Chris AndersonElon Musk, great to see you. How are you?Elon Musk，很高兴见到你。你好吗？
Elon MuskGood, how are you?挺好的，你呢？
Chris AndersonI mean, we’re here at the Texas Gigafactory, the day before this thing opens. It’s been pretty crazy out there. Thank you so much for making time on a busy day.我的意思是，我们现在就在德克萨斯 Gigafactory，就在这里正式开幕的前一天。外面真是热闹极了。感谢你在这么繁忙的一天还抽时间来接受采访。
Elon MuskYou’re welcome.不客气。
Chris AndersonI would love you to help us, kind of, cast our minds, I don’t know, 10, 20, 30 years into the future, and help us try to picture what it would take to build a future that’s worth getting excited about. You’ve often said that. The last time you spoke at Ted, you said that that was really just a big driver. You know, you talk about lots of other reasons to do the work you’re doing, but fundamentally, you want to think about the future and not think that it sucks.我很想请你帮我们展望一下未来，也许是 10 年、20 年、30 年后，帮我们想象一下，要打造一个真正令人振奋的未来，需要什么。你经常这么说。上次你在 TED 演讲时也说过，这是你最大的驱动力。你谈到了做这些事情的很多其他理由，但归根结底，你想着眼于未来，而不是认为未来很糟糕。
Elon MuskYeah, absolutely. I think in general, you know, there’s a lot of discussion of like this problem or that problem. A lot of people are sad about the future, and they’re pessimistic. I think this is not great. I mean, we really want to wake up in the morning and look forward to the future. We want to be excited about what’s gonna happen. Life cannot simply be about sort of solving one miserable problem after another.对，完全是这样。我觉得总体上，大家讨论这个问题那个问题，很多人对未来感到悲观沮丧，我认为这不好。我们真的应该每天早上起来都期待未来，对即将发生的事感到兴奋。人生不能只是解决一个又一个令人痛苦的问题。
Chris AndersonSo, if you look forward 30 years, you know, the year 2050 has been labeled by scientists as this, kind of, almost like this doomsday deadline on climate. There’s a consensus of scientists, a large consensus of scientists, who believe that if we haven’t completely eliminated greenhouse gases, or offset them completely by 2050, effectively, we’re inviting climate catastrophe. Do you believe there is a pathway to avoid that catastrophe? And what would it look like?那么，如果你展望 30 年后，科学家们把 2050 年定为气候问题的某种末日截止线。有大量科学家形成共识，认为如果到 2050 年我们还没有彻底消除温室气体排放或将其完全抵消，实际上就是在招致气候灾难。你认为有没有一条避开灾难的路径？那条路会是什么样的？
Elon MuskYeah, I am not one of the doomsday people, which may surprise you. I actually think we’re on a good path. But at the same time, I want to caution against complacency. So, so long as we are not complacent, as long as we have a high sense of urgency about moving towards a sustainable energy economy, then I think things will be fine. I can’t emphasize that enough, as long as we push hard and are not complacent, the future is gonna be great. Don’t worry about it. I mean, worry about it. But if you worry about it, ironically, it will be a self-unfulfilling prophecy.是的，我不是那种末日论者，这或许会让你意外。我实际上认为我们走在正确的轨道上。但同时，我也要警告大家不要自满。只要我们不自满，只要我们对推进可持续能源经济保持高度紧迫感，我认为一切都会好起来。这一点我怎么强调都不为过——只要我们奋力向前、不自满，未来就会很美好。别担心了。当然，你担心也是对的。但讽刺的是，如果你担心，反而会让那个坏结果不会发生——担忧会成为一个自我颠覆的预言。
Elon MuskThere are three elements to a sustainable energy future. One is obviously sustainable energy generation, which is primarily wind and solar. There’s also hydro, geothermal. I’m actually pro-nuclear. I think nuclear is fine. And it’s going to be primarily solar and wind as the primary generators of energy. The second part is you need batteries to store the solar and wind energy because the sun doesn’t shine all the time, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. So, this needs a lot of stationary battery packs. And then you need electric transport, electric cars, electric planes, boats. And then ultimately, it’s not really possible to make electric rockets, but you can make the propellant used in rockets using sustainable energy.可持续能源未来有三个要素。一是显而易见的可持续能源发电，主要是风能和太阳能，还有水电、地热。我其实支持核能，我认为核能没问题。但主要的发电来源将是太阳能和风能。第二个要素是你需要电池来储存太阳能和风能，因为太阳不是一直照耀，风也不是一直吹，所以需要大量固定式储能电池组。第三个要素是电动交通——电动汽车、电动飞机、电动船。至于火箭，从根本上说不太可能做成电动的，但你可以用可持续能源来生产火箭使用的推进剂。
Chris AndersonRight.明白了。
Elon MuskSo, ultimately, we can have a fully sustainable energy economy. And it’s those three things: solar/wind, stationary battery pack, electric vehicles. So then, what are the limiting factors on progress? The limiting factor really will be battery cell production. That’s going to really be the fundamental rate driver. And then whatever the slowest element of the whole lithium-ion battery cells supply chain from mining, and the many steps of refining to ultimately creating a battery cell and putting it into a pack – that will be the limiting factor on progress towards sustainability.所以，我们最终完全可以实现全面可持续的能源经济。关键就是这三件事：太阳能/风能、固定式储能电池组、电动汽车。那么，制约进展的瓶颈是什么？真正的瓶颈在于电池电芯的产能，这才是根本上的速率决定因素。从采矿到多道精炼工序，再到最终制造电芯并装入电池组，整个锂离子电池电芯供应链中最慢的那个环节，将决定我们推进可持续发展的速度。
Chris AndersonAll right, so we need to talk more about batteries. Because the key thing that I want to understand, like, there seems to be a scaling issue here that is kind of amazing and alarming. You have said that you have calculated that the amount of battery production that the world needs for sustainability is 300 terawatt-hours of batteries.好，所以我们需要更多谈谈电池。因为有一个关键问题我想搞清楚——这里有一个规模问题，既令人惊叹又让人忧虑。你曾经说过，你计算出世界实现可持续所需的电池产量是 300 太瓦时。
Elon MuskThat’s very rough numbers, and I certainly would invite others to check our calculations because they may arrive at different conclusions. But in order to transition, not just current electricity production but also heating and transport, which roughly triples the amount of electricity that you need, it amounts to approximately 300 terawatt-hours of installed capacity.这只是个粗略数字，我当然也欢迎其他人来核对我们的计算，因为他们可能会得出不同的结论。但为了完成转型——不仅仅是当前的电力生产，还要包括供暖和交通，这大约会让电力需求翻三倍——合计大约需要约 300 太瓦时的装机容量。
Chris AndersonWe need to give people a sense of how big a task that is. I mean, here we are at the Gigafactory. You know, this is one of the biggest buildings in the world. What I’ve read – and tell me if this is still right – is that the goal here is to eventually produce 100 gigawatt-hours of batteries here a year.我们得让大家感受一下这项任务的规模。我们现在就在 Gigafactory，这是世界上最大的建筑之一。我看到的资料——如果还准确的话——这里的目标是最终每年在这里生产 100 千兆瓦时的电池。
Elon MuskWe will probably do more than that. But yes, hopefully we get there within a couple of years.我们做的可能会超过这个数。但是，希望在几年内能达到这个目标。
Chris AndersonRight. But I mean, that is one…对。但我的意思是，那只是……
Elon Musk0.1 terawatt-hours.0.1 太瓦时。
Chris AndersonBut that’s still 1/100 of what’s needed. How much of the rest of that 100 is Tesla planning to take on, let’s say, between now and 2030, 2040, when we really need to see the scale-up happen?但那还只是所需量的 1/100。Tesla 计划在——比如说——现在到 2030 年、2040 年这段时间，承担其余那 100 太瓦时中的多少？毕竟我们真正需要看到大规模扩张发生的就是这段时间。
Elon MuskI mean, these are just guesses. So please, people shouldn’t hold me to these things. It’s not like this is like some… what tends to happen is I’ll make some like, you know, best guess, and then people, in five years, there’ll be some jerk that writes an article: “Elon said this would happen. And it didn’t happen. He’s a liar and a fool.” It’s very annoying when that happens. These are just guesses. This is a conversation. I think Tesla probably ends up doing 10% of that. Roughly.我的意思是，这些只是猜测。所以请大家不要把我钉死在这些话上。这不是什么……经常发生的情况是，我做了一个尽力而为的猜测，然后五年后会有个混蛋写篇文章说："Elon 说这会发生，但它没有发生。他是个骗子，是个傻瓜。"每次这种事发生都让我很恼火。这些只是猜测，这只是个对话而已。我认为 Tesla 大概会承担其中的 10% 左右。大概吧。
Chris AndersonLet’s say 2050 we have this amazing, you know, 100% sustainable electric grid made up of some mixture of the sustainable energy sources you talked about. That same grid probably is offering the world really low-cost energy, isn’t it, compared with now. And I’m curious about, like, are people entitled to get a little bit excited about the possibilities of that world?假设 2050 年，我们实现了你所说的那种令人惊叹的、100% 可持续的电网，由你提到的那些可持续能源混合供电。同一个电网与现在相比，也应该能为世界提供成本非常低廉的能源，对吧？我很好奇，人们是否有理由对那个世界的种种可能性感到兴奋？
