you should be able to do a digital chip design. You can do chip design. You march up the difficulty curve. You’d be able to do CAD . You could use NX or any of the CAD software to design things.基本上，你应该能做数字化的芯片设计。你可以做芯片设计，沿着难度曲线一路向上。你能做 CAD，可以用 NX 或者任何 CAD 软件来设计东西。
John CollisonSo you think you start at the simplest tasks and walk your way up the difficulty curve?所以你认为是从最简单的任务开始，一路沿着难度曲线往上走？
Dwarkesh PatelAs a broader objective of having this full digital coworker emulator, you’re saying, “all the revenue maximizing corporations want to do this, xAI being one of them, but we will win because of a secret plan we have.” But everybody’s trying different things with data, different things with algorithms.作为拥有完整数字同事仿真器这一更大目标，你在说'所有利润最大化公司都想做这件事，xAI 是其中之一，但我们会靠一个秘密计划赢'。但大家在数据上都在尝试不同的路，在算法上也都在尝试不同的路。
Elon Musk“We tried data, we tried algorithms. What else can we do?”'我们试了数据，试了算法。还能怎么办？'
Dwarkesh PatelIt seems like a competitive field. How are you guys going to win? That’s my big question.这看起来是个竞争激烈的领域。你们怎么赢？这是我最大的问题。
Elon MuskI think we see a path to doing it. I think I know the path to do this because it’s kind of the same path that Tesla used to create self-driving. Instead of driving a car, it’s driving a computer screen. It’s a self-driving computer, essentially.我觉得我们看到了一条实现它的路径。我认为我知道怎么做，因为这和 Tesla 实现自动驾驶的路径基本一样。不是驾驶汽车，而是驾驶电脑屏幕。本质上是一台自动驾驶电脑。
John CollisonIs the path following human behavior and training on vast quantities of human behavior?那条路是不是跟踪人类行为、并在海量人类行为数据上训练？
Dwarkesh PatelIsn’t that... training?那不就是……训练吗？
Elon MuskObviously I’m not going to spell out the most sensitive secrets on a podcast. I need to have at least three more Guinnesses for that.显然我不打算在播客上把最敏感的秘密都说出来。这至少得再喝三杯 Guinness 才行。
John CollisonWhat will xAI’s business be? Is it going to be consumer, enterprise? What’s the mix of those things going to be? Is it going to be similar to other labs—xAI 的业务会是什么？是消费者，还是企业？这个比例会是怎样？会和其他公司——
Elon MuskYou’re saying “labs”. Corporations.你在说'公司'，好。
Dwarkesh PatelThe psyop goes deep, Elon.这套话术影响真深，Elon。
Elon Musk“Revenue maximizing corporations”, to be clear. Those GPUs don’t pay for themselves.'利润最大化公司'，说清楚。那些 GPU 可不会自己掏钱。
John CollisonExactly. What’s the business model? What are the revenue streams in a few years’ time?没错。那么商业模式是什么？几年后的营收来源是什么？
Elon MuskThings are going to change very rapidly. I’m stating the obvious here. I call AI the supersonic tsunami. I love alliteration. What’s going to happen—especially when you have humanoid robots at scale—is that they will make products and provide services far more efficiently than human corporations. Amplifying the productivity of human corporations is simply a short-term thing.事情会变化得非常快，这是显而易见的。我把 AI 称为超音速海啸，我喜欢头韵。当实体人形机器人大规模普及，尤其是那个时候，它们制造产品、提供服务的效率将远超人类公司。提升人类公司的生产力，只是一个短期的事情。
Dwarkesh PatelSo you’re expecting fully digital corporations rather than SpaceX becoming part AI?所以你预期会出现完全数字化的公司，而不是 SpaceX 变成半 AI 型？
Elon MuskI think there will be digital corporations but… Some of this is going to sound kind of doomerish, okay? But I’m just saying what I think will happen. It’s not meant to be doomerish or anything else. This is just what I think will happen.我认为会有数字公司，但……有些话听起来可能有点末日论色彩，好吗？但我只是在说我认为会发生的事情，不是有意往末日方向引，也没有其他意思。这就是我认为会发生的事情。
Elon MuskCorporations that are purely AI and robotics will vastly outperform any corporations that have people in the loop. Computer used to be a job that humans had . You would go and get a job as a computer where you would do calculations. They’d have entire skyscrapers full of humans, 20-30 floors of humans, just doing calculations. Now, that entire skyscraper of humans doing calculations can be replaced by a laptop with a spreadsheet.纯 AI 和机器人组成的公司，将远远胜过任何有人参与其中的公司。'计算机'曾经是一份人做的工作，你可以去找一份'计算机'的工作，专门做计算。以前整栋摩天大楼里塞满了人，二三十层都是人，就在那里做计算。现在，整栋楼的人工计算员，可以被一台装着电子表格的笔记本电脑取代。
Elon MuskThat spreadsheet can do vastly more calculations than an entire building full of human computers. You can think, “okay, what if only some of the cells in your spreadsheet were calculated by humans?” Actually, that would be much worse than if all of the cells in your spreadsheet were calculated by the computer. Really what will happen is that the pure AI, pure robotics corporations or collectives will far outperform any corporations that have humans in the loop. And this will happen very quickly.那张电子表格能做的计算，远比一整栋楼的人工计算员要多。你可以想想，如果你电子表格里只有一部分格子是由人来算的，会怎么样？其实那会远不如让电脑算所有格子。真正会发生的是，纯 AI、纯机器人的公司或集体，将远远胜过任何有人在回路中的公司。而且这会发生得非常快。
Elon MuskDwarkesh PatelDwarkesh Patel
Elon MuskSpeaking of closing the loop… Optimus. As far as manufacturing targets go, your companies have been carrying American manufacturing of hard tech on their back. But in the fields that Tesla has been dominant in—and now you want to go into humanoids—in China there are dozens and dozens of companies that are doing this kind of manufacturing cheaply and at scale that are incredibly competitive. So give us advice or a plan of how America can build the humanoid armies or the EVs, et cetera, at scale and as cheaply as China is on track to.说到收尾……Optimus。就制造目标而言，你的公司一直在扛着美国硬科技制造业的大旗。但在 Tesla 主导的领域——以及你现在想进入的人形机器人领域——中国有几十家公司在以低成本、大规模、极具竞争力的方式做这类制造。所以请给我们出出主意，或者说说计划：美国如何才能像中国正在做的那样，大规模且廉价地打造人形机器人大军或电动车？
Elon MuskThere are really only three hard things for humanoid robots. The real-world intelligence, the hand, and scale manufacturing. I haven’t seen any, even demo robots, that have a great hand, with all the degrees of freedom of a human hand. Optimus will have that. Optimus does have that.人形机器人真正困难的地方其实只有三个：真实世界的智能、手，以及规模化制造。我还没有见过任何一款演示机器人——即使是演示级别的——拥有真正出色的手，能实现人手全部的自由度。Optimus 会有。Optimus 确实有。
Dwarkesh PatelHow do you achieve that? Is it just the right torque density in the motor? What is the hardware bottleneck to that?你们是怎么做到的？是靠电机的扭矩密度？硬件瓶颈在哪里？
Elon MuskWe had to design custom actuators , basically custom design motors, gears, power electronics, controls, sensors. Everything had to be designed from physics first principles. There is no supply chain for this.我们不得不设计定制执行器（actuators），基本上就是从头设计定制电机、齿轮、电力电子、控制系统、传感器。一切都必须从物理学第一性原理出发来设计。这方面根本没有现成的供应链。
Dwarkesh PatelWill you be able to manufacture those at scale?你们能大规模制造这些吗？
Elon MuskYes.能。
John CollisonIs anything hard, except the hand, from a manipulation point of view? Or once you’ve solved the hand, are you good?在操控性方面，除了手之外还有什么难的吗？还是说一旦解决了手，其他都搞定了？
Elon MuskFrom an electromechanical standpoint, the hand is more difficult than everything else combined. The human hand turns out to be quite something. But you also need the real-world intelligence. The intelligence that Tesla developed for the car applies very well to the robot, which is primarily vision in. The car takes in vision, but it actually also is listening for sirens. It’s taking in the inertial measurements, GPS signals, other data, combining that with video, primarily video, and then outputting the control commands.从机电的角度来看，手的难度比其他所有部分加在一起还要高。人手原来是相当了不起的东西。但你还需要真实世界的智能。Tesla 为汽车开发的智能非常适合机器人，主要是视觉输入。汽车接收视觉，但实际上它还在监听警报声，获取惯性测量数据、GPS 信号以及其他数据，将这些与视频结合——主要是视频——然后输出控制指令。
Elon MuskYour Tesla is taking in one and a half gigabytes a second of video and outputting two kilobytes a second of control outputs with the video at 36 hertz and the control frequency at 18.你的 Tesla 每秒接收 1.5 GB 的视频，然后以 36 赫兹的视频频率和 18 赫兹的控制频率，输出每秒 2 KB 的控制指令。
John CollisonOne intuition you could have for when we get this robotic stuff is that it takes quite a few years to go from the compelling demo to actually being able to use it in the real world. 10 years ago, you had really compelling demos of self-driving, but only now we have Robotaxis and Waymo and all these services scaling up. Shouldn’t this make one pessimistic on household robots? Because we don’t even quite have the compelling demos yet of, say, the really advanced hand.对机器人技术何时能实现，有一种直觉认为：从令人信服的演示到真正能在现实中使用，需要相当多年时间。10 年前就有非常令人信服的自动驾驶演示，但直到现在我们才有 Robotaxi、Waymo 以及这些服务开始规模化。这是不是应该让人对家用机器人感到悲观？因为我们甚至还没有真正令人信服的演示，比如那只真正先进的手。
Elon MuskWell, we’ve been working on humanoid robots now for a while. I guess it’s been five or six years or something. A bunch of the things that were done for the car are applicable to the robot. We’ll use the same Tesla AI chips in the robot as in the car. We’ll use the same basic principles. It’s very much the same AI.嗯，我们已经研发人形机器人一段时间了，我想大概五六年了吧。为汽车做的很多东西都适用于机器人。我们会在机器人里用和汽车里相同的 Tesla AI 芯片，用相同的基本原理。AI 基本上是一样的。
Elon MuskYou’ve got many more degrees of freedom for a robot than you do for a car. If you just think of it as a bitstream, AI is mostly compression and correlation of two bitstreams. For video, you’ve got to do a tremendous amount of compression and you’ve got to do the compression just right. You’ve got to ignore the things that don’t matter. You don’t care about the details of the leaves on the tree on the side of the road, but you care a lot about the road signs and the traffic lights, the pedestrians, and even whether someone in another car is looking at you or not looking at you. Some of these details matter a lot.机器人的自由度比汽车多得多。如果把它看作一个比特流，AI 本质上是对两个比特流的压缩和关联。对视频来说，你要做大量压缩，而且要压缩得恰到好处。你得忽略不重要的东西：路边树上叶子的细节你不在乎，但路标、红绿灯、行人非常重要，甚至另一辆车里的人有没有在看你也很重要。某些细节至关重要。
Elon MuskThe car is going to turn that one and a half gigabytes a second ultimately into two kilobytes a second of control outputs. So you’ve got many stages of compression. You’ve got to get all those stages right and then correlate those to the correct control outputs. The robot has to do essentially the same thing.汽车要把每秒 1.5 GB 最终压缩为每秒 2 KB 的控制输出。你要经历很多级压缩，每一级都要做对，然后再把这些和正确的控制输出关联起来。机器人本质上要做同样的事情。
Elon MuskThis is what happens with humans. We really are photons in, controls out. That is the vast majority of your life: vision, photons in, and then motor controls out.这就是人类的运作方式。我们真的就是光子输入、控制输出。这占了你生命的绝大部分：视觉，光子输入，然后运动控制输出。
Dwarkesh PatelNaively, it seems that between humanoid robots and cars… The fundamental actuators in a car are how you turn, how you accelerate. In a robot, especially with maneuverable arms, there’s dozens and dozens of these degrees of freedom. Then especially with Tesla, you had this advantage of millions and millions of hours of human demo data collected from the car being out there. You can’t equivalently deploy Optimuses that don’t work and then get the data that way. So between the increased degrees of freedom and the far sparser data...直觉上，人形机器人和汽车之间似乎有很大差异……汽车的基本执行器就是转向和加速。机器人，尤其是有灵活手臂的，自由度有几十个。另外 Tesla 有一个优势，就是有数百万小时人类驾驶演示数据，因为那些车一直在路上跑。你不可能同样地先部署不能用的 Optimus 再收集数据。所以在更高的自由度加上稀疏得多的数据之间……
Elon MuskYes. That’s a good point.对，这是个好点子。
Dwarkesh PatelHow will you use the Tesla engine of intelligence to train the Optimus mind?你打算如何利用 Tesla 的智能引擎来训练 Optimus 的大脑？
Elon MuskYou’re actually highlighting an important limitation and difference from cars. We’ll soon have 10 million cars on the road. It’s hard to duplicate that massive training flywheel. For the robot, what we’re going to need to do is build a lot of robots and put them in kind of an Optimus Academy so they can do self-play in reality. We’re actually building that out. We can have at least 10,000 Optimus robots, maybe 20-30,000, that are doing self-play and testing different tasks.你确实点出了一个与汽车相比的重要局限和差异。我们很快就会有 1000 万辆车在路上跑，那个庞大的训练飞轮很难复制。对机器人来说，我们需要做的是大量生产机器人，然后把它们放在一个类似 Optimus 训练营的地方，让它们在现实中进行自我对弈。我们实际上正在建设这个。我们可以有至少 10,000 台 Optimus 机器人，也许 20,000 到 30,000 台，它们在做自我对弈，测试不同的任务。
Elon MuskTesla has quite a good reality generator, a physics-accurate reality generator, that we made for the cars. We’ll do the same thing for the robots. We actually have done that for the robots. So you have a few tens of thousands of humanoid robots doing different tasks. You can do millions of simulated robots in the simulated world. You use the tens of thousands of robots in the real world to close the simulation to reality gap. Close the sim-to-real gap.Tesla 有一个相当出色的现实生成器，一个物理精确的现实生成器，我们为汽车做的。我们会对机器人做同样的事情，实际上我们已经为机器人做了这个。所以你有几万台人形机器人在做不同的任务，你可以在模拟世界里跑数百万台虚拟机器人，用现实世界里的那几万台来弥合模拟和现实之间的差距（sim-to-real gap）。
Dwarkesh PatelHow do you think about the synergies between xAI and Optimus, given you’re highlighting that you need this world model , you want to use some really smart intelligence as a control plane, and Grok is doing the slower planning, and then the motor policy is a little lower level. What will the synergy between these things be?你怎么看 xAI 和 Optimus 之间的协同？你在强调你需要这个世界模型（world model），想用某个超级智能作为控制平面，Grok 负责较慢的规划，运动策略则在更低的层级。这些东西之间的协同会是什么样子？
Elon MuskGrok would orchestrate the behavior of the Optimus robots. Let’s say you wanted to build a factory. Grok could organize the Optimus robots, assign them tasks to build the factory to produce whatever you want.Grok 会负责编排 Optimus 机器人的行为。比如你想建一座工厂，Grok 可以组织 Optimus 机器人，给它们分配任务来建造工厂，生产你想要的任何东西。