Elon MuskPeople should be optimistic about the future. Humanity will solve sustainable energy. It will happen if we are, you know, continue to push hard. The future is bright and good from an energy standpoint. And then, it will be possible to also use that energy to do carbon sequestration. It takes a lot of energy to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, just because in putting it in the atmosphere, it releases energy. So now, you know, obviously, in order to pull it out, you need to use a lot of energy. But if you’ve got a lot of sustainable energy from wind and solar, you can actually sequester carbon. You can reverse the CO2 parts per million of the atmosphere and oceans.人们应该对未来保持乐观。人类一定会解决可持续能源问题。只要我们持续奋力推进，这一天就会到来。从能源角度来看，未来是光明美好的。到那时，还可以利用那些能源来进行碳封存。把碳从大气中抽出来需要大量能量，因为当初把碳排入大气是会释放能量的。所以要把碳抽出来，当然需要消耗大量能量。但如果有了来自风能和太阳能的大量可持续能源，你就真的可以封存碳，可以逆转大气和海洋中二氧化碳的百万分比浓度。
Elon MuskAnd also, you can really have as much freshwater as you want. Earth is mostly water. We should call Earth water. It’s 70% water by surface area. Now, most of that is seawater, but it’s like, we just happened to be on the bit that’s land.而且，你还可以拥有任意多的淡水。地球大部分都是水，我们应该叫它水球。它的表面积有 70% 是水。当然，大部分是海水，只是我们碰巧站在那一小片陆地上。
Chris AndersonRight. And with energy, you can turn seawater into…对。有了能源，你就可以把海水转化成……
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Chris Anderson…irrigating water or whatever water you need.……灌溉用水或任何你需要的水。
Elon MuskAbsolutely. At very low cost. Things will be good.完全正确。而且成本极低。一切都会好起来的。
Chris AndersonThings will be good?一切都会好起来？
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Chris AndersonAnd also, there’s other benefits to this non-fossil fuel world where the air is cleaner and…而且，脱离化石燃料的世界还有其他好处，比如空气更清洁，还有……
Elon MuskYes, exactly. Because, like, when you burn fossil fuels, there’s all these side reactions and toxic gases of various kinds and sort of little particulates that are bad for your lungs. There’s all sorts of bad things that are happening that will go away, and the sky will be cleaner and quieter. The future is going to be good.对，确实。因为燃烧化石燃料会产生各种副反应，各种有毒气体，以及对肺部有害的细颗粒物。很多坏东西都会消失，天空会更干净、更安静。未来会很美好的。
Chris AndersonI want us to switch out to think a bit about artificial intelligence. But the segue there… you mentioned it, how annoying it is when people call you up for bad predictions in the past. So I’m possibly going to be annoying now. But I’m curious about your timelines, and how you predict, and how come some things are so amazingly on the money and some aren’t. So, when it comes to predicting sales of Tesla vehicles, for example, I mean, you’ve kind of been amazing. I think in 2014, when Tesla had sold that year 60,000 cars, you said, “2020, I think we will do half a million a year.”我想聊聊人工智能。说到这里，你刚才提到当别人拿你过去的错误预测说事有多烦人，所以我现在可能要让你烦了。我很好奇你的时间判断——你是怎么预测的，为什么有些事能预测得那么准，有些又差那么远？就拿 Tesla 汽车的销量预测来说，你真是神了。我记得 2014 年，当时 Tesla 那一年卖了 6 万辆，你说："2020 年，我认为我们会做到每年 50 万辆。"
Elon MuskYeah, we did almost exactly half a million.对，我们做到的几乎就是 50 万辆。
Chris AndersonYou did almost exactly half a million. You were scoffed in 2014 because no one since Henry Ford, with the Model T, had come close to that kind of growth rate for cars. You were scoffed and you actually hit 500,000 cars – 510,000 or whatever produced. But five years ago, last time you came to TED, I asked you about full self-driving, and you said, “Yep, this very year, I am confident that we will have a car going from LA to New York without any intervention.”几乎就是 50 万辆。你在 2014 年被人嘲笑，因为自 Henry Ford 的 Model T 以来，没有人能实现过那种增长速度。你被嘲笑了，但你真的做到了 50 万辆——510,000 辆或者差不多。但五年前，你上一次来 TED 的时候，我问你关于完全自动驾驶的事，你说："对，就在今年，我有信心我们会有一辆车从洛杉矶开到纽约，全程零干预。"
Elon MuskYeah, I don’t want to blow your mind, but I’m not always right.对，我不想震惊到你，但我并不是每次都对的。
Chris Anderson(laughs) But what’s the difference between those two? Why has full self-driving in particular been so hard to predict?（笑）但这两者之间有什么区别？为什么完全自动驾驶特别难以预测？
Elon MuskI mean, the thing that really got me, and I think it’s gonna get a lot of other people, is that there are just so many false dawns with self-driving, where you think you’ve got the problem, have a handle on the problem, and then it, nope, turns out, you just hit a ceiling. Because if you were to plot the progress, the progress looks like a log curve. It’s like a series of log curves. So, most people don’t know what a log curve is, I suppose.我的意思是，真正让我栽跟头的——而且我觉得也会让很多其他人栽跟头的——是自动驾驶有太多次"假黎明"了。你以为自己已经掌握了这个问题，结果不行，你只是撞上了一个天花板。因为如果你把进展画成曲线，它看起来像一条对数曲线，是一系列对数曲线。我想大多数人可能不知道对数曲线是什么样的。
Chris AndersonShow the shape with your hands.用手势比划一下那个形状。
Elon MuskIt goes up, you know, sort of a fairly straight way, and then it starts tailing off, and you start getting diminishing returns. And you’re like, “Uh oh, it was trending up, and now it’s sort of curving over.” And you start getting to these, what I call local maxima, where you don’t realize basically how dumb you were. And then it happens again. And ultimately… these things, you know, in retrospect, they seem obvious. But in order to solve full self-driving properly, you actually have to solve real-world AI.它先是相当笔直地上升，然后开始趋于平缓，你开始获得递减回报。你会想："哦不，它本来在向上趋势，现在开始弯曲回来了。"你会到达我所谓的局部最大值，在那里你基本意识不到自己有多蠢。然后同样的事情再次发生。归根结底……这些事情回头看都显而易见，但要真正解决完全自动驾驶，你实际上必须解决真实世界的 AI 问题。
Elon MuskBecause you say, like, what are the road networks designed to work with? They’re designed to work with a biological neural net, our brains, and with vision, our eyes. And so, in order to make it work with computers, you basically need to solve real-world AI and vision. We need cameras and silicon neural nets in order to have self-driving work for a system that was designed for eyes and biological neural nets. You know, I guess when we put it that way, it’s quite obvious that the only way to solve full self-driving is to solve real-world AI and sophisticated vision.因为你想，道路网络是为什么设计的？它是为生物神经网络——也就是我们的大脑——和视觉——也就是我们的眼睛——而设计的。所以要让计算机也能使用它，你基本上需要解决真实世界的 AI 和视觉问题。我们需要摄像头和硅基神经网络，才能让自动驾驶在一个为眼睛和生物神经网络设计的系统上运作。这么说来，要解决完全自动驾驶，唯一的方法就是解决真实世界的 AI 和复杂视觉，这其实相当显然。
Chris AndersonWhat do you feel about the current architecture? Do you think you have an architecture now where there is a chance for the logarithmic curve not to tail off any anytime soon?你对目前的架构感觉如何？你认为现在的架构有没有可能让那条对数曲线在较长时间内不再趋于平缓？
Elon MuskWell, I mean, admittedly, these may be infamous last words, but I actually am confident that we will solve it this year. That we will exceed… if you say, like, what is the probability of an accident, at what point do you exceed that of the average person?好吧，我是说，这可能会是臭名昭著的临死之言，但我确实有信心我们今年会解决这个问题。就是说，如果你问：发生事故的概率在什么时候会超越普通人的水平——
Chris AndersonRight.对。
Elon MuskI think we will exceed that this year.我认为今年我们就会超过那个水平。
Chris AndersonWhat are you seeing behind the scenes that gives you that confidence?你在幕后看到了什么，让你有这份信心？
Elon MuskWe’re almost at the point where we have a high-quality unified vector space. In the beginning, we were trying to do this with image recognition on individual images. But if you look at one image out of a video, it’s actually quite hard to see what’s going on without ambiguity. But if you look at a video segment of a few seconds of video, that ambiguity resolves.我们几乎到了拥有高质量统一向量空间的程度了。一开始，我们是试图通过对单张图像进行图像识别来实现的。但如果你看一个视频里的某一帧，其实很难无歧义地看清楚发生了什么。但如果你看几秒钟的视频片段，那个歧义就消解了。
Elon MuskThe first thing we had to do is, we tie all eight cameras together, so they’re synchronized so that all the frames are looked at simultaneously and labeled simultaneously by one person – because we still need human labeling. So that at least they’re not labeled at different times by different people in different ways. It’s sort of a surround picture. Then a very important part is to add the time dimension. You’re looking at surround video, and you’re labeling surround video. And this is actually quite difficult to do from a software standpoint. We had to write our own labeling tools and then create auto-labeling software to amplify the efficiency of human labelers because it’s quite hard to label a video.我们首先要做的是把全部 8 个摄像头同步绑定在一起，这样所有帧都能同时被查看，并由一个人同时标注——因为我们还是需要人工标注——至少保证它们不会在不同时间由不同的人以不同的方式被标注。这是一种环绕式全景图。然后，一个非常重要的部分是加入时间维度。你看的是环绕式视频，标注的也是环绕式视频。这从软件角度来说相当困难。我们不得不自己开发标注工具，然后创建自动标注软件来提升人工标注员的效率，因为标注视频真的很难。
Elon MuskIn the beginning, it was taking several hours to label a 10-second video clip. This is not scalable. So basically, what you have to have is, you have to have surround video, and that surround video has to be primarily automatically labeled with humans just being editors of making slight corrections to the labeling of the video and then feeding back those corrections into the future auto labeler, so you get this flywheel eventually where the auto labeler is able to take in vast amounts of video, and with high accuracy automatically label the video for cars, lane lines, drive space,…一开始，标注一段 10 秒的视频片段需要好几个小时。这根本无法扩展。所以你必须做到的是，有环绕式视频，而且这些视频必须主要由自动化完成标注，人类只是作为编辑来对视频标注做微小修正，然后把这些修正反馈给未来的自动标注器，最终形成一个飞轮：自动标注器能够摄入海量视频，并以很高的准确率自动标注视频中的汽车、车道线、行驶空间……
Chris AndersonWhat you’re saying is that you think that… I mean, the result of this is that you’re effectively giving the car a 3D model of the actual objects that are all around it. It knows what they are, and it knows how fast they are moving. And the remaining task is to predict what the quirky behaviors are that, you know, when a pedestrian is walking down the road with a smaller pedestrian that maybe that smaller pedestrian might do something unpredictable or like things like that… that you have to build into it before you can really call it safe.你的意思是，这样做的结果是你实际上在给汽车一个 3D 模型，呈现它周围所有真实物体的状态。它知道那些物体是什么，也知道它们移动的速度。剩下的任务就是预测那些古怪的行为——比如，一个行人走在路上，身边还有一个更小的行人，那个小行人可能会做出不可预测的动作——这些你都得提前建模进去，才能真正称之为安全。
Elon MuskYou basically need to have memory across time and space. What I mean by that is… the memory can’t be infinite because it’s using up a lot of computer’s RAM, basically. So you have to say, how much are you going to try to remember? It’s very common for things to be occluded. If you’re talking about, say, a pedestrian walking past a truck where you saw the pedestrian start on one side of the truck, then they’re occluded by the truck, you would know intuitively, okay, that pedestrian is gonna pop out the other side most likely…你基本上需要跨越时间和空间的记忆。我的意思是……记忆不可能是无限的，因为它要占用大量计算机内存。所以你必须决定：你要尝试记住多少？遮挡的情况很常见。比如说，一个行人从卡车一侧走过，你看到这个行人从卡车的一侧出发，然后被卡车遮住了，你会凭直觉知道，好，这个行人很可能会从另一侧冒出来……
Chris AndersonA computer doesn’t know it.计算机不知道这一点。
Elon Musk…so you do just slow down.……所以它就减速。
Chris AndersonA skeptic is gonna say that every year for the last five years, you’ve kind of said, well, no, this is the year, we’re confident that it will be there in a year or two or, you know, like, it’s always been about that far away. But we’ve got a new architecture, and now you’re seeing enough improvement behind the scenes to make you not certain but pretty confident that this, by the end of this year, what in most, not in every city, in every circumstance, but in many cities and circumstances, basically the car will be able to drive without interventions safer than a human.一个持怀疑态度的人会说，过去五年里，你每年都在说，不，今年就是那一年，我们有信心一两年内就能实现，诸如此类，感觉一直都是差那么一点点。但现在有了新架构，你在幕后看到了足够的改进，让你不是百分之百确定、但相当有信心：在今年年底前，不是在每一座城市、每一种情况下，但在很多城市和情况下，汽车基本上能够在没有人工干预的情况下比人类驾驶得更安全。
Elon MuskYes, I mean, the car currently drives me around awesome most of the time with no interventions. And we have over 100,000 people in our full self-driving beta program. So you can look at the videos that they posted online.是的，我是说，这辆车目前大多数时候都能很棒地带我到处跑，不需要任何干预。而且我们的完全自动驾驶 beta 项目已经有超过 100,000 人参与了。你可以去看他们在网上发布的视频。
Chris AndersonI do.我有看。
Elon MuskOkay, great.好，太棒了。
Chris AndersonSome of them are great, and some of them are a little terrifying. I mean, occasionally, the car seems to sort of like veer off and scare the hell out of people.有些视频很棒，有些有点吓人。我是说，偶尔汽车会突然偏出去，把人吓得半死。
Elon MuskIt’s still a beta.它还是 beta 版。
Chris AndersonIt’s still beta. But behind the scenes, looking at the data, you’re seeing enough improvement to believe that a this-year timeline is real.还是 beta 版。但从幕后看数据，你看到了足够的改进，让你相信今年的时间节点是真实的。
Elon MuskYes, that’s what it seems like. I mean, we could be here talking again in a year, like, well, another year went by, and it didn’t happen. But I think this is the year.是的，目前看起来是这样。我的意思是，我们可能一年后又坐在这里聊，说，好吧，又一年过去了，没成。但我认为今年就是那一年。
Chris AndersonIn general, when people talk about Elon time, I mean, it sounds like you can’t just have a general rule that if you predict that something will be done in six months, actually, what we should imagine is it’s going to be a year, or it’s like 2x, or 3x. It depends on the type of prediction. Some things, I guess, things involving software, you know, AI, whatever, are fundamentally harder to predict than others. Is there an element that you actually deliberately make aggressive prediction timelines to drive people to be ambitious? And without that, nothing gets done?总体而言，当人们说"Elon 时间"的时候，我的意思是，你不能用一个通用规律说，如果你预测某件事六个月内完成，实际上应该理解为一年，或者 2 倍、3 倍。这取决于预测的类型。我猜，涉及软件、AI 之类的东西从根本上就比其他东西更难预测。你是否有一部分确实是故意设置很激进的预测时间线来推动大家有雄心壮志，如果没有那个，什么都做不成？
Elon MuskWell, I generally believe, in terms of internal timelines, that we want to set the most aggressive timeline that we can. Because there’s sort of like a law of gaseous expansion for schedules, where whatever time you set, it’s not going to be less than that. It’s very rare that it’ll be less than that.嗯，就内部时间线而言，我大体上认为我们要设定尽可能激进的时间线。因为时间表有一种像气体膨胀的规律——不管你设定多少时间，实际上不会比这个少。比设定时间提前完成的情况非常少见。
Elon MuskAs far as our predictions are concerned, what tends to happen in the media is that they will report all the wrong ones and ignore all the right ones. Or, you know, when writing an article about me – I’ve had a long career in multiple industries. If you list my sins, I sound like the worst person on Earth. But if you put those against the things I’ve done right, it makes much more sense. So essentially, the longer you do anything, the more mistakes that you will make cumulatively. Which, if you sum up those mistakes, will sound like I’m the worst predictor ever.至于我们的预测，媒体倾向于把所有错误的都报道出来，把所有正确的都忽略掉。而且，你知道，如果有人在写一篇关于我的文章——我在多个行业有着漫长的职业生涯。如果你只列出我的错误，我听起来就是世界上最糟糕的人。但如果你把这些错误放在我做对的事情旁边，那就合理得多了。所以从根本上说，你做任何事情的时间越长，你累计犯的错误就越多。如果把这些错误加总，听起来我就是史上最差的预测者。
Elon MuskBut for example, for Tesla vehicle growth, I said, I think we’d do 50%, and we’ve done 80%. But they don’t mention that one. I mean, I’m not sure what my exact track record is on predictions. They’re more optimistic than pessimistic, but they’re not all optimistic. Some of them are exceeded probably more or later. But they do come true. It’s very rare that they do not come true. It’s sort of like, you know, if there’s some radical technology prediction, the point is not that it was a few years late, but that it happened at all. That’s the more important part.但举个例子，对于 Tesla 汽车增长，我说我们会做到 50%，我们实际上做到了 80%。但他们不提那个。我不确定我的预测准确率到底是多少。总体上偏乐观，但不是全都乐观。有些预测超出了，有些可能晚了一些，但它们确实会实现。真的不实现的非常罕见。就好比说，如果有某个激进的技术预测，重点不在于它晚了几年，而在于它根本就发生了。那才是更重要的部分。
Chris AndersonSo that’s it feels like at some point in the last year, seeing the progress on that the Tesla AI understanding the world around it led to a kind, an aha moment at Tesla. Because you really surprised people recently when you said probably the most important product development going on at Tesla this year is this robot Optimus.好，感觉在去年某个时间点，Tesla AI 对周围世界的理解取得的进展，在 Tesla 内部引发了某种"啊哈"时刻。因为你最近真的让大家大吃一惊，你说今年 Tesla 最重要的产品开发可能是这款机器人 Optimus。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Chris AndersonMany companies out there have tried to put out these robots, they have been working on them for years. And so far, no one has really cracked it. There’s no mass adoption robot in people’s homes. There are some in manufacturing, but I would say that no one’s kind of really cracked it. Is it something that happened in the development of full self-driving that gave you the confidence to say, you know what, we could do something special here?外面有很多公司在做机器人，已经研究了好多年了。但到目前为止，还没有人真正攻克它。没有大规模走进家庭的机器人，制造业里有一些，但我觉得没人真正攻克这件事。是在完全自动驾驶的开发过程中发生了什么，让你有信心说，我们在这里能做出特别的东西？
Elon MuskYeah, exactly. So, you know, it took me a while to sort of realize that in order to solve self-driving, you really needed to solve real-world AI. At the point at which you solve real-world AI for a car, which is really a robot on four wheels, you can then generalize that to a robot on legs as well. The two hard parts, I think… like obviously, companies like Boston Dynamics have shown that it’s possible to make quite compelling, sometimes alarming robots. So, from a sensors and actuators standpoint, it’s certainly been demonstrated by many that it’s possible to make a humanoid robot.对，正是。你知道，我花了一段时间才意识到，要解决自动驾驶，你真的需要解决真实世界的 AI。当你为一辆车解决了真实世界的 AI——那本质上是一台四个轮子的机器人——你就可以把这个能力推广到用腿走路的机器人上。两个难点……很明显，像 Boston Dynamics 这样的公司已经证明，可以做出相当令人印象深刻、有时让人不安的机器人。所以从传感器和执行器的角度来看，很多人已经证明制造人形机器人是可行的。