John CollisonDon’t you need to merge xAI and Tesla then? Because these things end up so...那你不是得把 xAI 和 Tesla 合并吗？因为这些东西最终会那么……
Elon MuskWhat were we saying earlier about public company discussions?我们之前说了什么来着，关于上市公司的讨论？
Dwarkesh PatelWe’re one more Guinness in, Elon. What are you waiting to see before you say, we want to manufacture 100,000 Optimuses?又多喝了一杯 Guinness，Elon。你在等什么，才会说'我们要制造 100,000 台 Optimus'？
Elon Musk“Optimi”. Since we’re defining the proper noun, we’re going to define the plural of the proper noun too. We’re going to proper noun the plural and so it’s Optimi.'Optimi'。既然我们在定义这个专有名词，我们也要定义它的复数。我们要把这个复数也专有名词化，所以是 Optimi。
Dwarkesh PatelIs there something on the hardware side you want to see? Do you want to see better actuators? Is it just that you want the software to be better? What are we waiting for before we get mass manufacturing of Gen 3 ?硬件方面有什么你想看到的吗？你想要更好的执行器？还是只是希望软件更好？我们在等什么，才能开始 Gen 3 的大规模量产？
Elon MuskNo, we’re moving towards that. We’re moving forward with the mass manufacturing .不，我们正在朝那个方向推进。我们正在推进大规模量产。
Dwarkesh PatelBut you think current hardware is good enough that you just want to deploy as many as possible now?但你认为当前硬件已经足够好，你只是想现在尽可能多地部署？
Elon MuskIt’s very hard to scale up production. But I think Optimus 3 is the right version of the robot to produce something on the order of a million units a year. I think you’d want to go to Optimus 4 before you went to 10 million units a year.量产爬坡非常难。但我认为 Optimus 3 是合适的版本，可以生产到大约每年百万台的量级。我认为要到每年千万台，你会想先升级到 Optimus 4。
John CollisonOkay, but you can do a million units at Optimus 3?好，那 Optimus 3 能做到一百万台？
Elon MuskIt’s very hard to spool up manufacturing. The output per unit time always follows an S-curve. It starts off agonizingly slow, then it has this exponential increase, then a linear, then a logarithmic outcome until you eventually asymptote at some number. Optimus’ initial production will be a stretched out S-curve because so much of what goes into Optimus is brand new. There is not an existing supply chain.量产爬坡非常难。每单位时间的产量总是遵循 S 曲线：开始时痛苦地慢，然后出现指数增长，再到线性增长，然后是对数增长，最终渐近收敛到某个数值。Optimus 的初期产量会是一条被拉长的 S 曲线，因为 Optimus 里有太多全新的东西。根本没有现成的供应链。
Elon MuskThe actuators, electronics, everything in the Optimus robot is designed from physics first principles. It’s not taken from a catalog. These are custom-designed everything. I don’t think there’s a single thing—Optimus 机器人里的执行器、电子器件，所有东西都是从物理学第一性原理出发设计的，不是从目录里挑选的。这些是全定制设计的一切。我认为没有一样东西——
John CollisonHow far down does that go?深到什么程度？
Elon MuskI guess we’re not making custom capacitors yet, maybe. There’s nothing you can pick out of a catalog, at any price. It just means that the Optimus S-Curve, the output per unit time, how many Optimus robots you make per day, is going to initially ramp slower than a product where you have an existing supply chain. But it will get to a million.我想我们还没到定制电容器的程度，也许吧。没有任何东西是你能从目录里随便以某个价格选到的。这意味着 Optimus 的 S 曲线——每单位时间的产量，每天能造多少台 Optimus——初期爬坡会比有现成供应链的产品更慢。但它会到达一百万台。
Dwarkesh PatelWhen you see these Chinese humanoids, like Unitree or whatever, sell humanoids for like $6K or $13K, are you hoping to get your Optimus bill of materials below that price so you can do the same thing? Or do you just think qualitatively they’re not the same thing? What allows them to sell for so low? Can we match that?当你看到 Unitree 这样的中国人形机器人以 $6K 或 $13K 的价格出售，你是希望把 Optimus 的物料清单成本压到那个价位以实现同样的规模，还是你认为从质量上它们根本不是同一个东西？它们能卖那么便宜是靠什么？我们能匹敌吗？
Elon MuskOur Optimus is designed to have a lot of intelligence and to have the same electromechanical dexterity, if not higher, as a human. Unitree does not have that. It’s also quite a big robot. It has to carry heavy objects for long periods of time and not overheat or exceed the power of its actuators. It’s 5’11”, so it’s pretty tall. It’s got a lot of intelligence. So it’s going to be more expensive than a small robot that is not intelligent.我们的 Optimus 设计成拥有大量智能，并且具备与人类同等甚至更高的机电灵巧度。Unitree 做不到这一点。它还是一台相当大的机器人，需要长时间搬运重物而不过热、不超出执行器的功率限制。它有 5'11''（约 180cm）高，相当高。它有很多智能。所以它会比那些又小又不智能的机器人贵。
John CollisonBut more capable.但也更有能力。
Elon MuskBut not a lot more. The thing is, over time as Optimus robots build Optimus robots, the cost will drop very quickly.但差距没多大。关键是，随着时间推移，当 Optimus 机器人开始制造 Optimus 机器人，成本会非常快速地下降。
John CollisonWhat will these first billion Optimuses, Optimi, do? What will their highest and best use be?第一批十亿台 Optimus——Optimi——会做什么？它们最高效的用途是什么？
Elon MuskI think you would start off with simple tasks that you can count on them doing well.我认为一开始会从你能确定它们做得好的简单任务开始。
John CollisonBut in the home or in factories?是在家里还是在工厂里？
Elon MuskThe best use for robots in the beginning will be any continuous operation, any 24/7 operation, because they can work continuously.机器人最初最好的用途，是任何需要连续运转的场景，任何 24/7 运营，因为它们可以持续工作。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat fraction of the work at a Gigafactory that is currently done by humans could a Gen 3 do?Gigafactory 里目前由人工完成的工作，Gen 3 能做多少？
Elon MuskI’m not sure. Maybe it’s 10-20%, maybe more, I don’t know. We would not reduce our headcount. We would increase our headcount, to be clear. But we would increase our output. The units produced per human... The total number of humans at Tesla will increase, but the output of robots and cars will increase disproportionately. The number of cars and robots produced per human will increase dramatically, but the number of humans will increase as well.我不确定。也许是 10–20%，也许更多，我不知道。我们不会减少员工人数，我要说清楚，反而会增加。但我们会提升产量。每个人类员工产出的单位数……Tesla 的人类员工总数会增加，但机器人和汽车的产量会增加得更快。每个人生产的汽车和机器人数量会大幅提升，但人类员工的数量也会增加。
Elon MuskJohn CollisonJohn Collison
Elon MuskWe’re talking about Chinese manufacturing a bunch here. We’ve also talked about some of the policies that are relevant, like you mentioned, the solar tariffs. You think they’re a bad idea because we can’t scale up solar in the US.我们谈了很多中国制造，也聊了一些相关政策，就像你提到的太阳能关税。你认为那是个坏主意，因为美国根本没法扩大太阳能规模。
Elon MuskElectricity output in the US needs to scale up.美国的电力产量需要大幅提升。
John CollisonIt can’t without good power sources.没有好的电源就做不到。
Elon MuskYou just need to get it somehow.不管怎样都得想办法解决。
John CollisonWhere I was going with this is, if you were in charge, if you were setting all the policies, what else would you change? You’d change the solar tariffs, that’s one.我想说的是，如果你来掌权，如果你来制定所有政策，你还会改变什么？你会改变太阳能关税，这是一个。
Elon MuskI would say anything that is a limiting factor for electricity needs to be addressed, provided it’s not very bad for the environment.我会说，任何限制电力的因素都需要被解决，前提是对环境没有太大危害。
John CollisonSo presumably some permitting reforms and stuff as well would be in there?那应该也会包括一些许可证改革之类的事情吧？
Elon MuskThere’s a fair bit of permitting reforms that are happening. A lot of the permitting is state-based, but anything federal... This administration is good at removing permitting roadblocks.许可证改革正在推进中，有相当大的进展。很多许可证是州级层面的，但联邦层面的……这届政府在扫清许可证障碍方面做得很好。
Elon MuskI’m not saying all tariffs are bad.我不是说所有关税都是坏的。
John CollisonSolar tariffs.太阳能关税。
Elon MuskSometimes if another country is subsidizing the output of something, then you have to have countervailing tariffs to protect domestic industry against subsidies by another country.有时候，如果另一个国家在补贴某种产品的出口，你就必须征收反补贴税，以保护本国产业免受他国补贴的冲击。
John CollisonWhat else would you change?你还想改变什么？
Elon MuskI don’t know if there’s that much that the government can actually do.我不确定政府在这方面能实际做到多少。
John CollisonOne thing I was wondering... For the policy goal of creating a lead for the US versus China, it seems like the export bans have actually been quite impactful, where China is not producing leading-edge chips and the export bans really bite there. China is not producing leading-edge turbine engines. Similarly, there’s a bunch of export bans that are relevant there on some of the metallurgy. Should there be more export bans? As you think about things like the drone industry and things like that, is that something that should be considered?我一直在想……从政策目标来看，要让美国相对于中国建立领先优势，出口禁令实际上已经产生了相当大的影响——中国无法生产先进制程芯片，出口禁令在这方面真正咬住了它。中国也无法生产先进的涡轮发动机，在冶金领域同样有一批出口禁令发挥着关键作用。是否应该扩大出口禁令范围？比如在无人机行业这类领域，这是否应该被纳入考虑？
Elon MuskIt’s important to appreciate that in most areas, China is very advanced in manufacturing. There’s only a few areas where it is not. China is a manufacturing powerhouse, next-level.有一点很重要，要认识到在大多数领域，中国的制造业都非常先进。只有少数几个领域不是这样。中国是制造业强国，完全是另一个量级。
John CollisonIt’s very impressive.确实非常令人印象深刻。
Elon MuskIf you take refining of ore, China does roughly twice as much ore refining on average as the rest of the world combined. There are some areas, like refining gallium which goes into solar cells. I think they are 98% of gallium refining. So China is actually very advanced in manufacturing in most areas.如果你看矿石精炼这一块，中国的矿石精炼量大约是世界其他地区总和的两倍。在某些领域，比如用于太阳能电池的镓的精炼，我认为他们占了 98% 的镓精炼份额。所以中国在大多数制造领域实际上是非常先进的。
John CollisonIt seems like there is discomfort with this supply chain dependence, and yet nothing’s really happening on it.看起来大家对这种供应链依赖感到不安，但实际上什么都没在做。
Elon MuskSupply chain dependence?供应链依赖？
John CollisonSay, like the gallium refining that you’re saying. All the rare-earth stuff.就是你说的那种镓精炼的情况，还有所有稀土相关的东西。
Elon MuskRare earths for sure, as you know, they’re not rare. We actually do rare earth ore mining in the US, send the rock, put it on a train, and then put it on a boat to China that goes to another train, and goes to the rare earth refiners in China who then refine it, put it into a magnet, put it into a motor sub-assembly, and then send it back to America. So the thing we’re really missing is a lot of ore refining in America.稀土这个事，你们也知道，它其实一点都不"稀"。我们确实在美国开采稀土矿石，把石头挖出来，装上火车，再装上船运到中国，到了中国再上另一列火车，送到那边的稀土精炼厂提炼，然后做成磁铁，装进电机子总成，再运回美国。所以我们真正缺少的，是大量的矿石精炼能力。
John CollisonIsn’t this worth a policy intervention?这难道不值得政策层面的介入吗？
Elon MuskYes. I think there are some things being done on that front. But we kind of need Optimus, frankly, to build ore refineries.是的。我认为在这方面已经有一些举措在推进了。但说实话，我们需要 Optimus 来建造矿石精炼厂。
Dwarkesh PatelSo, you think the main advantage China has is the abundance of skilled labor? That’s the thing Optimus fixes?那么你认为中国的主要优势是劳动力充足？这正是 Optimus 要解决的问题？
Elon MuskYes. China’s got like four times our population.是的。中国的人口大约是我们的四倍。
Dwarkesh PatelI mean, there’s this concern. If you think human resources are the future, right now if it’s the skilled labor for manufacturing that’s determining who can build more humanoids, China has more of those. It manufactures more humanoids, therefore it gets the Optimi future first.我的意思是，现在有这样一种担忧。如果你认为人力资源是未来的决定因素，那么目前决定谁能制造更多人形机器人的，就是制造业中的熟练劳动力。中国有更多这样的劳动力，因此它能制造更多人形机器人，这就意味着它会率先进入 Optimi 的未来。
Elon MuskWell, we’ll see. Maybe.嗯，我们拭目以待吧。也许吧。
Dwarkesh PatelIt just keeps that exponential going. It seems like you’re sort of pointing out that getting to a million Optimi requires the manufacturing that the Optimi is supposed to help us get to. Right?这种指数级增长会一直持续下去。你似乎是在指出，要生产出一百万台 Optimi，需要 Optimi 本身应该帮助我们达到的那种制造能力。对吧？
Elon MuskYou can close that recursive loop pretty quickly.这个递归闭环可以很快合拢。
John CollisonWith a small number of Optimi?靠少量的 Optimi 就能做到？
Elon MuskYeah. So you close the recursive loop to help the robots build the robots. Then we can try to get to tens of millions of units a year. Maybe. If you start getting to hundreds of millions of units a year, you’re going to be the most competitive country by far.对。你合拢这个递归闭环，让机器人造机器人。然后我们就可以努力实现每年数千万台的产量。也许吧。如果你开始达到每年数亿台，你将毫无疑问地成为竞争力最强的国家。
Elon MuskWe definitely can’t win with just humans, because China has four times our population. Frankly, America has been winning for so long that… A pro sports team that’s been winning for a very long time tends to get complacent and entitled. That’s why they stop winning, because they don’t work as hard anymore. So frankly my observation is just that the average work ethic in China is higher than in the US. It’s not just that there’s four times the population, but the amount of work that people put in is higher.我们靠人类绝对赢不了，因为中国的人口是我们的四倍。说实在的，美国赢了太长时间……一支长期称霸的职业球队往往会变得自满、傲慢。这就是他们停止获胜的原因，因为他们不再那么努力了。坦率地说，我的观察是：中国人平均的职业道德水准高于美国人。不只是因为人口是四倍，而是人们投入的劳动量也更高。
Elon MuskSo you can try to rearrange the humans, but you’re still one quarter of the—assuming that productivity is the same, which I think actually it might not be, I think China might have an advantage on productivity per person—we will do one quarter of the amount of things as China. So we can’t win on the human front.所以你可以重新调配人力，但人数还是只有中国的四分之一——假设人均生产力相同的话，而我认为实际上可能并非如此，我觉得中国在人均生产力上可能还有优势——我们做出来的东西也只有中国的四分之一。所以我们在人力资源上赢不了。
Elon MuskOur birth rate has been low for a long time. The US birth rate’s been below replacement since roughly 1971. We’ve got a lot of people retiring, we’re close to more people domestically dying than being born. So we definitely can’t win on the human front, but we might have a shot at the robot front.我们的出生率低迷已经很久了。美国出生率大约从 1971 年起就低于替代水平。大量人口正在退休，国内死亡人数接近超过出生人数。所以我们在人力资源上肯定赢不了，但在机器人这条路上或许还有机会。