Elon MuskThe things that are currently missing are enough intelligence for the robot to navigate the real world and do useful things without being explicitly instructed. So, the missing things are basically real-world intelligence and scaling up manufacturing. Those are two things that Tesla is very good at. We basically just need to design the specialized actuators and sensors that are needed for humanoid robot. People have no idea. This is going to be bigger than the car.目前缺失的是让机器人在真实世界中自主导航并做有用的事情所需的足够智能——不需要被明确指令。所以缺失的东西基本上是真实世界的智能，以及扩大制造规模。而这两件事正是 Tesla 非常擅长的。我们基本上只需要设计人形机器人所需的专用执行器和传感器。人们完全没有意识到，这将比汽车更重要。
Chris AndersonLet’s dig into exactly that. I mean, in one way, it’s actually an easier problem than full self-driving because instead of an object going along at 60 miles an hour, which if it gets it wrong, someone will die, this is an object that’s engineered to only go at what, three or four or five miles an hour.让我们深入探讨这个问题。从某种角度看，它实际上比完全自动驾驶更容易解决，因为它不是一个以 60 英里每小时行驶、出错就会死人的物体，而是一个被设计成只能以三四五英里每小时行走的东西。
Elon MuskYeah, walking speed, basically.对，基本上就是步行速度。
Chris AndersonAnd so, a mistake… there aren’t lives at stake, there might be embarrassment at stake.所以出错的后果……不会有生命危险，可能最多就是丢人而已。
Elon MuskAs long as AI doesn’t take it over and murder us in our sleep or something.只要 AI 不接管它然后趁我们睡觉把我们都干掉就行。
Chris AndersonBut let’s talk about… I think the first applications you’ve mentioned are probably going to be manufacturing. But eventually, the vision is to have these available for people at home.不过说到……我觉得你提到的第一批应用场景可能会是制造业。但最终的愿景是让这些机器人在家庭中普及。
Elon MuskCorrect.对。
Chris AndersonIf you had a robot that really understood the 3D architecture of your house and knew where every object in that house was, or was supposed to be, and could recognize all those objects – I mean, that’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? Like the kind of thing that you could ask a robot to do would be what? Like, tidy up?如果你有一台机器人，它真正理解你家里的 3D 结构，知道家里每件东西在哪里或者应该在哪里，并且能识别所有这些物体——这真的很令人惊叹，不是吗？你可以让机器人做什么？比如，整理房间？
Elon MuskYeah, absolutely. Make dinner, I guess, mow the lawn.对，完全可以。做晚饭吧，还有割草坪。
Chris AndersonTake a cup of tea to grandma and show her family pictures.给奶奶端杯茶，给她看家庭照片。
Elon MuskExactly. Take care of my grandmother and make sure… yeah, exactly.对，照顾我的奶奶，确保……对，就是这样。
Chris AndersonIt could obviously recognize everyone in the home, could play catch with your kids?它显然可以认出家里的每个人，还能陪你的孩子玩接球游戏？
Elon MuskYes. I mean, obviously, we need to be careful, it just doesn’t become a dystopian situation. I think one of the things that’s going to be important is to have a localized ROM chip on the robot that cannot be updated over the air. Where if you, for example, were to say, “Stop, stop, stop,”… if anyone said that, then the robot would stop, you know, type of thing. And that’s not updatable remotely. I think it’s gonna be important to have safety features like that.是的。我的意思是，我们显然需要小心，不要让它变成一个反乌托邦式的局面。我认为有一件很重要的事，就是在机器人上配备一块本地化的 ROM 芯片，无法通过无线更新。比如说，如果任何人说"停、停、停"，机器人就会停下来，诸如此类。而且这个逻辑不能被远程更新。我认为拥有这样的安全功能非常重要。
Chris AndersonYeah, that sounds wise.对，这听起来很明智。
Elon MuskAnd I do think there should be a regulatory agency for AI. I’ve said this for many years. I don’t love being regulated. But I think this is an important thing for public safety.我确实认为应该有一个针对 AI 的监管机构。我说这个已经很多年了。我不喜欢被监管，但我认为这对于公共安全是重要的事情。
Chris AndersonLet’s come back to that. But I don’t think many people have really sort of taken seriously the notion of, you know, a robot at home. I mean, at the start of the computer revolution Bill Gates said there’s gonna be a computer in every home. And people at the time said, “Yeah, whatever, who would even want that.”我们等会儿再回到这个话题。但我觉得很多人还没有认真对待"家里有一台机器人"这个概念。我的意思是，计算机革命开始时，Bill Gates 说每个家庭都会有一台计算机，当时人们说："对对对，随便，谁会想要那东西。"
Elon Musk(…) in our pocket?装在口袋里的？
Chris AndersonDo you think there will be basically like in, say, 2050 or whatever, a robot in most homes is what there will be, and people…你认为，比如说，在 2050 年或什么时候，大多数家庭里都会有一台机器人吗？还有人们……
Elon MuskYeah, I think there probably will.对，我认为很可能会有。
Chris Anderson…will love them and count on them? You have your own butler, basically.……会爱上它们、依赖它们？基本上等于有了自己的管家。
Elon MuskYeah, you will have your sort of buddy robot probably, yeah.对，你可能会有一个属于你的伴侣机器人，大概是这样。
Chris AndersonI mean, how much of a buddy? How many applications do you thought is that? You know, can you have a romantic partner, a sex partner, lover?我是说，多亲密的伴侣？你想到了哪些应用场景？比如，能不能有浪漫伴侣、性伴侣、情人？
Elon MuskIt’s probably inevitable. I mean, I did promise the internet that I’d make catgirls. We could make a robot catgirl.这大概是不可避免的。我的意思是，我确实曾经向网上承诺过会做猫耳娘。我们可以做一个机器人猫耳娘。
Chris AndersonBe careful what you promise the internet.小心你对网上许下的承诺。
Elon MuskSo yeah, I guess it’ll be whatever people want really, you know.所以对，我猜最终会是随人们想要什么就做什么吧。
Chris AndersonWhat sort of timeline should we be thinking about of the first models that are actually made and sold?关于真正量产和销售的第一批产品，我们应该考虑什么样的时间线？
Elon MuskWell, you know, the first units that we intend to make are for jobs that are dangerous, boring, repetitive, and things that people don’t want to do. And, you know, I think we’ll have like an interesting prototype sometime this year. We might have something useful next year, but I think, quite likely within at least two years. And then we’ll see rapid growth year over year of the usefulness of the humanoid robots and decrease in cost and scaling up production.嗯，你知道，我们打算制造的第一批产品，是用于那些危险、枯燥、重复的工作，也就是人们不想做的事情。我认为今年会有一个有意思的原型。明年可能会有一些实用的东西，但我认为至少在两年内很有可能实现。然后我们会看到人形机器人逐年快速增长，越来越有用，成本下降，产量扩大。
Chris AndersonInitially just selling to businesses, or when do you picture you’ll start selling them where you can buy your parents one for Christmas, or something?最初只卖给企业，还是你什么时候打算开始向个人出售，比如给你父母买一台当圣诞礼物？
Elon MuskI’d say in less than ten years.我说不到十年。
Chris AndersonHelp me on the economics of this. So, what do you picture the cost of one of these being?帮我算算经济账。你预计这东西的价格是多少？
Elon MuskWell, I think the cost is actually not going to be crazy high. Like less than a car. Initially, things will be expensive because it’ll be new technology at low production volume. The complexity and cost of a car is greater than that of a humanoid robot. So I would expect that it’s going to be less than a car, or at least equivalent to a cheap car.嗯，我认为成本其实不会高得离谱，比一辆车要便宜。最初因为是量产量低的新技术，价格会贵一些。但人形机器人的复杂程度和成本比一辆汽车要低。所以我预计它会比一辆汽车便宜，或者至少相当于一辆便宜的车的价格。
Chris AndersonSo even if it starts at 50k, within a few years, it’s down to 20k, or lower or whatever. And maybe for home, they’ll get much cheaper still. But thinking about the economics of this, if you can replace a $30,000, $40,000-a-year worker, which you have to pay every year, with a one-time payment of $25,000 for a robot that can work longer hours, a pretty rapid replacement of certain types of jobs. How worried should the world be about that?所以就算一开始定价 5 万，几年后降到 2 万，甚至更低，家用版可能更便宜。从经济账上想想：如果你能用一次性支付 $25,000 买一台机器人来替代一个每年要支付 $30,000、$40,000 的工人，而机器人工作时间还更长——那某些类型的工作被相当快速地取代。世界对此应该有多担心？
Elon MuskI wouldn’t worry about the sort of putting people out of a job thing. I think we’re actually going to have, and already do have, a massive shortage of labor. So I think we will have not people out of work, but actually still a shortage of labor, even in the future. But this really will be a world of abundance. Any goods and services will be available to anyone who wants them. It will be so cheap to have goods and services, it will be ridiculous.我不会担心那种让人失业的问题。我认为我们实际上已经存在、而且还会继续存在大规模的劳动力短缺。所以我认为未来不会是大批人没有工作，实际上依然会有劳动力短缺。但这真的会是一个物资极大丰富的世界。任何商品和服务都将对任何想要的人触手可及。商品和服务的成本将低到令人难以置信的程度。
Chris AndersonAnd presumably, it should be possible to imagine a bunch of goods and services that can’t profitably be made now but could be made in that world, courtesy of legions of robots.而且我猜，那个世界里应该能够想象出一大批现在无法盈利生产、但彼时可以生产的商品和服务，多亏了大批机器人军团。
Elon MuskYeah. It will be a world of abundance. The only scarcity that will exist in the future is that which we decide to create ourselves as humans.对。那将是一个物资极大丰富的世界。未来唯一存在的稀缺，将是我们人类自己决定要制造的稀缺。