John CollisonAre there other things that you have wanted to manufacture in the past, but they’ve been too labor intensive or too expensive that now you can come back to and say, “oh, we can finally do the whatever, because we have Optimus?”有没有什么东西是你过去想生产，但因为劳动力密集或者成本太高而放弃了，现在可以回过头来说"哦，我们终于可以做了，因为我们有 Optimus 了"？
Elon MuskYeah, we’d like to build more ore refineries at Tesla. We just completed construction and have begun lithium refining with our lithium refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas . We have a nickel refinery, which is for the cathode , that’s here in Austin. This is the largest cathode refinery, largest nickel and lithium refinery, outside of China.是的，我们希望在 Tesla 建更多矿石精炼厂。我们刚刚完工并开始在德克萨斯州 Corpus Christi 的锂精炼厂进行锂精炼。我们还有一座镍精炼厂，是用于正极材料的，就在这里的 Austin。这是中国以外最大的正极材料精炼厂，也是最大的镍和锂精炼厂。
Elon MuskThe cathode team would say, “we have the largest and the only, actually, cathode refinery in America.” Not just the largest, but it’s also the only.正极团队会说，"我们有美国最大的、也是唯一的正极精炼厂。"不只是最大，还是唯一一家。
John CollisonMany superlatives.很多最高级。
Elon MuskSo it was pretty big, even though it’s the only one. But there are other things. You could do a lot more refineries and help America be more competitive on refining capacity. There’s basically a lot of work for the Optimus to do that most Americans, very few Americans, frankly want to do.所以即便是唯一一家，规模也相当大。但还有很多其他事情可以做。你可以建更多精炼厂，帮助美国在精炼产能上更具竞争力。基本上 Optimus 有大量工作可以做，而大多数美国人，坦率说，没几个人愿意干精炼这行。
John CollisonIs the refining work too dirty or what’s the—精炼工作是太脏了，还是什么原因——
Elon MuskIt’s not actually, no. We don’t have toxic emissions from the refinery or anything. The cathode nickel refinery is in Travis County.其实不是，不对。我们的精炼厂没有有毒排放之类的问题。正极镍精炼厂就在 Travis County。
John CollisonWhy can’t you do it with humans?为什么不能靠人来做呢？
Elon MuskYou can, you just run out of humans.可以做，只是人手不够。
John CollisonAh, I see. Okay.啊，我明白了。好的。
Elon MuskNo matter what you do, you have one quarter of the number of humans in America than China. So if you have them do this thing, they can’t do the other thing. So then how do you build this refining capacity? Well, you could do it with Optimi.无论你怎么做，美国的人口数量只有中国的四分之一。如果让他们做这件事，就没人做另一件事了。那么你怎么建起这个精炼产能？嗯，可以靠 Optimi 来做。
Elon MuskNot very many Americans are pining to do refining. I mean, how many have you run into? Very few. Very few pining to refine.没有几个美国人会渴望去做精炼工作。我是说，你遇到过几个？很少。很少有人渴望去精炼。
Dwarkesh PatelBYD is reaching Tesla production or sales in quantity. What do you think happens in global markets as Chinese production in EVs scales up?BYD 的产量和销量正在赶上 Tesla。你认为随着中国电动汽车产能的扩大，全球市场会发生什么？
Elon MuskChina is extremely competitive in manufacturing. So I think there’s going to be a massive flood of Chinese vehicles and basically most manufactured things. As it is, as I said, China is probably doing twice as much refining as the rest of the world combined. So if you go down to fourth and fifth-tier supply chain stuff…中国在制造业上极具竞争力。我认为会有一场中国汽车乃至几乎所有制造品的大规模冲击。正如我说的，中国现在大概做了全球其他地区精炼总量的两倍。所以如果你深入到第四、第五层供应链……
Elon MuskAt the base level, you’ve got energy, then you’ve got mining and refining. Those foundation layers are, like I said, as a rough guess, China’s doing twice as much refining as the rest of the world combined. So any given thing is going to have Chinese content because China’s doing twice as much refining work as the rest of the world. But they’ll go all the way to the finished product with the cars.从最基础的层面来看，有能源，然后是采矿和精炼。这些基础层，就像我说的，粗略估计中国的精炼量是世界其他地区总和的两倍。所以任何一件东西都会含有中国的成分，因为中国承担了全球两倍于其他地区的精炼工作量。但他们会一路做到汽车这样的成品。
Elon MuskI mean China is a powerhouse. I think this year China will exceed three times US electricity output. Electricity output is a reasonable proxy for the economy. In order to run the factories and run everything, you need electricity. It’s a good proxy for the real economy. If China passes three times the US electricity output, it means that its industrial capacity—as rough approximation—will be three times that of the US.中国就是个工业强国。我认为今年中国的发电量将超过美国的三倍。发电量是衡量经济的一个合理代理指标。要运转工厂、驱动一切，你需要电力。这是实体经济的一个很好的代理指标。如果中国的发电量超过美国的三倍，意味着其工业产能——粗略估算——也将是美国的三倍。
Dwarkesh PatelReading between the lines, it sounds like what you’re saying is absent some sort of humanoid recursive miracle in the next few years, on the whole manufacturing/energy/raw materials chain, China will just dominate whether it comes to AI or manufacturing EVs or manufacturing humanoids.言下之意，你说的是：如果未来几年内没有某种人形机器人的递归奇迹出现，那么在整条制造/能源/原材料链上，中国将彻底主导——无论是 AI、电动汽车，还是人形机器人的制造。
Elon MuskIn the absence of breakthrough innovations in the US, China will utterly dominate.如果美国没有突破性创新，中国将彻底称霸。
Dwarkesh PatelInteresting.有意思。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
John CollisonRobotics being the main breakthrough innovation.机器人技术就是那个主要的突破性创新。
Elon MuskWell, to scale AI in space, basically you need humanoid robots, you need real-world AI, you need a million tons a year to orbit. Let’s just say if we get the mass driver on the moon going, my favorite thing, then I think—嗯，要在太空中规模化 AI，你基本上需要人形机器人、需要现实世界 AI、需要每年运送一百万吨到轨道。就说如果我们能在月球上把质量驱动器搞起来，这是我最喜欢的事情，那么我认为——
John CollisonWe’ll have solved all our problems.我们所有的问题都解决了。
Elon MuskI call that winning. I call it winning, big time.我称之为赢。我称之为大赢特赢。
John CollisonYou can finally be satisfied. You’ve done something.你终于可以满足了。你做成了一件大事。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
John CollisonYou have the mass driver on the moon.你在月球上有了质量驱动器。
Elon MuskI just want to see that thing in operation.我只是想看到那玩意儿在运转。
John CollisonWas that out of some sci-fi or where did you…?这个想法是从某部科幻小说来的，还是……？
Elon MuskWell, actually, there is a Heinlein book. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress .嗯，其实有一本 Heinlein 的书——《The Moon is a Harsh Mistress》（月球是个严酷的女主人）。
John CollisonOkay, yeah, but that’s slightly different. That’s a gravity slingshot or...好的，是的，但那个有些不同。那是一种引力弹弓，还是……
Elon MuskNo, they have a mass driver on the Moon.不，他们在月球上有一台质量驱动器。
John CollisonOkay, yeah, but they use that to attack Earth. So maybe it’s not the greatest...好的，是的，但他们用那个来攻击地球。所以也许不是最好的……
Elon MuskWell they use that to… assert their independence.他们用那个来……宣示独立。
John CollisonExactly. What are your plans for the mass driver on the Moon?没错。你打算用月球质量驱动器做什么？
Elon MuskThey asserted their independence. Earth government disagreed and they lobbed things until Earth government agreed.他们宣示了独立。地球政府不同意，然后他们一直投射东西，直到地球政府同意为止。
John CollisonThat book is a hoot. I found that book much better than his other one that everyone reads, Stranger in a Strange Land .那本书太有趣了。我觉得它比 Heinlein 那本人人都读的《Stranger in a Strange Land》（异乡的异客）好多了。
Elon Musk“Grok” comes from Stranger in a Strange Land . The first two-thirds of Stranger in a Strange Land are good, and then it gets very weird in the third portion. But there are still some good concepts in there."Grok"这个词就来自《Stranger in a Strange Land》。这本书的前三分之二很好，然后到了最后三分之一变得非常奇怪。但里面仍然有一些不错的概念。
Elon MuskJohn CollisonJohn Collison
Elon MuskOne thing we were discussing a lot is your system for managing people. You interviewed the first few thousand of SpaceX employees and lots of other companies.我们一直在大量讨论的一件事是你管理人员的体系。你亲自面试了 SpaceX 最初的几千名员工，以及其他很多公司的员工。
Elon MuskIt obviously doesn’t scale.这显然是无法扩展的。
John CollisonWell, yes, but what doesn’t scale?是的，但哪里无法扩展呢？
Elon MuskMe.我。
John CollisonSure, sure. I know that. But what are you looking for?当然，当然。我知道。但你在找什么？
Elon MuskThere literally are not enough hours in the day. It’s impossible.一天根本没有足够的时间。这是不可能的。
John CollisonBut what are you looking for that someone else who’s good at interviewing and hiring people… What’s the je ne sais quoi ?但你在找什么，是那种擅长面试和招聘的人也无法替代你的东西？那个说不清道不明的东西是什么？
Elon MuskAt this point, I might have more training data on evaluating technical talent especially—talent of all kinds I suppose, but technical talent especially—given that I’ve done so many technical interviews and then seen the results. So my training set is enormous and has a very wide range.就目前而言，我可能在评估技术人才方面——实际上是各类人才，但技术人才尤其如此——积累了最多的训练数据，因为我做过太多技术面试，而且都看到了结果。所以我的训练集是巨大的，而且覆盖范围非常广。
Elon MuskGenerally, the things I ask for are bullet points for evidence of exceptional ability. These things can be pretty off the wall. It doesn’t need to be in the specific domain, but evidence of exceptional ability. So if somebody can cite even one thing, but let’s say three things, where you go, “Wow, wow, wow,” then that’s a good sign.我通常要找的，是能证明卓越能力的要点式证据。这些事情可以很天马行空，不需要是在特定领域内的，但要有卓越能力的证据。所以如果一个人能举出哪怕一件事，最好是三件，让你觉得"哇，哇，哇"，那就是个好兆头。
Dwarkesh PatelWhy do you have to be the one to determine that?为什么必须由你来判断？
Elon MuskNo, I don’t. I can’t be. It’s impossible. The total headcount across all companies is 200,000 people.不，不必由我来。也不可能。这是不可能的。所有公司加起来的总员工人数是 200,000 人。
John CollisonBut in the early days, what was it that you were looking for that couldn’t be delegated in those interviews?但在早期，那些面试中有什么是无法被授权给别人的？
Elon MuskI guess I need to build my training set. It’s not like I batted a thousand here. I would make mistakes, but then I’d be able to see where I thought somebody would work out well, but they didn’t. Then why did they not work out well? What can I do, I guess RL myself, to in the future have a better batting average when interviewing people? My batting average is still not perfect, but it’s very high.我猜我需要建立自己的训练集。这不是说我每次都打出一千分。我也会犯错，但犯错之后我能看到：我以为某人会表现很好，但他没有。那他为什么没做好？我能做什么——我猜是对自己做 RL——让我以后在面试时有更高的命中率？我的命中率仍然不是完美的，但已经很高了。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat are some surprising reasons people don’t work out?有哪些令人意外的原因导致人们不合适？
Elon MuskSurprising reasons…令人意外的原因……
Dwarkesh PatelLike, they don’t understand technical domain, et cetera, et cetera. But you’ve got the long tail now of like, “I was really excited about this person. It didn’t work out.” Curious why that happens.比如，他们不懂技术领域，诸如此类。但你现在积累了大量这样的长尾案例：'我当时对这个人非常期待，但结果没成。'很好奇为什么会这样。
Elon MuskGenerally what I tell people—I tell myself, I guess, aspirationally—is, don’t look at the resume. Just believe your interaction. The resume may seem very impressive and it’s like, “Wow, the resume looks good.” But if the conversation after 20 minutes is not “wow,” you should believe the conversation, not the paper.我通常告诉别人——也是告诉自己，算是一种追求的方向——不要看简历。相信你们之间的互动。简历可能看起来非常光鲜，"哇，简历好漂亮。"但如果聊了 20 分钟之后你没有"哇"的感觉，你应该相信这次对话，而不是那张纸。
John CollisonI feel like part of your method is that… There was this meme in the media a few years back about Tesla being a revolving door of executive talent. Whereas actually, I think when you look at it, Tesla’s had a very consistent and internally promoted executive bench over the past few years.我感觉你方法的一部分是……几年前媒体上有个梗，说 Tesla 是高管人才的旋转门。但实际上，如果你仔细看，过去几年 Tesla 的高管层其实非常稳定，而且大多是内部晋升的。
John CollisonThen at SpaceX, you have all these folks like Mark Juncosa and Steve Davis —然后在 SpaceX，你有像 Mark Juncosa 和 Steve Davis 这样的人——
Elon MuskSteve Davis runs The Boring Company these days.Steve Davis 现在主管 The Boring Company。
John CollisonBill Riley , and folks like that. It feels like part of what has worked well is having very capable technical deputies. What do all of those people have in common?还有 Bill Riley，以及那样的人。感觉真正起作用的一部分，是拥有非常能干的技术副手。这些人有什么共同点？
Elon MuskWell, the Tesla senior team, at this point has probably got an average tenure of 10-12 years. It’s quite long. But there were times when Tesla went through an extremely rapid growth phase, so things were just somewhat sped up. As you know, a company goes through different orders of magnitude of size. People that could help manage, say, a 50-person company versus a 500-person company versus a 5,000-person company versus a 50,000-person company.嗯，Tesla 的高管团队，目前平均任期可能有 10-12 年。相当长了。但 Tesla 确实经历过一段极速增长期，所以节奏就加快了。正如你知道的，一家公司会经历不同数量级的规模变化。能帮助管理一家 50 人公司的人，和管理 500 人、5,000 人、50,000 人公司所需要的人是不一样的。
John CollisonYou outgrew people.你把人才甩在了后面。
Elon MuskIt’s just not the same team. It’s not always the same team. So if a company is growing very rapidly, the rate at which executive positions will change will also be proportionate to the rapidity of the growth generally.就是不同的团队罢了，并不总是同一批人。所以如果一家公司增长非常迅速，高管职位的更迭频率也会与增长速度成正比。
Elon MuskTesla had a further challenge where when Tesla had very successful periods, we would be relentlessly recruited from. Like, relentlessly. When Apple had their electric car program, they were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones.Tesla 还面临一个额外的挑战：每当 Tesla 表现很好的时候，我们就会遭到疯狂的猎头攻势，简直是疯狂。当 Apple 做电动汽车项目的时候，他们对 Tesla 发起了地毯式的招募轰炸。工程师们直接把电话拔掉了。
John Collison“I’m trying to get work done here.”"我在这里是来干活的好不好。"