Chris AndersonOkay, so AI is allowing us to imagine a differently powered economy that will create this abundance. What are you most worried about going wrong?好，所以 AI 让我们可以想象一种由不同动力驱动的经济，将创造这种丰裕。你最担心什么地方会出错？
Elon MuskWell, like I said, AI and robotics will bring out what might be termed the age of abundance. Other people have used this word. And this is my prediction: it will be an age of abundance for everyone. I guess the dangers would be the artificial general intelligence or digital superintelligence decouples from a collective human will, and goes in a direction that, for some reason, we don’t like. Whatever direction it might go. That’s sort of the idea behind Neuralink, is to try to more tightly couple collective human will to digital superintelligence. And also, along the way, solve a lot of brain injuries and spinal injuries and that kind of thing. So even if it doesn’t succeed in the greater goal, I think it will succeed in the goal of alleviating brain and spine damage.嗯，就像我说的，AI 和机器人技术将带来可能被称为"丰裕时代"的东西，其他人也用过这个词。这是我的预测：这将是一个对所有人都丰裕的时代。我猜危险在于人工通用智能或数字超级智能与人类集体意志脱钩，走向某个我们出于某种原因不喜欢的方向，不管是什么方向。Neuralink 背后的想法大致就是：试图将人类集体意志与数字超级智能更紧密地耦合在一起。同时，顺道也解决很多脑损伤和脊髓损伤之类的问题。所以即使它没能实现更宏大的目标，我认为它也会在减轻脑部和脊柱损伤方面取得成功。
Chris AndersonSo the spirit there is that if we’re going to make these AIs that are so vastly intelligent, we ought to be wired directly to them so that we ourselves can have the superpowers more directly. But that doesn’t seem to avoid the risk that those superpowers might turn ugly in an unintended way.所以核心思路是：如果我们要创造这些无比智能的 AI，我们应该直接与它们相连，让我们自己能更直接地拥有那些超能力。但这似乎并不能避免这些超能力以某种意外的方式走向危险的风险。
Elon MuskNo, I think it’s a risk. I agree. I’m not saying that I have some certain answer to that risk. I’m just saying like maybe one of the things that would be good for ensuring that the future is one that we want is to more tightly couple the collective human world to digital intelligence. The issue that we face here is that we are already a cyborg if you think about it. The computers are an extension of ourselves. And when we die, we have, like, a digital ghost. You know, all of our text messages and social media, emails. It’s quite eerie, actually, when someone dies, and everything online is still there.不，我认为这确实是个风险。我同意。我不是说我对这个风险有什么确定的答案。我只是说，也许确保未来是我们想要的未来的方法之一，就是将人类集体意志与数字智能更紧密地耦合起来。我们面临的问题是，其实我们已经是赛博格了，仔细想想。计算机是我们自身的延伸。当我们死去，我们会留下一个数字幽灵——我们所有的短信、社交媒体、电子邮件。当一个人去世，但他在网上的所有东西还在，那其实挺诡异的。
Elon MuskBut you say like, what’s the limitation? What is it that inhibits a human machine symbiosis? It’s the data rate. When you communicate, especially with the phone, you’re moving your thumbs very slowly. So you’re like moving your two little meat sticks at a rate that’s maybe 10 bits per second, optimistically, 100 bits per second. And computers are communicating at the gigabit level and beyond.但你说，限制在哪里？是什么阻碍了人机共生？是数据传输速率。你与手机沟通的时候，你在非常缓慢地移动你的拇指。你就是在用这两根肉质的小棍子，以乐观估计 10 比特每秒、100 比特每秒的速率传输信息。而计算机在以吉比特级别乃至更高的速度通信。
Chris AndersonHave you seen evidence that the technology is actually working? That you’ve got a richer, sort of, higher bandwidth connection, if you like, between external electronics and a brain than has been possible before?你有没有见到技术真正有效的证据？就是说，你看到了一种比以前更丰富、更高带宽的外部电子设备与大脑之间的连接？
Elon MuskYeah. I mean, the fundamental principles of reading neurons, sort of doing read-write on neurons with tiny electrodes, have been demonstrated for decades. It’s not like the concept is new. The problem is that there’s no product that works well that you can go and buy. It’s all sort of in research labs, and there’s always like some cords sticking out of your head, and it is quite gruesome. It’s really, there’s no good product that actually does a good job and is high bandwidth and safe and something actually that you could buy and would want it to buy.对。我是说，用微小电极对神经元进行读写的基本原理已经被验证了几十年了。这个概念并不新鲜。问题是没有一个好用的现成产品可以买到。一切都还在研究实验室里，脑袋上总是要插着一堆线，非常骇人。真的没有一个好的产品能真正做好、同时高带宽、安全，又是你真正会去买、会想要买的东西。
Elon MuskBut the way to think of the Neuralink device is kind of like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch. That’s where we take out a sort of a small section of skull about the size of a quarter, replace that with what in many ways really is very much like a Fitbit, Apple Watch, or some kind of smartwatch thing. But with tiny wires, very, very tiny wires. Wires so tiny, it’s hard to even see them. And it’s very important to have very tiny wires so that, when they’re implanted, they don’t damage the brain.理解 Neuralink 设备的方式，有点像 Fitbit 或 Apple Watch。我们取出一小块大约硬币大小的颅骨，用一个在很多方面非常像 Fitbit、Apple Watch 或某种智能手表的装置替换它。但配有极其细小的导线——非常非常细的导线，细到几乎看不见。导线必须非常细，这一点非常重要，因为植入时才不会损伤大脑。
Chris AndersonHow far are you from putting these into humans?距离你们把这些植入人体还有多远？
Elon MuskWell, we have put in our FDA application to aspirationally do the first human implant this year.嗯，我们已经向 FDA 提交了申请，雄心勃勃地争取今年完成第一例人体植入。
Chris AndersonThe first uses will be for neurological injuries of different kinds.第一批使用场景将是各类神经损伤。
Elon MuskYes.是的。
Chris AndersonBut rolling the clock forward and imagining when people are actually using these for their own enhancement, let’s say, and for the enhancement of the world, how clear are you in your mind as to what it will feel like to have one of these inside your head?但把时间拨快，想象人们真正开始用这个来增强自身能力、增强世界，那个时候，你对头骨里植入了这个装置会是什么感觉，心里有多清晰的图景？
Elon MuskWell, I do want to emphasize we’re at an early stage. And so it really will be many years before we have anything approximating a high bandwidth neural interface that allows for AI human symbiosis. For many years, we will just be solving brain injuries and spinal injuries. For probably a decade. This is not something that will suddenly… one day, we will have this incredible sort of whole-brain interface. It’s going to be, like, at least a decade of really just solving brain injuries and spinal injuries. And I really think you can solve a very wide range of brain injuries, including severe depression, morbid obesity, sleep, potentially schizophrenia, like a lot of things that cause great stress to people. Restoring memory in older people…嗯，我想强调我们现在还处于早期阶段。所以真正接近高带宽神经接口、实现 AI 与人类共生，还需要很多年。很多年里，我们只是在解决脑损伤和脊髓损伤，大概要持续十年。这不是说有一天突然之间我们就会拥有某种令人难以置信的全脑接口。至少十年内都只是在真正解决脑损伤和脊髓损伤的问题。而且我真的认为可以解决非常广泛的脑部损伤，包括严重抑郁症、病态性肥胖、睡眠问题，还可能包括精神分裂症、很多给人造成巨大痛苦的疾病。还有恢复老年人的记忆……
Chris AndersonIf you can pull that off, that’s the app I will sign up for. Please hurry, actually.如果你能做到这一点，这就是我会第一个报名的应用。请快点，说真的。
Elon MuskI mean, the emails that we get at Neuralink are heartbreaking. I mean, they’ll send us just tragic, you know, where someone was sort of in the prime of life, and they had an accident on a motorcycle, and someone who’s 25, you know, can’t even feed themselves. And this is something we could fix.我是说，我们收到的发给 Neuralink 的邮件真的令人心碎。它们诉说着那些悲剧——某个人正值人生黄金期，骑摩托车出了事故，一个 25 岁的年轻人，连喂自己吃饭都做不到。而这是我们可以修复的事情。
Chris AndersonBut you have said that AI is one of the things you’re most worried about and that Neuralink may be one of the ways where we can keep abreast of it.但你确实说过，AI 是你最担心的事情之一，而 Neuralink 可能是我们跟上 AI 步伐的方式之一。
Elon MuskYeah, there’s this short-term thing, which I think is helpful on an individual human level, with injuries. And then the long-term thing is an attempt to address the civilizational risk of AI by bringing digital intelligence and biological intelligence closer together. I mean, if you think of how the brain works today, there’s really kind of two layers to the brain. There’s the limbic system and the cortex. You’ve got the kind of animal brain where… it’s kind of like the fun part, really.对，有这个近期的事情，我认为它在个人人类层面上对伤病很有帮助。然后长远来看，是试图通过将数字智能与生物智能拉近来应对 AI 带来的文明风险。我的意思是，如果你想想大脑今天的运作方式，大脑其实有两个层面。有边缘系统和皮质层。你有那个动物脑……那其实是挺有趣的部分。
Chris AndersonIt’s where most of Twitter operates, by the way.顺带一提，那也是 Twitter 上大多数活动发生的地方。
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, we’re… I think Tim Urban said this, we’re like somebody’s, you know, stuck a computer on a monkey. We’re like, if you gave a monkey a computer, that’s our cortex, but we still have a lot of monkey instincts what we then try to rationalize as, “No, it’s not a monkey instinct. It’s something more important than that.” But it’s often just really a monkey instinct. We’re just monkeys with a computer stuck in our brain.对，我是说，我们……我觉得 Tim Urban 说过这个，我们就像是有人把一台计算机插到了一只猴子上。我们就像是，如果你给一只猴子配了一台计算机，那就是我们的皮质层，但我们还是有很多猴子的本能，然后我们会试图把这些本能合理化成"不，这不是猴子本能，这是比那更重要的东西。"但往往就只是猴子本能。我们只是被插入了一台计算机的猴子。
Elon MuskSo, even though the cortex is sort of the smart, or the intelligent part of the brain, the thinking part of the brain, people are quite… I have not yet met anyone who wants to delete their limbic system or their cortex. They’re quite happy having both. Everyone wants both parts of their brain. And people really want their phones and their computers, which are really the tertiary, the third part of your intelligence.所以，尽管皮质层是大脑中聪明、有智慧、负责思考的部分，但人们其实……我还没见过任何人想要删除自己的边缘系统或皮质层。他们很乐于同时拥有两者。每个人都想要大脑的两个部分。而且人们真的很想要自己的手机和电脑，那实际上是你的第三层、第三个智慧部分。
Elon MuskIt’s just that it’s… the bandwidth, the rate of communication with that tertiary layer is slow. It’s just a very tiny straw to this tertiary layer, and we want to make that tiny straw a big highway. I’m definitely not saying that this is going to solve everything. It’s something that might be helpful. And worst-case scenario, I think we solve some important brain injury, spinal injury issues, and that’s still a great outcome.只是……与那第三层的通信带宽、速率太慢了。通往那第三层只是一根非常细的吸管，而我们想把那根细吸管变成一条宽阔的高速公路。我绝对不是说这将解决一切问题。这只是可能有所帮助的东西。最坏的情况，我认为我们解决了一些重要的脑损伤和脊髓损伤问题，那依然是一个很好的结果。
Chris AndersonRight. Best case scenario, we may discover new human possibility, telepathy, you’ve spoken of, in a way, a connection with a loved one, you know, full memory, and much faster thought processing maybe. All these things. It’s very cool.对。最好的情况，我们可能会发现新的人类可能性——你提到过的心灵感应，某种意义上与挚爱之人的连接，完整的记忆，也许还有更快的思维处理速度。所有这些东西。非常酷。
Chris AndersonIf AI were to take down Earth, we need a plan B. Let’s shift our attention to space. We spoke last time we talked about reusability, and you had just demonstrated that spectacularly for the first time. Since then, you’ve gone on to build this monster rocket, Starship, which kind of changes the rules of the game in spectacular ways. Tell us about Starship.如果 AI 毁了地球，我们需要 B 计划。让我们把目光转向太空。上次我们聊到了可重复使用，你刚刚以惊人的方式第一次展示了这一点。从那以后，你造了这个怪兽级别的火箭 Starship，它以惊人的方式改变了游戏规则。跟我们说说 Starship。
Elon MuskYes. Starship is extremely fundamental. The holy grail of rocketry or space transport is full and rapid reusability. This has never been achieved. The closest that anything has come is our Falcon 9 rocket, where we are able to recover the first stage, the boost stage, which is probably about 60% of the cost of the vehicle or of the whole launch. Maybe 70%. And we’ve now done that over 100 times.好的。Starship 是极其根本性的东西。火箭技术或太空运输的圣杯是完全且快速的可重复使用性。这从未被实现过。最接近的是我们的 Falcon 9 火箭，我们能够回收第一级助推级，那大概是飞行器或整个发射成本的 60%，也许是 70%。我们现在已经做到了 100 多次。
Elon MuskSo with Starship, we will be recovering the entire thing. At least that’s the goal. And moreover, recovering it in such a way that it can be immediately re-flown. Whereas with Falcon 9, we still need to do some amount of refurbishment to the booster and to the fairing nose cone. But with Starship, the design goal is immediate re-flight. You just refill propellants and go again. This is gigantic. Just as it would be in any other mode of transport.而有了 Starship，我们将把整个飞行器都回收回来。至少那是目标。而且，回收的方式要能立即再次飞行。而 Falcon 9 则需要对助推器和整流罩鼻锥进行一定程度的翻修。但 Starship 的设计目标是立即再次飞行。只需重新加注推进剂就可以再次出发。这是划时代的。就像在任何其他交通方式中一样。
Chris AndersonAnd the main design is to basically take 100 plus people at a time, plus a bunch of things that they need, to Mars. So, first of all, talk about that piece. What is your latest timeline? One, for the first time, a Starship goes to Mars, presumably without people, but just equipment. Two, with people. Three, the sort of, okay, 100 people at a time. Let’s go.其主要设计是每次搭载 100 多人，加上他们所需的一堆物资，去往火星。那么，先聊聊这个部分。你最新的时间线是什么？一，第一次 Starship 飞往火星，我猜应该没有人，只有设备；二，载人飞行；三，就是那种"好，每次 100 人，出发"的状态。
Elon MuskSure. Well, just to put the cost thing into perspective. The expected cost of Starship putting 100 tons into orbit is significantly less than what it did cost to put our tiny Falcon 1 rocket into orbit. Just as the cost of flying a 747 around the world is less than the cost of a small airplane. You know, a small airplane that was thrown away. So it’s really pretty mind-boggling that the giant thing cost way less than the small thing. So it doesn’t use sort of exotic propellants or things that are difficult to obtain on Mars. It uses methane as fuel and it’s primarily oxygen – sort of roughly 77, 78% oxygen by weight. And Mars has a CO2 atmosphere and has water ice, which is CO2 plus H2O, so you can make CH4 methane and O2 oxygen on Mars.好的。先从成本角度说一下。Starship 将 100 吨送入轨道的预期成本，大幅低于我们当年把小型 Falcon 1 火箭送入轨道的成本。就像飞一架 747 绕地球一圈的成本低于一架用完即扔的小型飞机的成本一样。那个巨型的东西成本远低于那个小型的东西，这真的令人难以置信。它不使用那些特殊的推进剂，或在火星上难以获取的东西。它使用甲烷作为燃料，主要是氧气——按重量计算大约是 77%、78% 的氧气。而火星有 CO2 大气层和水冰，就是 CO2 加 H2O，所以在火星上你可以合成 CH4 甲烷和 O2 氧气。
Chris AndersonPresumably, one of the first tasks on Mars will be to create a fuel plant that can create the fuel for the return trips of many Starships.我猜，在火星上的第一批任务之一将是建立一个燃料厂，为许多 Starship 的返回之旅制造燃料。
Elon MuskYes. And actually, it’s mostly going to be an oxygen plant, because it’s 78% oxygen, 22% fuel. But the fuel is a simple fuel that is easy to create on Mars and in many other parts of the solar system. So basically… And it’s all propulsive landing, no parachutes, nothing thrown away. It has a heat shield that’s capable of entering on Earth or Mars. We could even potentially go to Venus, but you don’t want to go there. Venus is hell, almost literally. But you could… It’s a generalized method of transport to anywhere in the solar system because the point at which you have propellant depo on Mars, you can then travel to the asteroid belt, and to the moons of Jupiter, and then to Saturn and ultimately, anywhere in the solar system.是的。实际上，它主要会是一个制氧厂，因为氧气占 78%，燃料只占 22%。而燃料是一种在火星乃至太阳系许多其他地方都很容易制造的简单燃料。所以基本上……而且全靠推进着陆，没有降落伞，什么都不丢弃。它有一个热防护罩，能够进入地球或火星的大气层。我们甚至可能可以飞到金星，但你不会想去那里的。金星就是地狱，几乎是字面意义上的。但你可以……它是一种通往太阳系任何地方的通用交通工具，因为一旦你在火星上有了推进剂补给点，就可以前往小行星带，前往木星的卫星，然后去土星，最终去往太阳系的任何地方。
Chris AndersonRight. Your main focus and SpaceX’s main focus is still Mars. That is the mission. That is where most of the effort will go? Or are you imagining a much broader array of uses even in the coming, you know, the first decade or so of uses of this? Where we could go, for example, to other places in the solar system to explore… perhaps NASA wants to use the rocket for that reason?对。你和 SpaceX 的主要焦点还是火星吗？那是使命，大部分精力都会放在那里？还是你在想象，就算是在最初的这十年左右的使用期内，也会有更广泛的用途？比如我们可以去太阳系的其他地方探索……也许 NASA 出于这个原因想用这枚火箭？
Elon MuskYeah. NASA is planning to use a Starship to return to the Moon, to return people to the Moon. And so we’re very honored that NASA has chosen us to do this. But I’m saying it’s a general solution to getting anywhere in the greater solar system. It’s not suitable for going to another star system, but it is a general solution for transport anywhere in the solar system.是的，NASA 计划用 Starship 重返月球，让人类重返月球。我们非常荣幸 NASA 选择了我们来做这件事。但我想说的是，它是一个通往更广阔太阳系任何地方的通用解决方案。它不适合前往另一个恒星系，但它确实是太阳系内任何地方运输的通用解决方案。
Chris AndersonBefore it can do any of that, it’s got to demonstrate it can get into orbit around Earth. What’s your latest advice on the timeline for that?在做到这一切之前，它必须先证明自己能绕地球进入轨道。关于这个时间线，你最新的判断是什么？
Elon MuskIt’s looking promising for us to have an orbital launch attempt in a few months. So we’re actually integrating the… we’ll be integrating the engines into the booster for the first orbital flight starting in about a week or two. And the launch complex itself is ready to go. So assuming we get regulatory approval, I think we could have an overall launch attempt within a few months.看起来我们在几个月内进行轨道发射尝试还是很有希望的。实际上我们将在大约一两周内开始把发动机集成到用于第一次轨道飞行的助推器上。发射综合体本身已经准备就绪。所以假设我们获得监管批准，我认为我们可以在几个月内进行整体发射尝试。
Chris AndersonAnd a radical new technology like this, presumably there is real risk on those early attempts.像这样一项全新的激进技术，我猜早期尝试肯定存在真实的风险。