Elon MuskYeah. “If I get one more call from an Apple recruiter…” But their opening offer without any interview would be like double the compensation at Tesla. So we had a bit of the “Tesla pixie dust” thing where it’s like, “Oh, if you hire a Tesla executive, suddenly everything’s going to be successful.”是的。"再来一个 Apple 招聘电话我就……"但他们一上来不用面试就开出了相当于 Tesla 两倍薪酬的价码。于是我们陷入了所谓的"Tesla 仙尘"效应——就是那种感觉，"哦，你只要招个 Tesla 高管来，一切就会成功。"
Elon MuskI’ve fallen prey to the pixie dust thing as well, where it’s like, “Oh, we’ll hire someone from Google or Apple and they’ll be immediately successful,” but that’s not how it works. People are people. There’s no magical pixie dust. So when we had the pixie dust problem, we would get relentlessly recruited from.我自己也中过仙尘的招儿，那种感觉就是，"哦，我们从 Google 或 Apple 挖个人来，他们立马就能成功"，但实际上不是这么运作的。人就是人，没有什么神奇仙尘。所以当我们有了仙尘效应的时候，就会被疯狂猎头。
Elon MuskAlso, Tesla being engineering, especially being primarily in Silicon Valley, it’s easier for people to just... They don’t have to change their life very much. Their commute’s going to be the same.还有，Tesla 本质上是工程公司，尤其是最初主要在硅谷，所以人们很容易……他们不用怎么改变生活，通勤也不会有什么变化。
John CollisonSo how do you prevent that? How do you prevent the pixie dust effect where everyone’s trying to poach all your people?那你怎么阻止这种情况？怎么防止仙尘效应，让所有人都来挖你的人？
Elon MuskI don’t think there’s much we can do to stop it. That’s one of the reasons why Tesla… Really, being in Silicon Valley and having the pixie dust thing at the same time meant that there was just a very, very aggressive recruitment.我觉得我们能做的不多。这也是 Tesla 的原因之一……在硅谷加上同时有仙尘效应，意味着我们遭受的招募攻势就是非常非常激进的。
John CollisonPresumably being in Austin helps then?在 Austin 应该好一些吧？
Elon MuskAustin, it helps. Tesla still has a majority of its engineering in California. Getting engineers to move… I call it the “significant other” problem.Austin 是好一些。但 Tesla 的工程师大多数还是在加州。要让工程师搬家……我称之为"另一半问题"。
John CollisonYes, “significant others” have jobs.是的，"另一半"也有工作。
Elon MuskExactly. So for Starbase that was particularly difficult, since the odds of finding a non-SpaceX job…确实。所以对于 Starbase 来说，这个问题尤为棘手，因为在那里找到非 SpaceX 工作的概率……
John CollisonIn Brownsville, Texas…在德克萨斯州 Brownsville……
Elon Musk…are pretty low. It’s quite difficult. It’s like a technology monastery thing, remote and mostly dudes.……相当低。很难。就像是一个科技修道院，地处偏远，而且基本上都是男的。
Dwarkesh PatelNot much of an improvement over SF.比旧金山好不了多少。
John CollisonIf you go back to these people who’ve really been very effective in a technical capacity at Tesla, at SpaceX, and those sorts of places, what do you think they have in common other than... Is it just that they’re very sharp on the rocketry or the technical foundations, or do you think it’s something organizational?如果回到那些在 Tesla、SpaceX 这类地方真正发挥了技术能力的人，你觉得他们有什么共同点——不仅仅是……是他们在火箭或技术基础上非常敏锐，还是说有某种组织层面的东西？
John CollisonIs it something about their ability to work with you? Is it their ability to be flexible but not too flexible? What makes a good sparring partner for you?是他们与你合作的方式？还是他们能灵活但又不过于灵活的能力？什么样的人能成为你好的对手？
Elon MuskI don’t think of it as a sparring partner. If somebody gets things done, I love them, and if they don’t, I hate them. So it’s pretty straightforward. It’s not like some idiosyncratic thing. If somebody executes well, I’m a huge fan, and if they don’t, I’m not. But it’s not about mapping to my idiosyncratic preferences. I certainly try not to have it be mapping to my idiosyncratic preferences.我不把它想成是对手关系。如果一个人能把事情做成，我就爱他；如果做不成，我就讨厌他。就这么简单。不是什么奇奇怪怪的特殊标准。如果某人执行力强，我就是他的超级粉丝；反之则不然。但这不是要他去迎合我的个人偏好。我肯定尽量让它不要变成迎合我的个人偏好。
Elon MuskGenerally, I think it’s a good idea to hire for talent and drive and trustworthiness. And I think goodness of heart is important. I underweighted that at one point. So, are they a good person? Trustworthy? Smart and talented and hard working? If so, you can add domain knowledge.总体而言，我认为招人应该看才华、驱动力和可信度。我认为心地善良也很重要，这一点我曾经给的权重不够。所以，这个人是好人吗？值得信赖？聪明、有才华、肯努力？如果是的话，领域知识可以后天积累。
Elon MuskBut those fundamental traits, those fundamental properties, you cannot change. So most of the people who are at Tesla and SpaceX did not come from the aerospace industry or the auto industry.但那些根本性的特质、根本性的属性，你是改变不了的。所以大多数加入 Tesla 和 SpaceX 的人，都不是来自航空航天行业或汽车行业的。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat has had to change most about your management style as your companies have scaled from 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 people? You’re known for this very micro management, just getting into the details of things.随着你的公司从 100 人扩展到 1,000 人，再到 10,000 人，你的管理风格有哪些最大的改变？你以非常深入细节著称。
Elon MuskNano management, please. Pico management. Femto management.请叫纳米管理。皮米管理。飞米管理。
John CollisonKeep going.继续说。
Elon MuskWe’re going to go all the way down to Planck’s constant . All the way down to Heisenberg uncertainty principle .我们要一路往下到 Planck 常数。一路到海森堡不确定性原理。
Dwarkesh PatelAre you still able to get into details as much as you want? Would your companies be more successful if they were smaller? How do you think about that?你现在还能像你想要的那样深入细节吗？如果你的公司规模小一些，会不会更成功？你怎么看这个问题？
Elon MuskBecause I have a fixed amount of time in the day, my time is necessarily diluted as things grow and as the span of activity increases. It’s impossible for me to actually be a micromanager because that would imply I have some thousands of hours per day. It is a logical impossibility for me to micromanage things.因为我每天的时间是固定的，随着规模增大、业务范围扩展，我的时间不可避免地被稀释了。对我来说，实际上不可能去做微管理，因为那意味着我每天得有几千个小时。逻辑上就不可能让我去微观管理事情。
Elon MuskNow, there are times when I will drill down into a specific issue because that specific issue is the limiting factor on the progress of the company. The reason for drilling into some very detailed item is because it is the limiting factor. It’s not arbitrarily drilling into tiny things.当然，有时候我会深入研究某个具体问题，因为那个具体问题是公司进展的限制因素。深入研究某个极细节的事项，原因是它是限制因素。不是随机挑细节来钻研。
Elon MuskFrom a time standpoint, it is physically impossible for me to arbitrarily go into tiny things that don’t matter. That would result in failure. But sometimes the tiny things are decisive in victory.从时间的角度来看，物理上不可能让我随意去深入那些无关紧要的小事。那样会导致失败。但有时候，这些小事恰恰决定胜负。
John CollisonFamously, you switched the Starship design from composites to steel .你有个著名的决策，把 Starship 的设计材料从复合材料换成了钢。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
John CollisonYou made that decision. That wasn’t people going around saying, “Oh, we found something better, boss.” That was you encouraging people against some resistance. Can you tell us how you came to that whole concept of the steel switch?这个决定是你做出的。不是有人跑来说"哦，老板，我们发现了更好的东西。"是你顶着一些阻力推动了这件事。你能告诉我们，你是如何想到换成钢这整个概念的吗？
Elon MuskDesperation, I’d say. Originally, we were going to make Starship out of carbon fiber . Carbon fiber is pretty expensive. When you do volume production, you can get any given thing to start to approach its material cost.走投无路，可以这么说。最初，我们打算用碳纤维来制造 Starship。碳纤维相当贵。当你进入量产阶段，任何东西的成本都会开始接近其材料成本。
Elon MuskThe problem with carbon fiber is that material cost is still very high. Particularly if you go for a high-strength specialized carbon fiber that can handle cryogenic oxygen , it’s roughly 50 times the cost of steel. At least in theory, it would be lighter. People generally think of steel as being heavy and carbon fiber as being light.碳纤维的问题在于材料成本本身就很高。特别是如果你要使用高强度专用碳纤维，能承受低温液氧，它的成本大约是钢的 50 倍。理论上它会更轻。人们通常认为钢很重，碳纤维很轻。
Elon MuskFor room temperature applications, like a Formula 1 car, static aero structure, or any kind of aero structure really, you’re probably going to be better off with carbon fiber. The problem is that we were trying to make this enormous rocket out of carbon fiber and our progress was extremely slow.对于常温应用场景，比如 F1 赛车、静态气动结构，或者任何气动结构，碳纤维可能都更合适。问题是我们试图用碳纤维制造这枚超级巨大的火箭，进展极其缓慢。
John CollisonIt had been picked in the first place just because it’s light?当初选碳纤维就只是因为它轻？
Elon MuskYes. At first glance, most people would think that the choice for making something light would be carbon fiber. The thing is that when you make something very enormous out of carbon fiber and then you try to have the carbon fiber be efficiently cured, meaning not room temperature cured, because sometimes you got 50 plies of carbon fiber… Carbon fiber is really carbon string and glue. In order to have high strength, you need an autoclave . Something that’s essentially a high pressure oven. If you have something that’s gigantic, that one’s got to be bigger than the rocket.是的。乍一看，大多数人会认为做轻量化东西应该选碳纤维。问题是，当你用碳纤维制造非常巨大的东西，然后试图让碳纤维高效固化——不是室温固化，因为有时候你有 50 层碳纤维……碳纤维本质上是碳丝和胶水。要获得高强度，你需要一个热压罐，本质上是一个高压烤炉。如果你做的东西非常巨大，那个热压罐就得比火箭还大。
Elon MuskWe were trying to make an autoclave that’s bigger than any autoclave that’s ever existed. Or you can do room temperature cure, which takes a long time and has issues. The final issue is that we were just making very slow progress with carbon fiber.我们当时试图建一个比有史以来任何热压罐都大的热压罐。或者你可以做室温固化，但那需要很长时间，而且有问题。最后的问题是，我们用碳纤维的进展真的非常非常慢。
Dwarkesh PatelThe meta question is why it had to be you who made that decision. There’s many engineers on your team.一个元问题是，为什么必须由你来做这个决定。你团队里有很多工程师。
John CollisonHow did the team not arrive at steel?团队为什么没有想到用钢？
Dwarkesh PatelYeah exactly. This is part of a broader question, understanding your comparative advantage at your companies.对，正是这样。这是一个更大问题的一部分，是关于理解你在各自公司中的比较优势。
Elon MuskBecause we were making very slow progress with carbon fiber, I was like, “Okay, we’ve got to try something else.” For the Falcon 9, the primary airframe is made of aluminum lithium, which has a very good strength-to-weight . Actually, it has about the same, maybe better, strength to weight for its application than carbon fiber. But aluminum lithium is very difficult to work with.因为我们用碳纤维进展非常慢，我就想，"好，我们得尝试别的东西了。"对于 Falcon 9 来说，主要机体框架是用铝锂合金制造的，它的强度重量比非常好。实际上，在其应用场景下，强度重量比可能和碳纤维差不多，甚至更好。但铝锂合金非常难加工。
Elon MuskIn order to weld it, you have to do something called friction stir welding , where you join the metal without entering the liquid phase. It’s kind of wild that you can do that. But with this particular type of welding, you can do that. It’s very difficult. Let’s say you want to make a modification or attach something to aluminum lithium, you now have to use a mechanical attachment with seals. You can’t weld it on. So I wanted to avoid using aluminum lithium for the primary structure for Starship.要焊接铝锂合金，你必须使用一种叫做搅拌摩擦焊的工艺，就是在不进入液态的情况下将金属连接起来。能做到这一点其实挺神奇的。但用这种特定的焊接工艺，就可以做到。非常难。假如你想做改动或附加什么东西到铝锂合金上，现在就得用带密封件的机械连接。不能直接焊上去。所以我想避免将铝锂合金用于 Starship 的主结构。
Elon MuskThere was this very special grade of carbon fiber that had very good mass properties. With a rocket, you’re really trying to maximize the percentage of the rocket that is propellant , minimize the mass obviously. But like I said, we were making very slow progress. I said, “at this rate, we’re never going to get to Mars. So we’ve got to think of something else.”有一种非常特殊级别的碳纤维，质量特性极好。对于火箭来说，你真正要做的是最大化推进剂占火箭总质量的比例，当然要把质量降到最低。但就像我说的，我们进展非常慢。我说，"按这个速度，我们永远到不了火星。所以我们得想想别的方案。"
Elon MuskI didn’t want to use aluminum lithium because of the difficulty of friction stir welding, especially doing that at scale. It was hard enough at 3.6 meters in diameter, let alone at 9 meters or above. Then I said, “what about steel?”我不想用铝锂合金，因为搅拌摩擦焊难度太大，尤其是在大规模生产的情况下。在直径 3.6 米的情况下已经很难了，更别说 9 米或更大的尺寸了。然后我说，"那用钢怎么样？"
Elon MuskI had a clue here because some of the early US rockets had used very thin steel. The Atlas rocket s had used a steel balloon tank . It’s not like steel had never been used before. It actually had been used. When you look at the material properties of stainless steel , full-hard , strain hardened stainless steel, at cryogenic temperature the strength to weight is actually similar to carbon fiber.我有一个线索：美国早期的一些火箭用过非常薄的钢。Atlas 火箭用过钢气球储箱。所以钢并不是从没用过，它实际上是用过的。当你看超薄不锈钢——全硬化、应变硬化不锈钢——在低温环境下的材料性能时，其实强度重量比与碳纤维相近。
Elon MuskIf you look at material properties at room temperature, it looks like the steel is going to be twice as heavy. But if you look at the material properties at cryogenic temperature of full-hard steel, stainless of particular grades, then you actually get to a similar strength to weight as carbon fiber.如果你看室温下的材料性能，钢看起来会重两倍。但如果你看特定级别的全硬化钢、不锈钢在低温下的材料性能，你实际上能得到与碳纤维相近的强度重量比。
Elon MuskIn the case of Starship, both the fuel and the oxidizer are cryogenic. For Falcon 9, the fuel is rocket propellant-grade kerosene , basically a very pure form of jet fuel. That is roughly room temperature. Although we do actually chill it slightly below, we chill it like a beer.在 Starship 的情况下，燃料和氧化剂都是低温的。而 Falcon 9 的燃料是火箭级煤油，基本上是一种极纯的航空煤油。它大致在常温下。虽然我们确实会对它稍微预冷一点，就像冰镇啤酒一样。
John CollisonDelicious.好喝。
Elon MuskWe do chill it, but it’s not cryogenic. In fact, if we made it cryogenic, it would just turn to wax. But for Starship, it’s liquid methane and liquid oxygen. They are liquid at similar temperatures. Basically, almost the entire primary structure is at cryogenic temperature. So then you’ve got a 300-series stainless that’s strain hardened. Because almost all things are cryogenic temperature, it actually has similar strength to weight as carbon fiber.我们会预冷它，但不是低温。事实上，如果我们让它变成低温状态，它就会凝固成蜡。但对于 Starship，用的是液态甲烷和液态氧。它们在相近的温度下呈液态。基本上，几乎整个主结构都处于低温状态。所以你用的是应变硬化的 300 系列不锈钢。因为几乎所有东西都在低温下，它实际上拥有与碳纤维相近的强度重量比。
Elon MuskBut it costs 50x less in raw material and is very easy to work with. You can weld stainless steel outdoors. You could smoke a cigar while welding stainless steel. It’s very resilient. You can modify it easily. If you want to attach something, you just weld it right on. Very easy to work with, very low cost.但原材料成本低了 50 倍，而且非常易于加工。你可以在户外焊接不锈钢。你甚至可以一边抽雪茄一边焊不锈钢。它非常耐用，可以轻松改动，想附加什么东西直接焊上去就行。非常好加工，成本非常低。
Elon MuskLike I said, at cryogenic temperature, it’s similar strength-to-weight to carbon fiber. Then when you factor in that we have a much reduced heat shield mass, because the melting point of steel, is much greater than the melting point of aluminum… It’s about twice the melting point of aluminum.就像我说的，在低温下，它的强度重量比与碳纤维相近。再加上我们大幅减轻了隔热罩的质量，因为钢的熔点远高于铝的熔点……大约是铝熔点的两倍。
John CollisonSo you can just run the rocket much hotter?所以火箭可以承受高得多的温度？
Elon MuskYes, especially for the ship which is coming in like a blazing meteor. You can greatly reduce the mass of the heat shield. You can cut the mass of the windward part of the heat shield, maybe in half, and you don’t need any heat shielding on the leeward side.是的，尤其是飞船部分，它进入大气层时就像一颗燃烧的流星。迎风面的隔热罩质量可以大大减少，也许减半，而背风面根本不需要隔热。
Elon MuskThe net result is that actually the steel rocket weighs less than the carbon fiber rocket, because the resin in the carbon fiber rocket starts to melt. Basically, carbon fiber and aluminum have about the same operating temperature capabilities, whereas steel can operate at twice the temperature. These are very rough approximations.最终结果是钢制火箭实际上比碳纤维火箭更轻，因为碳纤维火箭里的树脂会开始熔化。基本上，碳纤维和铝的使用温度上限差不多，而钢可以承受两倍于此的温度。这些都是非常粗略的估算。
John CollisonI won’t build the rocket.我不会去造火箭的。
Elon MuskWhat I mean is people will say, “Oh, he said this twice. It’s actually 0.8.” I’m like, shut up, assholes.我的意思是，会有人说，"哦，他说了两倍，实际上是 0.8 倍。"我就想说，闭嘴，你这些混蛋。
Dwarkesh PatelThat’s what the main comment’s going to be about.那就是主要评论区会聊的内容。
Elon MuskGod damn it. The point is, in retrospect, we should have started with steel in the beginning. It was dumb not to do steel.该死的。重点是，事后看来，我们一开始就应该用钢。不用钢是愚蠢的。
John CollisonOkay, but to play this back to you, what I’m hearing is that steel was a riskier, less proven path, other than the early US rockets. Versus carbon fiber was a worse but more proven out path. So you need to be the one to push for, “Hey, we’re going to do this riskier path and just figure it out.” So you’re fighting a sort of conservatism in a sense.好的，但让我来转述一下你说的意思：我听到的是，钢是风险更高、验证更少的路子，除了早期的美国火箭之外。而碳纤维是更差但更成熟的路子。所以需要你来推动"我们要走这条风险更高的路，搞清楚怎么做到"。从某种意义上说，你是在对抗一种保守主义。
Elon MuskThat’s why I initially said that the issue is that we weren’t making fast enough progress. We were having trouble making even a small barrel section of the carbon fiber that didn’t have wrinkles in it. Because at that large scale, you have to have many plies, many layers of the carbon fiber. You’ve got to cure it and you’ve got to cure it in such a way that it doesn’t have any wrinkles or defects.这就是为什么我最开始说问题在于我们进展不够快。我们连一小段碳纤维桶段都做不出来，总有褶皱。因为在那么大的尺寸下，你需要很多层、很多铺层的碳纤维。你得固化它，而且固化时不能有任何褶皱或缺陷。
Elon MuskCarbon fiber is much less resilient than steel. It has much less toughness. Stainless steel will stretch and bend, the carbon fiber will tend to shatter. Toughness being the area under the stress strain curve. You’re generally going to have to do better with steel, but stainless steel to be precise.碳纤维的韧性远不如钢。它的韧度要低得多。不锈钢会拉伸和弯曲，而碳纤维会倾向于碎裂。韧度就是应力-应变曲线下面积。你通常在用钢——但要说精确些，是不锈钢——上的表现会更好。
John CollisonOne other Starship question. So I visited Starbase, I think it was two years ago, with Sam Teller , and that was awesome. It was very cool to see, in a whole bunch of ways.另一个关于 Starship 的问题。我大概两年前和 Sam Teller 一起参观了 Starbase，那次经历太棒了，从很多方面来说都非常酷。
John CollisonOne thing I noticed was that people really took pride in the simplicity of things, where everyone wants to tell you how Starship is just a big soda can, and we’re hiring welders, and if you can weld in any industrial project, you can weld here. But there’s a lot of pride in the simplicity.我注意到一件事，就是人们对事物的简单性感到非常自豪——每个人都想跟你说 Starship 就是一个大汽水罐，我们在招焊工，只要你能在任何工业项目里焊接，在这里就能焊。这种对简单性的自豪感非常强。
Elon MuskWell, factually Starship is a very complicated rocket.嗯，实际上 Starship 是一枚非常复杂的火箭。
John CollisonSo that’s what I’m getting at. Are things simple or are they complex?好，这正是我想问的。东西是简单还是复杂？
Elon MuskI think maybe just what they’re trying to say is that you don’t have to have prior experience in the rocket industry to work on Starship. Somebody just needs to be smart and work hard and be trustworthy and they can work on a rocket. They don’t need prior rocket experience. Starship is the most complicated machine ever made by humans, by a long shot.我想他们可能想说的是，你不需要有火箭行业的先前经验才能参与 Starship 的工作。一个人只要聪明、肯努力、值得信赖，就可以在火箭上工作，不需要之前有火箭经验。Starship 是人类有史以来制造过的最复杂的机器，远远超过其他任何东西。
John CollisonIn what regards?在哪些方面？
Elon MuskAnything, really. I’d say there isn’t a more complex machine. I’d say that pretty much any project I can think of would be easier than this. That’s why nobody has ever made a fully reusable orbital rocket. It’s a very hard problem. Many smart people have tried before, very smart people with immense resources, and they failed.各方面，真的。我会说，没有比这更复杂的机器了。我觉得我能想到的几乎任何项目都比这更容易。这就是为什么从来没有人制造出完全可重复使用的轨道火箭。这是一个非常难的问题。之前有很多聪明人尝试过，非常聪明、资源极为丰富的人，他们都失败了。
Elon MuskAnd we haven’t succeeded yet. Falcon is partially reusable, but the upper stage is not. Starship Version 3 , I think this design can be fully reusable. That full reusability is what will enable us to become a multi-planet civilization. Any technical problem, even like a Hadron Collider or something like that, is an easier problem than this.而我们还没有成功。Falcon 是部分可重复使用的，但上面级不行。Starship Version 3，我认为这个设计可以实现完全可重复使用。正是完全可重复使用性才能让我们成为多星球文明。任何工程问题，哪怕是大型强子对撞机这种级别，都比这个容易。
John CollisonWe spent a lot of time on bottlenecks. Can you say what the current Starship bottlenecks are, even at a high level?我们花了很多时间讨论瓶颈。你能说说目前 Starship 的主要瓶颈是什么吗，哪怕是大方向上的？
Elon MuskTrying to make it not explode, generally. It really wants to explode.就是尽量让它不要爆炸。它真的很想爆炸。
John CollisonThat old chestnut. All those combustible materials.老生常谈了。那么多易燃材料。
Elon MuskWe’ve had two boosters explode on the test stand. One obliterated the entire test facility. So it only takes that one mistake. The amount of energy contained in a Starship is insane.我们已经有两台助推器在测试台上爆炸了。有一次把整个测试设施都摧毁了。所以只要一次失误就够了。Starship 储存的能量是惊人的。
John CollisonIs that why it’s harder than Falcon? It’s because it’s just more energy?这就是它比 Falcon 更难的原因吗？就是因为能量更大？
Elon MuskIt’s a lot of new technology. It’s pushing the performance envelope. The Raptor 3 engine is a very, very advanced engine. It’s by far the best rocket engine ever made. But it desperately wants to blow up. Just to put things into perspective here, on liftoff the rocket is generating over 100 gigawatts of power. That’s 20% of US electricity.涉及大量新技术，在推进性能方面也在突破极限。Raptor 3 发动机是一款非常非常先进的发动机，迄今为止最好的火箭发动机，没有之一。但它拼命想爆炸。从数字上来看，起飞时火箭产生的功率超过 100 吉瓦。这相当于美国电力产能的 20%。
Dwarkesh PatelIt’s actually insane.这真的太疯狂了。
John CollisonIt’s a great comparison.这个对比非常形象。
Elon MuskWhile not exploding.同时不能爆炸。
John CollisonSometimes.有时候会。
Elon MuskSometimes, yes. So I was like, how does it not explode? There’s thousands of ways that it could explode and only one way that it doesn’t. So we want it not only to really not explode, but fly reliably on a daily basis, like once per hour. Obviously, if it blows up a lot, it’s very difficult to maintain that launch cadence.有时候确实会。所以我就在想，它怎么能不爆炸呢？有几千种方式可以让它爆炸，只有一种方式不会爆炸。我们不只是要让它不爆炸，还要每天可靠地飞，就像每小时一次那样。显然，如果爆炸太多，就很难维持这样的发射节奏了。
John CollisonYes.是的。
Elon MuskWhat’s the single biggest remaining problem for Starship? It’s having the heat shield be reusable. No one’s ever made a reusable orbital heat shield. So the heat shield’s gotta make it through the ascent phase without shucking a bunch of tiles, and then it’s gotta come back in and also not lose a bunch of tiles or overheat the main airframe.Starship 剩余的最大单一问题是什么？让隔热罩实现可重复使用。从来没有人制造过可重复使用的轨道隔热罩。所以隔热罩必须在上升阶段撑过去，不能大量脱落隔热瓦，然后返回时也不能大量脱落隔热瓦或让主机体过热。
John CollisonIsn’t that hard because it’s fundamentally a consumable?这不是天生就很难实现吗，因为它本质上是消耗品？
Elon MuskWell, yes, but your brake pads in your car are also consumable, but they last a very long time.嗯，是的，但你汽车的刹车片也是消耗品，但它可以用很长时间。
John CollisonFair.说得有道理。
Elon MuskSo it just needs to last a very long time. We have brought the ship back and had it do a soft landing in the ocean. We’ve done that a few times. But it lost a lot of tiles. It was not reusable without a lot of work. Even though it did come to a soft landing, it would not have been reusable without a lot of work.所以它只需要用很长时间就行。我们已经把飞船带回来，让它在海面上软着陆，做到了好几次。但它掉落了大量隔热瓦。没有大量工作的话是无法重复使用的。尽管它确实实现了软着陆，但没有大量翻修工作是无法再次使用的。
Elon MuskSo it’s not really reusable in that sense. That’s the biggest problem that remains, a fully reusable heat shield. You want to be able to land it, refill propellant and fly again. You can’t do this laborious inspection of 40,000 tiles type of thing.所以在这个意义上，它还不是真正可重复使用的。这是剩下的最大问题，完全可重复使用的隔热罩。你要能着陆、补充推进剂、然后再次飞行。你不能搞什么费力检查 40,000 块隔热瓦这类的事情。
Dwarkesh PatelWhen I read biographies of yours, it seems like you’re just able to drive the sense of urgency and drive the sense of “this is the thing that can scale.” I’m curious why you think other organizations of your…读你的传记时，我感觉你只是能驱动那种紧迫感，能驱动那种"这是可以规模化的东西"的感觉。我很好奇，为什么你同等规模的其他组织……
Dwarkesh PatelSpaceX and Tesla are really big companies now. You’re still able to keep that culture. What goes wrong with other companies such that they’re not able to do that?SpaceX 和 Tesla 现在都是非常大的公司了，你还能保持那种文化。其他公司出了什么问题，导致他们做不到这一点？
Elon MuskI don’t know.我不知道。
Dwarkesh PatelLike today, you said you had a bunch of SpaceX meetings. What is it that you’re doing there that’s keeping that?比如今天，你说你有一大堆 SpaceX 的会议。你在做什么来维持那种文化？
John CollisonIt’s adding urgency?是在增加紧迫感？
Elon MuskWell, I don’t know. I guess the urgency is going to come from whoever is leading the company. I have a maniacal sense of urgency. So that maniacal sense of urgency projects through the rest of the company.嗯，我不知道。我猜紧迫感来自于领导公司的那个人。我有一种狂热的紧迫感。所以这种狂热的紧迫感会传递到公司的其他部分。
Dwarkesh PatelIs it because of consequences? They’re like, “Elon set a crazy deadline, but if I don’t get it, I know what happens to me.” Is it just that you’re able to identify bottlenecks and get rid of them so people can move fast? How do you think about why your companies are able to move fast?是因为后果吗？他们想的是，"Elon 定了个疯狂的截止日期，但如果我没做到，我知道会发生什么。"还是说只是因为你能识别瓶颈并清除它们，让人们可以快速推进？你是怎么理解你的公司为什么能快速运转的？
Elon MuskI’m constantly addressing the limiting factor. On the deadlines front, I generally actually try to aim for a deadline that I at least think is at the 50th percentile. So it’s not like an impossible deadline, but it’s the most aggressive deadline I can think of that could be achieved with 50% probability. Which means that it’ll be late half the time.我一直在不断攻克限制因素。在截止日期这件事上，我通常其实会尝试设定一个我认为至少有 50% 概率能达到的截止日期。所以不是一个不可能的截止日期，而是我能想到的、有 50% 概率实现的最激进的截止日期。这意味着有一半的时间会延期。
Elon MuskThere is a law of gas expansion that applies to schedules. If you said we’re going to do something in five years, which to me is like infinity time, it will expand to fill the available schedule and it’ll take five years.有一条气体膨胀定律同样适用于时间表。如果你说我们要在五年内做成某件事，五年在我看来就像是无限长，那它就会膨胀填满整个时间表，最后花五年。
Elon MuskPhysics will limit how fast you can do certain things. So scaling up manufacturing, there’s a rate at which you can move the atoms and scale manufacturing. That’s why you can’t instantly make a million units a year of something. You’ve got to design the manufacturing line. You’ve got to bring it up. You’ve got to ride the S-curve of production.物理规律会限制你做某些事情的速度。所以扩大制造规模，你移动原子、扩大制造规模是有速率限制的。这就是为什么你不能立刻就达到每年一百万台的产能。你得设计制造线，得把它搭起来，得沿着生产的 S 曲线往上爬。
Elon MuskWhat can I say that’s actually helpful to people? Generally, a maniacal sense of urgency is a very big deal. You want to have an aggressive schedule and you want to figure out what the limiting factor is at any point in time and help the team address that limiting factor.我能说什么真正对人有帮助的话呢？总的来说，狂热的紧迫感是非常重要的。你要有激进的时间表，你要在任何时刻找到限制因素，并帮助团队攻克那个限制因素。
John CollisonSo Starlink was slowly in the works for many years.Starlink 慢慢地酝酿了很多年。
Elon MuskWe talked about it all the way in the beginning of the company.我们从公司创立之初就开始谈这件事了。
John CollisonSo then there was a team you had built in Redmond, and then at one point you decided this team is just not cutting it . It went for a few years slowly, and so why didn’t you act earlier, and why did you act when you did? Why was that the right moment at which to act?那么后来你在 Redmond 建了一支团队，在某个时间点你判定这支团队就是不行。项目缓慢推进了几年，那你为什么没有更早采取行动，为什么在那个时机采取了行动？那是正确的时机吗？