Elon MuskYeah, like, I mean, the joke I make all the time is that excitement is guaranteed. Success is not guaranteed, but excitement certainly is.对，我的意思是，我一直开的玩笑是：精彩刺激是保证有的。成功不保证，但精彩刺激绝对保证。
Chris AndersonBut the last I saw on your timeline, you’ve slightly put back the expected date to put the first human on Mars till 2029, I want to say?不过我上次看你的时间线，你把首次将人类送上火星的预期时间略微推迟到了 2029 年，我记得？
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, so let’s see. I mean, we have built a production system for Starship. So, we are making a lot of ships and boosters.对，我的意思是，且看着吧。我们已经建立了 Starship 的生产体系，我们在大量制造飞船和助推器。
Chris AndersonHow many are you planning to make actually?你们计划实际制造多少？
Elon MuskWe’re currently expecting to make a booster and a ship roughly every… well, initially, roughly every couple of months, and hopefully by the end of this year, one every month. So it’s giant rockets, and a lot of them. Just talking in terms of rough orders of magnitude, in order to create a self-sustaining city on Mars, I think you will need something on the order of a thousand ships. And we just need a Helen of Sparta, I guess, on Mars.我们目前预计大约每……嗯，最初大约每几个月制造一台助推器和一艘飞船，希望到今年年底能达到每月一台的速度。这些都是巨型火箭，而且数量很多。粗略估算一下数量级：要在火星上建立一个自给自足的城市，我认为你需要大约 1,000 艘飞船。我们只是需要一个火星上的斯巴达的 Helen 吧。
Chris AndersonThis is not in most people’s heads.这不在大多数人的脑子里。
Elon MuskThe planet that launched a thousand ships.那颗发射了千艘飞船的星球。
Chris AndersonThat’s nice. But this is not in most people’s heads, this picture that you have in your mind. There’s basically a two-year window. You can only really fly to Mars conveniently every two years. You are picturing that during the 2030s, every couple years, something like 1,000 Starships take off, each containing 100 or more people. That picture is just completely mind-blowing to me. That sense of this armada of humans going to…这个隐喻很妙。但这个图景确实不在大多数人的脑海里——你脑海里的那幅画面。基本上有一个两年周期，你只能每两年才能方便地飞往火星一次。你设想的是，在 2030 年代，每隔几年，大约 1,000 艘 Starship 起飞，每艘搭载 100 人或更多。这幅图景对我来说太令人震撼了。那种人类舰队进发的感觉……
Elon MuskYeah, like “Battlestar Galactica,” the fleet departs.对，就像《太空堡垒卡拉狄加》，舰队出发了。
Chris AndersonAnd you think that it can basically be funded by people spending maybe a couple hundred grand on a ticket to Mars. Is that price about where it has been?而且你认为这基本上可以由购买火星船票的人——大概几十万美元——来资助。票价还是那个数字吗？
Elon MuskWell, I think, if you say like, what’s required in order to get enough people and enough cargo to Mars to build a self-sustaining city. And it’s where you have an intersection of sets of people who want to go because I think only a small percentage of humanity will want to go and can afford to go or get sponsorship in some manner. That intersection of sets, I think, needs to be a million people or something like that.嗯，我的意思是，如果你问，要吸引足够多的人和足够多的货物前往火星、建立一个自给自足的城市，需要什么条件？需要的是两类人群的交集：想去的人，因为我认为只有一小部分人类会想去并且能负担得起或以某种方式获得资助。这个交集，我认为需要达到大约 100 万人左右。
Elon MuskAnd so it’s what can a million people afford or get sponsorship for, because I think governments will also pay for it, and people can take out loans. But I think at the point at which you say, okay, like, if moving to Mars costs are, for argument’s sake, $100,000, then I think, you know, almost anyone can work and save up and eventually have $100,000 and be able to go to Mars if they want. We want to make it available to anyone who wants to go.所以问题是，100 万人能负担得起或者能获得资助的金额是多少？因为我认为各国政府也会为此付钱，而且人们可以贷款。但我认为，如果移居火星的成本，假设是 $100,000，那么我认为，几乎任何人都可以努力工作、攒钱，最终攒到 $100,000，然后如果他们想去，就能去火星。我们想让任何想去的人都能去。
Elon MuskAnd it’s very important to emphasize that Mars, especially in the beginning, will not be luxurious. It will be dangerous, cramped, difficult, hard work. It’s kind of like that Shackleton ad for going to the Antarctic, which I think is actually not real, but it sounds real, and it’s cool.非常重要的一点是，火星，尤其是初期，将不会是奢华的地方。它会是危险的、狭小的、艰难的、辛苦的。有点像沙克尔顿那个去南极洲的广告——我其实认为那个广告是假的，但它听起来像真的，而且很酷。
Elon MuskIt’s sort of like, the sales pitch for going to Mars is, “It’s dangerous, it’s cramped. You might not make it back. It’s difficult. It’s hard work.” That’s the sales pitch.前往火星的销售话术大概是："它是危险的，它是狭小的。你可能无法回来。它是艰难的，它是辛苦的。"这就是销售话术。
Chris AndersonRight. “You will make history”.对。"你将创造历史。"
Elon Musk“But it will be glorious”."但它将是辉煌的。"
Chris AndersonRight. So on that kind of launch rate, you’re talking about over two decades, you could get your million people to Mars, essentially. Whose city is it? Is it NASA’s city, is it SpaceX’s city?好的。以那样的发射频率，你说的是在二十年内，你基本上可以把 100 万人送上火星。那是谁的城市？是 NASA 的城市，还是 SpaceX 的城市？
Elon MuskIt’s the people of Mars’ city. The reason for this… I mean, I have to say, like, I feel like well, why do this thing? I think this is important for maximizing the probable lifespan of humanity or consciousness. Human civilization could come to an end for external reasons, like a giant meteor, or super volcanoes, or extreme climate change, or World War III, or, you know, any one of a number of reasons. But the probable life span of civilizational consciousness as we know it, which we should really view as this very delicate thing, like a small candle in a vast darkness. That’s what appears to be the case. We’re in this vast darkness of space, and there’s this little candle of consciousness that’s only really come about after four and a half billion years. And it could just go out.是火星人的城市。原因是这样的……我不得不说，我觉得，为什么要做这件事？我认为这对于最大化人类或意识可能的存续时间至关重要。人类文明可能因为外部原因而走向终结，比如巨型陨石、超级火山、极端气候变化、第三次世界大战，或者任何原因之一。但文明意识的可能存续时间，正如我们所知道的，我们应该真的把它视为这非常脆弱的东西——就像浩瀚黑暗中的一根小蜡烛。那似乎就是现实情况。我们置身于这片浩瀚的太空黑暗之中，有这么一点意识的烛光，它仅仅在四十五亿年之后才真正出现。而它可能就这么熄灭了。
Chris AndersonI think that’s powerful, and I think a lot of people will be inspired by that vision. So the reason you need the million people is because there has to be enough people there to do everything that you need to survive.我认为这很有力量，而且我认为很多人会被这个愿景所激励。所以你需要 100 万人的原因是，那里必须有足够多的人来做生存所需的一切事情。
Elon MuskReally, like, the critical threshold is, if those ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, does the Mars city die out or not? And so we have to pass… you know, people talk about like, the sort of, the great filters, the things that perhaps… you know, we talk about the Fermi Paradox, and where are the aliens? Well, maybe there are these various great filters that the aliens didn’t pass and so they eventually just ceased to exist. And one of the great filters is becoming a multi-planet species. So we want to pass that filter. And I’ll be long dead before this is, you know, a real thing, before it happens. But I’d like to at least see us make great progress in this direction.真正的关键阈值是：如果来自地球的飞船因为任何原因停止到来，火星城市会不会就此灭亡？我们必须越过这个门槛……你知道，人们谈论那种"大过滤器"，那些也许……你知道，我们谈论费米悖论，外星人在哪里？嗯，也许存在这些各种各样的大过滤器，让外星人没能通过，所以他们最终就不复存在了。其中一个大过滤器就是成为多星球物种。所以我们想要通过那个过滤器。等这真正成为现实的时候，我早就去世了，但我希望至少能看到我们在这个方向上取得重大进展。
Chris AndersonGiven how tortured the Earth is right now, how much we’re beating each other up, shouldn’t there be discussions going on with everyone who is dreaming about Mars to try to say, we’ve got a once in a civilizations chance to make some new rules here? Should someone be trying to lead those discussions to figure out what it means for this to be the people of Mars’ city?考虑到地球现在多么混乱，我们彼此间伤害那么多，难道不应该在所有梦想着火星的人中间展开讨论，试图说，我们有一个文明级别的机会来制定一些新规则吗？应该有人牵头这些讨论，弄清楚"这是火星人民的城市"意味着什么吗？
Elon MuskWell, I think ultimately, this will be up to the people of Mars to decide how they want to rethink society. Yet there’s certainly risk there, and hopefully, the people of Mars will be more enlightened and will not fight amongst each other too much. I mean, I have some recommendations, which people of Mars may choose to listen to or not. I would advocate for more of a direct democracy, not a representative democracy, and laws that are short enough for people to understand. And where it is harder to create laws than to get rid of them.嗯，我认为最终这将由火星人民自己来决定他们想如何重构社会。当然那里存在风险，希望火星人民更有智慧，不会彼此争斗太多。我有一些建议，火星人民可以选择听或者不听。我会倡导更直接的民主制，而不是代议制民主，以及短到让人们能理解的法律。而且废除一条法律比创立一条法律更容易。
Chris AndersonComing back a bit nearer term. I’d love you to just talk a bit about some of the other possibility space that Starship seems to have created. So given, suddenly, we’ve got this ability to move 100 tons plus into orbit. So we’ve just launched the James Webb Telescope, which is an incredible thing. It’s unbelievable.稍微往近处拉一点。我想请你谈谈 Starship 似乎创造出的其他一些可能性空间。现在，我们突然拥有了把 100 吨以上送入轨道的能力。我们刚刚发射了詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜，那真是了不起的东西。令人难以置信。