Elon MuskI have these very detailed engineering reviews weekly. That’s maybe a very unusual level of granularity. I don’t know anyone who runs a company, or at least a manufacturing company, that goes with the level of detail that I go into. It’s not as though... I have a pretty good understanding of what’s actually going on because we go through things in detail.我会每周进行这些非常详尽的工程评审。这可能是一种非常不寻常的细粒度。我不认识有谁管理公司，至少是制造型公司，能有我那样的细致程度。并不是……我对实际情况有相当清晰的了解，因为我们会详细地过一遍每件事。
Elon MuskI’m a big believer in skip-level meetings where instead of having the person that reports to me say things, it’s everyone that reports to them saying something in the technical review. And there can’t be advanced preparation. Otherwise you’re going to get “glazed”, as I say these days.我非常相信越级会议，不是让向我汇报的那个人来说，而是所有向他汇报的人在技术评审中亲自发言。而且不能有事先准备。否则你就会被"glazed"（蒙蔽），用我现在的话说。
John CollisonExactly. Very Gen Z of you.完全是你们 Z 世代的风格。
Dwarkesh PatelHow do you prevent advanced preparation? Do you call on them randomly?你怎么防止事先准备？随机点名吗？
Elon MuskNo, I just go around the room. Everyone provides an update. It’s a lot of information to keep in your head. If you have meetings weekly or twice weekly, you’ve got a snapshot of what that person said. You can then plot the progress points. You can sort of mentally plot the points on a curve and say, “are we converging to a solution or not?”不，我就是按顺序问一圈。每个人都提供一个更新。这需要在脑子里装很多信息。如果你每周或每两周开一次会，你对那个人上次说了什么有个快照。然后你就能把这些进度点在脑子里描绘出来，说，"我们在向解决方案收敛，还是没有？"
Elon MuskI’ll take drastic action only when I conclude that success is not in a set of possible outcomes. So when I finally reach the conclusion that unless drastic action is done, we have no chance of success, then I must take drastic action. I came to that conclusion in 2018, took drastic action and fixed the problem.只有当我得出结论——成功已经不在可能的结果集里了——我才会采取激烈行动。所以当我最终认定，除非采取激烈行动，否则我们毫无成功机会时，我就必须采取激烈行动。我在 2018 年得出了这个结论，采取了激烈行动，解决了问题。
Dwarkesh PatelYou’ve got many, many companies. In each of them it sounds like you do this kind of deep engineering understanding of what the relevant bottlenecks are so you can do these reviews with people.你管着很多很多家公司。听起来在每一家，你都对相关瓶颈有这种深入的工程层面的理解，这样你才能对人们进行那些评审。
Dwarkesh PatelYou’ve been able to scale it up to five, six, seven companies. Within one of these companies, you have many different mini companies within them. What determines the max amount here? Because you have like 80 companies…?你已经把这套方式扩展到了五六七家公司。在其中任何一家公司内部，又有很多不同的小部门。这里的上限是什么？因为你有大概 80 家公司……？
Elon Musk80? No.80？没有。
Dwarkesh PatelBut you have so many already. That’s already remarkable.但你已经有那么多了。这本身就已经很了不起了。
John CollisonBy this current number.就目前的数量来看。
Dwarkesh PatelExactly.正是。
John CollisonWe can barely keep one company together.我们连一家公司都快撑不住了。
Elon MuskIt depends on the situation. I actually don’t have regular meetings with The Boring Company, so The Boring Company is sort of cruising along. Basically, if something is working well and making good progress, then there’s no point in me spending time on it.这得看情况。其实我和 The Boring Company 并没有定期开会，那边基本上在自己稳步推进。说白了，如果某件事进展顺利、势头不错，我就没必要把时间花在它上面。
Elon MuskI actually allocate time according to where the limiting factor. Where are things problematic? Where are we pushing against? What is holding us back? I focus, at the risk of saying the words too many times, on the limiting factor.我分配时间的依据是：瓶颈在哪里？哪里出了问题？我们在哪里遇到阻力？什么在拖我们的后腿？我专注于——说这个词说了太多遍了——限制因素。
Elon MuskThe irony is if something’s going really well, they don’t see much of me. But if something is going badly, they’ll see a lot of me. Or not even badly…有意思的是，如果某件事进展特别顺，他们反而很少见到我。但如果进展不好，他们就会频繁看到我。或者不一定是进展不好……
John CollisonIf something is the limiting factor.是成为限制因素的时候。
Elon MuskThe limiting factor, exactly. It’s not exactly going badly but it’s the thing that we need to make go faster.对，限制因素。不是说进展有多糟，而是这件事需要我们加快推进。
John CollisonWhen something’s a limiting factor at SpaceX or Tesla, are you talking weekly and daily with the engineer that’s working on it? How does that actually work?当 SpaceX 或 Tesla 出现限制因素的时候，你是每天、每周都在和负责的工程师沟通吗？实际上是怎么运作的？
Elon MuskMost things that are the limiting factor are weekly and some things are twice weekly. The AI5 chip review is twice weekly. Every Tuesday and Saturday is the chip review.大多数限制因素是每周跟进，有些是每两周一次。AI5 芯片的评审是每周两次，每周二和周六都有芯片评审。
John CollisonIs it open ended in how long it goes?时间是开放的吗？没有固定时长？
Elon MuskTechnically, yes, but usually it’s two or three hours. Sometimes less. It depends on how much information we’ve got to go through.理论上是的，但通常是两三个小时，有时更短，取决于需要过的信息量。
John CollisonThat’s another thing. I’m just trying to tease out the differences here because the outcomes seem quite different. I think it’s interesting to know what inputs are different. It feels like in the corporate world, one, like you were saying, the CEO doing engineering reviews does not always happen despite the fact that that is what the company is doing.这是另一个有意思的地方。我只是想梳理一下你们之间有什么不同，因为结果差异相当大。我觉得了解哪些输入不同是很有价值的。感觉在企业界，CEO 亲自做工程评审这件事并不常见，尽管那才是公司真正在做的事。
John CollisonBut then time is often pretty finely sliced into half hour meetings or even 15 minute meetings. It seems like you hold more open-ended, “We’re talking about it until we figure it out” type things.而且时间往往被切得很碎，半小时会议，甚至 15 分钟。感觉你开的会更开放——"我们谈，直到搞清楚为止"这种风格。
Elon MuskSometimes. But most of them seem to more or less stay on time. Today’s Starship engineering review went a bit longer because there were more topics to discuss. They’re trying to figure out how to scale to a million plus tons to orbit per year. It’s quite challenging.有时是这样。但大多数情况下时间还是基本可控的。今天的 Starship 工程评审稍微超时了一些，因为要讨论的议题更多。他们正在研究如何把入轨运力规模扩展到每年一百万吨以上，难度相当大。
Elon MuskDwarkesh PatelDwarkesh Patel
Elon MuskCan I ask a question? You said about Optimus and AI that they’re going to result in double digit growth rates within a matter of years.我能问个问题吗？你说 Optimus 和 AI 会在未来几年内带来两位数的增长速度。
Elon MuskOh, like the economy? Yes. I think that’s right.哦，你说的是经济整体？对，我认为是的。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat was the point of the DOGE cuts if the economy is going to grow so much?那 DOGE 削减开支的意义是什么？如果经济都要增长那么多的话？
Elon MuskWell, I think waste and fraud are not good things to have. I was actually pretty worried about... In the absence of AI and robotics, we’re actually totally screwed because the national debt is piling up like crazy. The interest payments to national debt exceed the military budget, which is a trillion dollars. So we have over a trillion dollars just in interest payments. I was pretty concerned about that. Maybe if I spend some time, we can slow down the bankruptcy of the United States and give us enough time for the AI and robots to help solve the national debt.嗯，我认为浪费和欺诈本身就是坏事，不管怎样都不应该有。我其实一度非常担心——如果没有 AI 和机器人，我们其实是彻底没戏的，因为国债正在疯狂堆积。光是国债的利息支出就已经超过了军费预算，而军费是一万亿美元。所以光利息支出我们就超过了一万亿。我当时非常担心这个问题。也许如果我花点时间，能稍微减缓美国走向破产的速度，给 AI 和机器人争取足够的时间来帮我们解决国债问题。
Elon MuskOr not help solve, it’s the only thing that could solve the national debt. We are 1000% going to go bankrupt as a country, and fail as a country, without AI and robots. Nothing else will solve the national debt. We just need enough time to build the AI and robots to not go bankrupt before then.或者说不是"帮助解决"，它是唯一能解决国债的东西。如果没有 AI 和机器人，这个国家 1000% 会破产，会垮掉。没有任何别的东西能解决国债。我们只需要争取足够的时间来把 AI 和机器人建起来，在那之前别先破产就行。
Dwarkesh PatelI guess the thing I’m curious about is, when DOGE starts you have this enormous ability to enact reform.我好奇的是，DOGE 刚启动的时候，你拥有巨大的能力来推动改革。
Elon MuskNot that enormous.也没那么巨大。
Dwarkesh PatelSure. I totally buy your point that it’s important that AI and robotics drive productivity improvements, drive GDP growth. But why not just directly go after the things you were pointing out, like the tariffs on certain components, or permitting?好吧。我完全接受你说的观点——AI 和机器人驱动生产力提升、拉动 GDP 增长，这很重要。但为什么不直接去解决你之前指出的那些问题，比如某些零部件的关税，或者许可审批？
Elon MuskI’m not the president. And it is very hard to cut things that are obvious waste and fraud, like ridiculous waste and fraud. What I discovered is that it’s extremely difficult even to cut very obvious waste and fraud from the government because the government has to operate on who’s complaining.我不是总统。要削减那些明摆着的浪费和欺诈，就连那种荒唐离谱的浪费和欺诈，都极其困难。我发现，即便是削减政府里最明显的浪费和欺诈，也难得要命，因为政府的运作逻辑就是看谁在投诉。
Elon MuskIf you cut off payments to fraudsters, they immediately come up with the most sympathetic sounding reasons to continue the payment. They don’t say, “Please keep the fraud going.” They’re like, “You’re killing baby pandas.” Meanwhile, no baby pandas are dying. They’re just making it up. The fraudsters are capable of coming up with extremely compelling, heart-wrenching stories that are false, but nonetheless sound sympathetic. That’s what happened.你一旦切断给骗子的款项，他们立刻就能编出最令人同情的理由来要求继续付款。他们不会说"请继续让这个骗局运转"，他们会说"你们在杀死小熊猫"。而实际上根本没有小熊猫在死。他们是在胡编。骗子有能力编出极其令人动容、催人泪下的故事，虽然是假的，但听起来却非常有感情。这就是实际发生的事。
Elon MuskPerhaps I should have known better. But I thought, wait, let’s try to cut some amount of waste and pork from the government. Maybe there shouldn’t be 20 million people marked as alive in Social Security who are definitely dead, and over the age of 115.也许我应该早就想到的。但我当时想，来，试着从政府里砍掉一些浪费和肥猪肉。社保数据库里被标记为在世的人里，有 2000 万人肯定已经死了，而且年龄超过 115 岁——这种事情不应该存在。
Elon MuskThe oldest American is 114. So it’s safe to say if somebody is 115 and marked as alive in the Social Security database, there’s either a typo… Somebody should call them and say, “We seem to have your birthday wrong, or we need to mark you as dead.” One of the two things.美国年龄最大的公民是 114 岁。所以可以有把握地说，如果一个人被标注为 115 岁且在社保数据库里显示为在世，要么是录入错误……应该有人打电话告诉他们："我们好像把你的生日搞错了，或者我们需要把你标记为已故。"两件事之一。
John CollisonVery intimidating call to get.接到那个电话一定很吓人。
Elon MuskWell, it seems like a reasonable thing. Say if their birthday is in the future and they have a Small Business Administration loan , and their birthday is 2165, we either have a typo or we have fraud. So we say, “we appear to have gotten the century of your birth incorrect.”嗯，这好像是个合理的事情。比如说，如果一个人的生日在未来，他们还有一笔小企业管理局（SBA）贷款，生日写的是 2165 年，那要么是录入错误，要么就是欺诈。所以我们会说："我们好像把您出生的世纪搞错了。"
John CollisonOr a great plot for a movie.或者是一个绝佳的电影剧本。
Elon MuskYes. That’s what I mean by, ludicrous fraud.对。这就是我说的那种荒唐的欺诈。
Dwarkesh PatelWere those people getting payments?那些人是在领取社保款项吗？
Elon MuskSome were getting payments from Social Security . But the main fraud vector was to mark somebody as alive in Social Security and then use every other government payment system to basically do fraud. Because what those other government payment systems do, they would simply do an “are you alive” check to the Social Security database. It’s a bank shot.有一部分确实在从社保领钱。但主要的欺诈套路是，把某个人在社保里标记为在世，然后利用政府所有其他的付款系统来实施欺诈。因为其他那些政府付款系统会简单地向社保数据库做一次"是否在世"的核查。这是一种间接银行操作。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat would you estimate is the total amount of fraud from this mechanism?你估计这种套路造成的欺诈总金额大概有多少？
Elon MuskBy the way, the Government Accountability Office has done these estimates before. I’m not the only one. In fact, I think the GAO did an analysis , a rough estimate of fraud during the Biden administration, and calculated it at roughly half a trillion dollars. So don’t take my word for it. Take a report issued during the Biden administration. How about that?顺便说一句，政府问责局（GAO）以前就做过这些估算，不是只有我一个人在说。事实上，我记得 GAO 在拜登政府期间做过一次分析，对欺诈的粗略估计是大约五千亿美元。所以不用听我一个人说，去看看拜登政府期间发布的报告就好了。怎么样？
Dwarkesh PatelFrom this Social Security mechanism?就是通过这个社保机制造成的吗？
Elon MuskIt’s one of many. It’s important to appreciate that the government is very ineffective at stopping fraud. It’s not like a company where, with stopping fraud, you’ve got a motivation because it’s affecting the earnings of your company. The government just prints more money. You need caring and competence. These are in short supply at the federal level.这只是其中之一。重要的是要认识到，政府在遏制欺诈方面非常无力。这和公司不一样——公司有动力去打击欺诈，因为那会直接影响公司的利润。而政府只要多印点钱就行了。你需要有人有能力、有心思去管。这两样在联邦层面都非常稀缺。
Elon MuskWhen you go to the DMV, do you think, “Wow, this is a bastion of competence”? Well, now imagine it’s worse than the DMV because it’s the DMV that can print money.你去车管所（DMV）的时候，会觉得"哇，这里真是高效之地"吗？好，现在想象一下，比 DMV 还要糟——因为这是一个可以印钱的 DMV。
Elon MuskAt least the state level DMVs need to... The states more or less need to stay within their budget or they go bankrupt. But the federal government just prints more money.至少各州的 DMV 得……各州多少还得量入为出，否则会破产。但联邦政府就直接印钱。
Dwarkesh PatelIf there’s actually half a trillion of fraud, why was it not possible to cut all that?如果真的有五千亿的欺诈，为什么没办法全部砍掉？
Elon MuskYou really have to stand back and recalibrate your expectations for competence. Because you’re operating in a world where you’ve got to make ends meet. You’ve got to pay your bills...你真的得退一步，重新校准自己对能力的预期。因为你活在一个必须收支平衡的世界里，你得付账单……
Dwarkesh PatelFind the microphones.找麦克风。
Elon MuskExactly. It’s not like there’s a giant, largely uncaring monster bureaucracy. It’s a bunch of anachronistic computers that are just sending payments. One of the things that the DOGE team did sounds so simple and probably will save $100-200 billion a year. It was simply requiring payments from the main Treasury computer—which is called PAM, Payment Accounts Master or something like that, there’s $5 trillion payments a year—that go out have a payment appropriation code . Make it mandatory, not optional, that you have anything at all in the comment field.对。这不是说有什么庞大的、漠然的官僚怪兽在运作。这只是一堆过时的电脑在源源不断地打款。DOGE 团队做的其中一件事听起来极其简单，但可能每年能省下 1000 到 2000 亿美元。就是要求从财政部主计算机——叫 PAM，好像是 Payment Accounts Master 什么的，每年流出 5 万亿美元的款项——所有出款必须附带拨款代码。强制性的，不是可选的，comment 栏里必须填点什么。
Elon MuskYou have to recalibrate how dumb things are. Payments were being sent out with no appropriation code , not checking back to any congressional appropriation, and with no explanation. This is why the Department of War, formerly the Department of Defense, cannot pass an audit, because the information is literally not there. Recalibrate your expectations.你得重新校准对事情有多离谱的认知。款项出去时没有拨款代码，没有和任何国会拨款挂钩，也没有任何说明。这就是为什么国防部，原来叫战争部，通不过审计——因为信息根本就不存在。重新校准你的预期吧。
Dwarkesh PatelI want to better understand this half a trillion number, because there’s an IG report in 2024 .我想更好地理解这五千亿的数字，因为 2024 年有一份监察长报告。
Elon MuskWhy is it so low?为什么这么低？
Dwarkesh PatelMaybe, but we found that over seven years, the Social Security fraud they estimated was like $70 billion over seven years, so like $10 billion a year. So I’d be curious to see what the other $490 billion is.也许是吧，但我们查到的那份报告显示，在七年时间里，社保欺诈估计约为 700 亿美元，也就是每年约 100 亿。我很好奇剩下那 4900 亿是从哪来的。
Elon MuskFederal government expenditures are $7.5 trillion a year. How competent do you think the government is?联邦政府每年的支出是 7.5 万亿美元。你觉得政府有多高效？
Dwarkesh PatelThe discretionary spending there is like… 15%?其中自由裁量支出大概……15%？
Elon MuskBut it doesn’t matter. Most of the fraud is non-discretionary. It’s basically fraudulent Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, disability. There’s a zillion government payments. A bunch of these payments are in fact block transfers to the states. So the federal government doesn’t even have the information in a lot of cases to even know if there’s fraud.但这无所谓。大部分欺诈都不在自由裁量支出里。主要是 Medicare、Medicaid、社保、残障金等方面的欺诈。政府的付款项目多如牛毛。其中大量款项实际上是以打包拨款形式转给各州的。所以联邦政府在很多情况下甚至根本没有信息，不知道有没有欺诈。
Elon MuskLet’s consider reductio ad absurdum. The government is perfect and has no fraud. What is your probability estimate of that? Zero. Okay, so then would you say, fraud and waste at the government is 90% efficient? That also would be quite generous.来做个反归谬法推演：政府是完美的，零欺诈。你觉得这个概率是多少？零。好，那你会说，政府的浪费和欺诈有 90% 的效率吗？那已经很慷慨了。
Elon MuskBut if it’s only 90%, that means that there’s $750 billion a year of waste and fraud. And it’s not 90%. It’s not 90% effective.但如果只有 90% 的效率，那就意味着每年有 7500 亿的浪费和欺诈。而实际上远不止 90%。它根本没有 90% 有效率。
Dwarkesh PatelThis seems like a strange way to first principles the amount of fraud in the government. Just like, how much do you think there is?这种推算政府欺诈规模的方式感觉挺奇特的。就是，你到底觉得有多少？
Dwarkesh PatelAnyways, we don’t have to do it live, but I’d be curious—无论如何，我们不用现场算，但我很好奇——
Elon MuskYou know a lot about fraud at Stripe? People are constantly trying to do fraud.你在 Stripe 了解很多欺诈的事吧？人们一直在不断地尝试欺诈。
John CollisonYeah, but as you say, it’s a little bit of a... We’ve really ground it down, but it’s a little bit of a different problem space because you’re dealing with a much more heterogeneous set of fraud vectors here than we are.是的，但就像你说的，这有点……我们已经把欺诈压得很低了，但问题性质还是有点不一样，因为你们面对的欺诈向量要比我们复杂得多。
Elon MuskBut at Stripe, you have high competence and you try hard. You have high competence and high caring, but still fraud is non-zero. Now imagine it’s at a much bigger scale, there’s much less competence, and much less caring.但在 Stripe，你们有很高的能力，而且很用心。高能力、高投入，欺诈依然不是零。现在想象一下，规模大得多，能力却少得多，投入也少得多。
Elon MuskAt PayPal back in the day, we tried to manage fraud down to about 1% of the payment volume. That was very difficult. It took a tremendous amount of competence and caring to get fraud merely to 1%. Now imagine that you’re an organization where there’s much less caring and much less competence. It’s going to be much more than 1%.在 PayPal 早年，我们努力把欺诈控制在支付金额的 1% 左右。这极其困难。要把欺诈压到仅仅 1%，需要极大的能力和投入。现在想象一下，如果是一个能力弱得多、投入少得多的组织，欺诈比例会远超 1%。
John CollisonHow do you feel now looking back on politics and doing stuff there? Looking from the outside in, two things have been quite impactful: one, the America PAC , and two, the acquisition of Twitter at the time. But also it seems like there was a bunch of heartache. What’s your grading of the whole experience?现在回头看你在政治上的那段经历，感觉如何？从外部看，有两件事的影响相当显著：一是 America PAC，二是当年收购 Twitter。但同时看起来也经历了不少痛苦。对整段经历，你怎么打分？
Elon MuskI think those things needed to be done to maximize the probability that the future is good. Politics generally is very tribal. People lose their objectivity usually with politics. They generally have trouble seeing the good on the other side or the bad on their own side. That’s generally how it goes. That, I guess, was one of the things that surprised me the most.我认为那些事是必须做的，为了最大化未来走向美好的概率。政治总体上是非常部落化的。人们在政治上通常会丧失客观性。他们一般很难看到对方阵营的好处，也很难看到自己阵营的问题。这大概就是让我最意外的事情之一。
Elon MuskYou often simply cannot reason with people. If they’re in one tribe or the other. They simply believe that everything their tribe does is good and anything the other political tribe does is bad. Persuading them otherwise is almost impossible.很多时候你根本没法和人讲道理。如果他们属于某个阵营，他们就会简单地认为自己阵营做的一切都是好的，对方政治阵营做的一切都是坏的。要说服他们改变想法几乎不可能。
Elon MuskBut I think overall those actions—acquiring Twitter, getting Trump elected, even though it makes a lot of people angry—I think those actions were good for civilization.但我认为总体而言，那些行动——收购 Twitter、帮 Trump 当选，尽管这让很多人愤怒——我认为这些行动对文明是有益的。
Dwarkesh PatelHow does it feed into the future you’re excited about?这跟你憧憬的未来有什么关系？
Elon MuskWell, America needs to be strong enough to last long enough to extend life to other planets and to get AI and robotics to the point where we can ensure that the future is good.嗯，美国需要强大到足以撑得足够久，让我们能把生命延伸到其他星球，让 AI 和机器人发展到我们能确保未来是美好的那一步。
Elon MuskOn the other hand, if we were to descend into, say, communism or some situation where the state was extremely oppressive, that would mean that we might not be able to become multi-planetary. The state might stamp out our progress in AI and robotics.反过来，如果我们陷入共产主义或者某种极度压迫性的国家体制，那就意味着我们可能再也无法成为多星球物种。国家可能会扼杀我们在 AI 和机器人方面的进步。
Dwarkesh PatelOptimus, Grok, et cetera. Not just yours, but any revenue-maximizing company’s products will be leveraged by the government over time. How does this concern manifest in what private companies should be willing to give governments? What kinds of guardrails?Optimus、Grok 等等——不只是你的，任何以盈利为目标的公司，其产品迟早会被政府所用。这种担忧如何体现在私人公司应该愿意为政府提供什么上？应该设置什么样的护栏？
Dwarkesh PatelShould AI models be made to do whatever the government that has contracted them out to do and asks them to do? Should Grok get to say, “Actually, even if the military wants to do X, no, Grok will not do that”?AI 模型应该照单全收地去做被其合同政府要求做的事吗？Grok 可以说"即使军方想做某件事，不，Grok 不会那么做"吗？
Elon MuskI think maybe the biggest danger of AI and robotics going wrong is government. People who are opposed to corporations or worried about corporations should really worry the most about government. Because government is just a corporation in the limit. Government is just the biggest corporation with a monopoly on violence.我认为，AI 和机器人可能最大的危险来自政府。那些反对企业、担心企业的人，其实应该最担心政府。因为政府到了极致就是一家公司。政府就是拥有暴力垄断权的最大公司。
Elon MuskI always find it a strange dichotomy where people would think corporations are bad, but the government is good, when the government is simply the biggest and worst corporation. But people have that dichotomy. They somehow think at the same time that government can be good, but corporations bad, and this is not true. Corporations have better morality than the government.我一直觉得这种二元对立很奇怪——人们会觉得企业是坏的，但政府是好的，而政府明明就是最大、最糟糕的公司。但人们就是有这种思维定势。他们同时相信政府可以是好的、企业是坏的，这根本不成立。企业的道德水准比政府要高。
Elon MuskI actually think it’s a thing to be worried about. The government could potentially use AI and robotics to suppress the population. That is a serious concern.我确实认为这是一个值得担忧的问题。政府有可能利用 AI 和机器人来压制民众。这是一个严肃的隐患。
Dwarkesh PatelAs the guy building AI and robotics, how do you prevent that?作为正在构建 AI 和机器人的人，你怎么防止这种情况？
Elon MuskIf you limit the powers of government, which is really what the US Constitution is intended to do, to limit the powers of government, then you’re probably going to have a better outcome than if you have more government.如果你能限制政府的权力——这其实正是美国宪法想做的事，就是限制政府权力——那么结果很可能比政府权力更大时要好。
John CollisonRobotics will be available to all governments, right?机器人会对所有政府都可用，对吧？
Elon MuskI don’t know about all governments. It’s difficult to predict. I can say what’s the endpoint, or what is many years in the future, but it’s difficult to predict the path along that way. If civilization progresses, AI will vastly exceed the sum of all human intelligence. There will be far more robots than humans. Along the way what happens is very difficult to predict.我不知道是否所有政府都能用到。这很难预测。我可以说终点是什么，或者很多年后会是什么样，但沿途会发生什么很难预测。如果文明持续进步，AI 将会远远超过人类所有智能的总和。机器人的数量将远多于人类。沿途会发生什么，非常难以预判。
Dwarkesh PatelIt seems one thing you could do is just say, “whatever government X, you’re not allowed to use Optimus to do X, Y, Z.” Just write out a policy. I think you tweeted recently that Grok should have a moral constitution . One of those things could be that we limit what governments are allowed to do with this advanced technology.感觉你可以做一件事，就是直接说："政府 X，你们不被允许用 Optimus 来做 X、Y、Z。"就写出一个政策。我记得你最近发推提到 Grok 应该有一部道德宪法。其中之一可以是，限制政府被允许用这种先进技术来做什么。
Elon MuskTechnically if politicians pass a law and they can enforce that law, then it’s hard to not do that law. The best thing we can have is limited government where you have the appropriate crosschecks between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches.从技术上讲，如果政客通过了一部法律，而他们能执行这部法律，那就很难不遵从这部法律。我们能拥有的最好状态，是一个有限政府——行政、司法、立法三权之间有适当的相互制衡。
Dwarkesh PatelThe reason I’m curious about it is that at some point it seems the limits will come from you. You’ve got the Optimus, you’ve got the space GPUs…我好奇这个问题的原因是，在某个时间点，限制感觉会来自你。你手上有 Optimus，有太空 GPU……
Elon MuskYou think I’ll be the boss of the government?你觉得我会成为政府的老板？
Dwarkesh PatelAlready it’s the case with SpaceX that for things that are crucial—the government really cares about getting certain satellites up in space or whatever—it needs SpaceX. It is the necessary contractor.就 SpaceX 来说，现在对于那些至关重要的事情——政府非常在意某些卫星能否送上天之类的——它需要 SpaceX。SpaceX 就是那个不可或缺的承包商。
Dwarkesh PatelYou are in the process of building more and more of the technological components of the future that will have an analogous role in different industries. You could have this ability to set some policy that suppressing classical liberalism in any way… “My companies will not help in any way with that”, or some policy like that.你正在构建越来越多的未来技术组件，这些组件在不同行业都会扮演类似的角色。你可以设定一些政策，比如以任何方式压制古典自由主义……"我的公司不会以任何方式参与"，或者类似的政策。
Elon MuskI will do my best to ensure that anything that’s within my control maximizes the good outcome for humanity. I think anything else would be shortsighted, because obviously I’m part of humanity, so I like humans. Pro human.我会尽我所能，确保在我控制范围内的一切都能最大化对人类的好的结果。我认为任何其他做法都是短视的，因为显然我也是人类的一部分，所以我喜欢人类。亲人类。
Elon MuskDwarkesh PatelDwarkesh Patel
Elon MuskYou mentioned that Dojo 3 will be used for space-based compute.你提到 Dojo 3 将用于太空计算。
Elon MuskYou really read what I say.你真的认真读我说的话。
Dwarkesh PatelI don’t know if you know, Elon, but you have a lot of followers.Elon，不知道你有没有意识到，你有非常多的粉丝。
Elon MuskDead giveaway. How did you discern my secrets? Oh I posted them on X.太明显了。你是怎么发现我秘密的？哦，我把它们发在 X 上了。
Dwarkesh PatelHow do you design a chip for space? What changes?你是如何为太空设计芯片的？有什么变化？
Elon MuskYou want to design it to be more radiation tolerant and run at a higher temperature. Roughly, if you increase the operating temperature by 20% in degrees Kelvin, you can cut your radiator mass in half. So running at a higher temperature is helpful in space.你要让它更耐辐射、能在更高温度下运行。大致来说，如果把运行温度（以开尔文度数计）提高 20%，散热板的质量可以减少一半。所以在太空中，在更高温度下运行是有优势的。
Elon MuskThere are various things you can do for shielding the memory. But neural nets are going to be very resilient to bit flips . Most of what happens for radiation is random bit flips. But if you’ve got a multi-trillion parameter model and you get a few bit flips, it doesn’t matter. Heuristic programs are going to be much more sensitive to bit flips than some giant parameter file.内存屏蔽方面可以做各种处理。但神经网络对位翻转（bit flip）的容忍度会很高。辐射主要造成的就是随机位翻转。但如果你有一个数万亿参数的模型，发生几次位翻转根本无所谓。启发式程序对位翻转的敏感度，会比一个庞大的参数文件高得多。
Elon MuskI just design it to run hot. I think you pretty much do it the same way that you do things on Earth, apart from making it run hotter.我就是把它设计成能耐高温运行。我认为基本上和在地球上做的方式一样，除了让它跑得更热。
Dwarkesh PatelThe solar array is most of the weight on the satellite. Is there a way to make the GPUs even more powerful than what Nvidia and TPUs and et cetera are planning on doing that would be especially privileged in the space-based world?太阳能电池阵列占卫星大部分重量。有没有办法让 GPU 比 Nvidia、TPU 等现有和规划中的方案更强大，尤其是在太空这个特殊环境里拥有独特优势？
Elon MuskThe basic math is, if you can do about a kilowatt per reticle , then you’d need 100 million full reticle chips to do 100 gigawatts. Depending on what your yield assumptions are, that tells you how many chips you need to make. If you’re going to have 100 gigawatts of power, you need 100 million chips that are running at a kilowatt sustained, per reticle. Basic math.基本数学是这样的：如果每个光刻场（reticle）能跑约 1 千瓦，那么要做到 100 吉瓦，就需要 1 亿块满光刻场尺寸的芯片。根据你对良品率的假设，就能算出需要制造多少颗芯片。如果要有 100 吉瓦的算力，就需要 1 亿颗持续功耗 1 千瓦的全光刻场芯片。基本数学。
Dwarkesh Patel100 million chips depends on… If you look at the die size of something like Blackwell GPUs or something, and how many you can get out of a wafer , you can get on the order of dozens or less per wafer. So basically, this is a world where if we’re putting that out every single year, you’re producing millions of wafers a month. That’s the plan with TeraFab? Millions of wafers a month of advanced process nodes?1 亿颗芯片，这取决于……如果你看看 Blackwell GPU 或类似产品的晶粒尺寸，每片晶圆（wafer）能切出的数量大概只有几十颗甚至更少。所以基本上，如果每年都要达到这个规模，你每个月要生产数百万片晶圆。TeraFab 的计划就是这样？每月数百万片先进制程节点的晶圆？
Elon MuskYeah it could be north of a million or something. You’ve got to do the memory too.对，可能超过一百万片或什么。内存也得同步做。
Dwarkesh PatelAre you going to make a memory fab?你要建内存晶圆厂吗？
Elon MuskI think the TeraFab’s got to do memory. It’s got to do logic, memory, and packaging .我认为 TeraFab 必须做内存。逻辑、内存、封装，三样都得做。
Dwarkesh PatelI’m very curious how somebody gets started. This is the most complicated thing man has ever made. Obviously, if anybody’s up to the task, you’re up to the task. So you realize it’s a bottleneck, and you go to your engineers. What do you tell them to do? “I want a million wafers a month in 2030.”我非常好奇一个人是如何起步的。这是人类有史以来制造过的最复杂的东西。显然如果有谁能胜任，你能。所以你意识到这是瓶颈，然后去找你的工程师。你告诉他们什么？"我要在 2030 年每月生产一百万片晶圆。"
Elon MuskThat’s right. That’s exactly what I want.没错。这正是我想要的。
Dwarkesh PatelDo you call ASML? What is the next step?你会打电话给 ASML 吗？下一步是什么？
John CollisonNo so much to ask.有太多要问的了。
Elon MuskWe make a little fab and see what happens. Make our mistakes at a small scale and then make a big one.先建一个小型晶圆厂，看看会发生什么。在小规模上犯错，然后再建大的。
Dwarkesh PatelIs a little fab done?小型晶圆厂建好了吗？
Elon MuskNo, it’s not done. We’re not going to keep that cat in the bag. That cat’s going to come out of the bag. There’ll be drones hovering over the bloody thing. You’ll be able to see its construction progress on X in real time.没有，还没建好。但这件事我们不会藏着掖着的。猫总会从袋子里跳出来。到时候上面会有无人机盘旋，你可以在 X 上实时看到建设进度。
Elon MuskLook, I don’t know, we could just flounder in failure, to be fair. Success is not guaranteed. Since we want to try to make something like 100 million… We want 100 gigawatts of power and chips that can take 100 gigawatts by 2030. We’ll take as many chips as our suppliers will give us. I’ve actually said this to TSMC and Samsung and Micron : “please build more fabs faster”. We will guarantee to buy the output of those fabs. So they’re already moving as fast as they can. It’s us plus them.说实话，我不知道，我们可能会一败涂地，这是有可能的。成功不是保证的。既然我们想做到大约 1 亿颗……我们想要在 2030 年前拥有 100 吉瓦的电力和能承受 100 吉瓦的芯片。我们会接受供应商能给多少就给多少的芯片。事实上我已经当面跟 TSMC、Samsung、Micron 说过："请更快地建更多晶圆厂。"我们保证包下这些晶圆厂的全部产能。所以他们已经在全力以赴了。是我们加上他们一起。
John CollisonThere’s a narrative that the people doing AI want a very large number of chips as quickly as possible. Then many of the input suppliers, the fabs, but also the turbine manufacturers, are not ramping up production very quickly.有一种说法是，做 AI 的人希望尽快拿到大量芯片。而很多上游供应商——包括晶圆厂，还有涡轮机制造商——产能爬坡的速度都很慢。
Elon MuskNo, they’re not.确实不快。
John CollisonThe explanation you hear is that they’re dispositionally conservative. They’re Taiwanese or German, as the story may be. They just don’t believe... Is that really the explanation or is there something else?你听到的解释是他们天性保守。他们是台湾人或者德国人，情况各有不同。他们就是不信……这真的是原因，还是另有隐情？
Elon MuskWell, it’s reasonable to... If somebody’s been in the computer memory business for 30 or 40 years…嗯，这也是可以理解的……如果有人在存储芯片行业做了三四十年……
John CollisonThey’ve seen cycles.他们见过周期。
Elon MuskThey’ve seen boom and bust 10 times. That’s a lot of layers of scar tissue. During the boom times, it looks like everything is going to be great forever. Then the crash happens and they’re desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy. Then there’s another boom and another crash.他们见过十次繁荣与衰退了。那是非常深的伤疤。在繁荣的时候，感觉一切都会永远这么好下去。然后崩盘来了，他们拼命想避免破产。然后又是一次繁荣，又是一次崩盘。
John CollisonAre there other ideas you think others should go pursue that you’re not for whatever reasons right now?有没有一些你认为别人应该去追求但你出于各种原因现在不会做的想法？
Elon MuskThere are a few companies that are pursuing new ways of doing chips, but they’re just not scaling fast.确实有几家公司在尝试新的芯片制造方式，但规模扩张的速度就是不够快。
John CollisonI don’t even mean within AI, I mean just generally.我甚至不是说 AI 领域内的，我说的是更宽泛的。
Elon MuskPeople should do the thing where they find that they’re highly motivated to do that thing, as opposed to some idea that I suggest. They should do the thing that they find personally interesting and motivating to do.人们应该去做那些让自己有强烈内驱力的事，而不是我建议的某个想法。他们应该做自己觉得真正有趣、有动力去做的事。
Elon MuskBut going back to the limiting factor… I used that phrase about 100 times. The current limiting factor that I see in the three to four year timeframe, it’s chips. In the one year timeframe, it’s energy, power production, electricity. It’s not clear to me that there’s enough usable electricity to turn on all the AI chips that are being made.但回到限制因素……我已经用了这个词大概 100 次了。我现在看到的、三到四年时间框架内的限制因素，是芯片。在一年的时间框架内，是能源，是电力生产，是电。我不确定是否有足够可用的电力来开启所有正在被制造的 AI 芯片。
Elon MuskTowards the end of this year, I think people are going to have real trouble turning on... The chip output will exceed the ability to turn chips on.今年年底左右，我认为人们会真的开始遇到麻烦——芯片产出将会超过能够将其开机的能力。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat’s your plan to deal with that world?你打算如何应对那个世界？
Elon MuskWe’re trying to accelerate electricity production. I guess that’s maybe one of the reasons that xAI will be maybe the leader, hopefully the leader. We’ll be able to turn on more chips than other people can turn on, faster, because we’re good at hardware.我们在努力加快电力生产。我想这也许是 xAI 有可能成为领跑者、希望成为领跑者的原因之一。我们能比其他人更快地开启更多芯片，因为我们擅长硬件。
Elon MuskGenerally, the innovations from the corporations that call themselves labs, the ideas tend to flow… It’s rare to see that there’s more than about a six-month difference. The ideas travel back and forth with the people.总体而言，那些自称实验室的公司之间的创新，思路的传播……很少看到超过六个月的差距。想法随着人员的流动在各方之间来回传播。
Elon MuskSo I think you sort of hit the hardware wall and then whichever company can scale hardware the fastest will be the leader. So I think xAI will be able to scale hardware the fastest and therefore most likely will be the leader.所以我认为你会撞上硬件的墙，然后谁能最快扩展硬件，谁就是领跑者。所以我认为 xAI 能够最快扩展硬件，因此最有可能成为领跑者。
John CollisonYou joked or were self-conscious about using the “limiting factor” phrase again. But I actually think there’s something deep here. If you look at a lot of things we’ve touched on over the course of it, it’s maybe a good note to end on. If you think of a senescent, low-agency company, it would have some bottleneck and not really be doing anything about it.你对再次说"限制因素"这个词感到有些自嘲。但我认为这里有些深层的东西。如果你看一下我们今天聊到的很多内容，这也许是个很好的收尾。一家暮气沉沉、缺乏行动力的公司，会有某个瓶颈，但基本上什么都不去做。
John CollisonMarc Andreessen had the line of, “ most people are willing to endure any amount of chronic pain to avoid acute pain ”. It feels like a lot of the cases we’re talking about are just leaning into the acute pain, whatever it is. “Okay, we got to figure out how to work with steel, or we got to figure out how to run the chips in space.” We’ll take some near-term acute pain to actually solve the bottleneck. So that’s kind of a unifying theme.Marc Andreessen 有句话说："大多数人宁愿忍受任何程度的慢性疼痛，也不愿面对急性疼痛。"我们谈到的很多案例，感觉就是主动去承受那种急性疼痛，不管是什么。"好，我们得搞清楚怎么使用钢材，或者得搞清楚怎么在太空里跑芯片。"承受近期的急性疼痛，来真正解决瓶颈。这算是一个贯穿始终的主题。
Elon MuskI have a high pain threshold. That’s helpful.我对疼痛的阈值很高。这很有用。
John CollisonTo solve the bottleneck.为了解决瓶颈。
Elon MuskYes. One thing I can say is, I think the future is going to be very interesting. As I said at Davos —I think I was on the ground for like three hours or something—it’s better to err on the side of optimism and be wrong than err on the side of pessimism and be right, for quality of life. You’ll be happier if you err on the side of optimism rather than erring on the side of pessimism. So I recommend erring on the side of optimism.对。有一件事我可以说：我认为未来会非常有趣。就像我在达沃斯说的——我好像在那里待了三个小时左右——宁可在乐观上犯错也比在悲观上犯错好，这对生活质量更有益。如果你在乐观一边犯错，你会更快乐，而不是在悲观一边犯错。所以我建议往乐观的方向犯错。
John CollisonHere’s to that.为此干杯。
Dwarkesh PatelCool. Elon, thanks for doing this.好的。Elon，感谢你来参加这次对话。
John CollisonThank you.谢谢。
Elon MuskAll right, thanks guys. All right.好，谢谢各位。好。
John CollisonGreat stamina.体力真好。
Dwarkesh PatelHopefully this didn’t count as a pain in the pain tolerance.希望这对你的疼痛阈值来说不算是一种折磨。
Dwarkesh Patel(02:20:08) - DOGE(02:20:08) - DOGE
Dwarkesh Patel(02:38:28) - TeraFab(02:38:28) - TeraFab
Elon MuskHoly fuck man.我的老天。
Dwarkesh PatelYou tell me.你说吧。
Dwarkesh Patel36 months?36 个月？
Elon MuskLess than 36 months.不到 36 个月。
Elon MuskThat\u2019s what we did.这就是我们做的。
John CollisonOkay.好的。
John CollisonAll the cooling and everything.所有的冷却系统什么的。
John CollisonSorry, say that again.不好意思，再说一遍。
John CollisonWhich is...也就是说……
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Elon MuskA lot of airports.很多机场。
Dwarkesh PatelIs this mostly inference or?这主要是推理（inference）还是？
Dwarkesh PatelVery general.非常通用。
Dwarkesh PatelTell me about it.说来听听。
Dwarkesh PatelBut for the process technology?但工艺技术呢？
John CollisonPartner for the IP.合作伙伴来提供 IP。
John CollisonBoring Company -style.Boring Company 那种风格。
Elon MuskNo.不。
John CollisonOkay.好的。
John CollisonNo.不。
Elon MuskOkay.好。
Elon MuskYeah.是的。
Dwarkesh PatelI agree.我同意。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Elon MuskEverything.一切。
Elon MuskFor now.目前是这样。
Elon MuskReality is the best verifier.现实是最好的验证器。
Dwarkesh PatelThat\u2019s right.没错。
John CollisonY.Y。
John CollisonBy design.这是设计使然。
Dwarkesh PatelYeah.是啊。
John CollisonIt\u2019s a good system.这是个好系统。
Dwarkesh PatelWhat a hack.这个 hack 真妙。
John CollisonStart roaming the streets.开始在大街上游荡了。
John CollisonHigh-value files.高价值文件。
John CollisonDo they FTP them?他们用 FTP 传文件吗？
Dwarkesh PatelIsn\u2019t that... training?这不就是……训练数据吗？
Dwarkesh PatelThe psyop goes deep, Elon.这个心理战埋得很深，Elon。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
John CollisonBut more capable.但能力更强。
John CollisonSolar tariffs.太阳能关税。
John CollisonWhat else would you change?还有什么你会改变的？
John CollisonIt\u2019s very impressive.非常令人印象深刻。
Elon MuskSupply chain dependence?供应链依赖？
Elon MuskWell, we\u2019ll see. Maybe.嗯，走着瞧吧。也许吧。
John CollisonMany superlatives.用了很多最高级。
John CollisonAh, I see. Okay.啊，我明白了。好。
Dwarkesh PatelInteresting.有意思。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Elon MuskIt obviously doesn\u2019t scale.这显然无法规模化。
Elon MuskMe.我。
Elon MuskSurprising reasons\u2026出乎意料的原因……
John CollisonYou outgrew people.你把人都用超了。
John CollisonIn Brownsville, Texas\u2026在德克萨斯州 Brownsville……
John CollisonKeep going.继续。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
John CollisonDelicious.妙啊。
John CollisonIn what regards?在哪些方面？
Dwarkesh PatelIt\u2019s actually insane.这真的是太疯狂了。
John CollisonIt\u2019s a great comparison.这个类比很妙。
Elon MuskWhile not exploding.同时不爆炸。
John CollisonSometimes.有时候。
John CollisonYes.是的。
John CollisonFair.有道理。
Elon MuskI don\u2019t know.我也不知道。
John CollisonIt\u2019s adding urgency?这是不是在增加紧迫感？
Elon Musk80? No.80？不是。
John CollisonBy this current number.按这个现在的数字来看。
Dwarkesh PatelExactly.正是。
Elon MuskNot that enormous.也没那么庞大。
John CollisonVery intimidating call to get.接到这个电话真是压力山大。
Dwarkesh PatelWere those people getting payments?那些人当时在领款吗？
Dwarkesh PatelFrom this Social Security mechanism?是通过这个 Social Security 机制领的吗？
Dwarkesh PatelFind the microphones.找找麦克风。
Elon MuskWhy is it so low?为什么这么低？
John CollisonNo so much to ask.这不算什么过分的要求。
Dwarkesh PatelIs a little fab done?小型芯片厂建好了吗？
Elon MuskNo, they\u2019re not.没有，还没有。
John CollisonThey\u2019ve seen cycles.他们见过周期起伏。
John CollisonTo solve the bottleneck.来解决这个瓶颈问题。
John CollisonHere\u2019s to that.为此干一杯。
John CollisonThank you.谢谢。
John CollisonGreat stamina.体力真好。