Elon MuskExquisite piece of technology.精致绝伦的技术。
Chris AndersonExquisite piece of technology. But people spent two years trying to figure out how to fold up this thing. It’s a three-ton telescope.精致绝伦的技术。但人们花了两年时间试图弄清楚如何折叠这个东西。它是一台 3 吨重的望远镜。
Elon MuskWe can make it a lot easier if you’ve got more volume and mass.如果你有更多的体积和质量，可以把这件事变得容易很多。
Chris AndersonWell, but let’s ask a different question which is, how much more powerful a telescope could someone design based on using Starship, for example?嗯，但我们不妨换个问题问：如果基于使用 Starship 来设计，能造出功能强多少的望远镜？
Elon MuskRoughly, I would say, it’s probably an order of magnitude more resolution if you’ve got 100 tons and 1,000 cubic meters volume, which is roughly what we have.粗略来说，如果你有 100 吨和大约 1,000 立方米的体积，大概我们能达到的，分辨率大约可以提升一个数量级。
Chris AndersonAnd what about other exploration through the solar system? I mean, I’m, you know…那太阳系内的其他探索呢？我是说，我……
Elon MuskEuropa is a big question mark.Europa 是一个巨大的问号。
Chris AndersonRight. So there’s an ocean there, right? And what you really want to do is to drop a submarine into the ocean.对。那里有一片海洋，对吧？而你真正想做的是把一艘潜水艇放进那片海洋。
Elon MuskYeah, I mean, maybe there’s like some squid civilization, cephalopod civilization, under the ice of Europa. That would be pretty interesting.对，我的意思是，也许 Europa 冰层下面有某种鱿鱼文明、头足类文明。那会相当有趣。
Chris AndersonI mean, Elon, if you could take a submarine to Europa, and we see pictures of this thing being devoured by a squid, that would honestly be the happiest moment of my life.我的意思是，Elon，如果你能把一艘潜水艇带到 Europa，我们看到这东西被一只鱿鱼吞掉的画面，那说真的会是我人生中最快乐的时刻。
Elon MuskPretty wild, yeah.确实很疯狂，是的。
Chris AndersonWhat other possibilities are out there? Like, it feels like if you’re going to create 1,000 of these things, they can only fly to Mars every two years. What are they doing the rest of the time? It feels like there’s this explosion of possibility that I don’t think people are really thinking about.还有哪些可能性？感觉如果你要造 1,000 艘这样的东西，它们每两年才能飞一次火星。其他时间它们在做什么？感觉有一大爆炸式的可能性，是人们还没有真正思考过的。
Elon MuskI mean, I don’t know. We’ve certainly got a long way to go. As you alluded to earlier, we still have to get to orbit. And then, after we get to orbit, we have to really prove out and refine full and rapid reusability. That’ll take a moment. But I do think we will solve this. I’m highly confident we will solve this at this point.我的意思是，我也不知道。我们显然还有很长的路要走。就像你之前提到的，我们还需要先进入轨道。进入轨道之后，我们还需要真正验证和完善完全且快速的可重复使用性。这还需要一段时间。但我确实认为我们会解决这个问题。现在这一点我非常有信心。
Chris AndersonDo you ever wake up with the fear that there’s going to be this Hindenburg moment for SpaceX where…你有没有在某个早晨醒来，担心会有一个 SpaceX 的"兴登堡时刻"……
Elon MuskWe’ve had many Hindenburg… well, we’ve never had Hindenburg moments with people, which is very important. Big difference. We’ve blown up quite a few rockets. There’s a whole compilation online that we put together and others put together. It’s showing rockets are hard. I mean, the sheer amount of energy going through a rocket boggles the mind. So, you know, getting out of Earth’s gravity well is difficult. We have a strong gravity and a thick atmosphere. And Mars, which is less than 40%, it’s like 37% of Earth’s gravity and has a thin atmosphere. The ship alone can go all the way from the surface of Mars to the surface of Earth. Whereas getting to Mars requires a giant booster and orbital refilling.我们经历过很多次"兴登堡"……嗯，我们从来没有发生过有人员伤亡的"兴登堡时刻"，这一点非常重要，差别很大。我们炸掉了不少火箭。网上有一整个合辑，我们自己做的，别人也做的。这说明火箭真的很难。通过火箭的纯粹能量量级就让人难以置信。脱离地球引力井是很困难的，我们有很强的重力和厚厚的大气层。而火星不到地球重力的 40%，大概是 37%，而且大气层很薄。Starship 飞船单体就能从火星表面一路飞回地球表面。而从地球飞往火星则需要一个巨型助推器和轨道补加燃料。
Chris AndersonSo, Elon, as I think more about this incredible array of things that you’re involved with, I keep seeing these synergies, to use a horrible word, between them. You know, for example, the robots you’re building from Tesla could possibly be pretty handy on Mars, doing some of the dangerous work and so forth. I mean, maybe there’s a scenario where your city on Mars doesn’t need a million people. It needs half a million people and half a million robots.那么，Elon，当我更多思考你参与的这些令人难以置信的事情时，我不断看到它们之间的协同——用一个很难听的词——你知道，比如，你从 Tesla 打造的机器人，在火星上处理危险工作可能会相当有用，等等。我的意思是，也许有一种场景，你在火星上的城市不需要 100 万人，而是需要 50 万人和 50 万个机器人。
Elon MuskSure.当然。
Chris AndersonAnd that’s a possibility. Maybe the Boring Company could play a role helping create some of those subterranean dwelling spaces that you might need. Back on planet Earth, it seems like a partnership between Boring Company and Tesla could offer an unbelievable deal to a city to say, we will create for you a 3D network of tunnels populated by robo-taxis that will offer fast, low-cost transport to anyone. You know, full self-driving may or may not be done this year. And in some cities, like, somewhere like Mumbai, I suspect won’t be done for a decade.这是一种可能性。也许 Boring Company 可以发挥作用，帮助建造你在火星上可能需要的那些地下居住空间。回到地球上，Boring Company 和 Tesla 之间的合作，似乎可以向一座城市提供一个难以置信的提案——我们将为你建造一个 3D 隧道网络，由机器人出租车填充，为任何人提供快速、低成本的交通。你知道，完全自动驾驶今年可能完成也可能完不成。在某些城市，比如像孟买这样的地方，我猜要十年后才能实现。
Elon MuskSome places are more challenging than others.有些地方确实比其他地方更有挑战性。
Chris AndersonBut today, with what you’ve got, you could put a 3D network of tunnels under there.但今天，以你现有的技术，你可以在那下面建一个 3D 隧道网络。
Elon MuskOh, if it’s just in a tunnel that’s a solved problem, basically.哦，如果只是在隧道里，那基本上是已经解决的问题了。
Chris AndersonExactly, full self-driving is a solved problem. So, to me, there’s amazing synergy there. With Starship, you know, Gwynne Shotwell talked about by 2028 having from city to city, you know, transport on planet Earth.正是，完全自动驾驶就是已经解决的问题。所以对我来说，这里有惊人的协同效应。而 Starship 方面，Gwynne Shotwell 谈到到 2028 年，能够实现地球上城市之间的交通。
Elon MuskYeah, this is a real possibility. The fastest way to get from one place to another, if it’s a long distance, is a rocket. It’s basically ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) with land landing, delete the nuke.对，这是真实的可能性。从一个地方到另一个地方最快的方式，如果是长距离的话，就是火箭。基本上就是 ICBM（洲际弹道导弹）加陆地降落，把核弹头删掉。
Chris AndersonBut it has to land… Because it’s an ICBM, it has to land probably offshore because it’s loud.但它必须降落在……因为它是 ICBM，它可能必须降落在近海，因为它很响。
Elon MuskYeah, it is loud.对，它确实很响。
Chris AndersonSo why not have a tunnel that then connects to the city with Teslas?那为什么不建一条隧道，然后用 Tesla 连接到城市里呢？
Elon MuskYeah, that would be cool.对，那会很酷。
Chris AndersonAnd Neuralink. I mean, if you’re going to go to Mars, having a telepathic connection with loved ones back home, even if there’s a time delay…还有 Neuralink。我的意思是，如果你要去火星，有一种与地球上亲人的心灵感应式连接，即使有时间延迟……
Elon MuskThese are not intended to be connected, by the way, but there certainly could be some synergies, yeah.这些并不是有意连接在一起的，顺便说一句，但它们之间确实可能有一些协同效应，是的。
Chris AndersonSurely there is a growing argument that you should actually put all these things together into one company and just have a company devoted to creating a future that’s exciting and let a thousand flowers bloom. Have you been thinking about that?我越来越觉得有一个越来越有力的论据，那就是你应该把所有这些东西合并成一家公司，专门致力于创造一个令人兴奋的未来，让百花齐放。你有没有考虑过这个？
Elon MuskI mean, it is tricky because Tesla is a publicly traded company, and the investor base of Tesla and SpaceX, and certainly Boring Company and Neuralink, are quite different. Boring Company and Neuralink are tiny companies. Tesla got 110,000 people, SpaceX, I think, is about 12,000 people, Boring Company and Neuralink are both under 200 people. So they’re little, tiny companies, but they probably get bigger in the future. They will get bigger in the future. It’s not that easy to sort of combine these things.我的意思是，这挺棘手的，因为 Tesla 是一家上市公司，而 Tesla 和 SpaceX 的投资者群体非常不同，Boring Company 和 Neuralink 就更不用说了。Boring Company 和 Neuralink 是非常小的公司。Tesla 有 110,000 名员工，SpaceX 我想大概是 12,000 人，Boring Company 和 Neuralink 都不到 200 人。所以它们是小小的公司，但将来可能会更大，它们会更大的。把这些东西合并并不那么容易。
Chris AndersonTraditionally, you’ve said that for SpaceX especially, you wouldn’t want it public because public investors wouldn’t support the craziness of the idea of going to Mars or whatever.传统上，你说过尤其是 SpaceX，你不希望它上市，因为公众投资者不会支持去火星这类疯狂想法。
Elon MuskYeah, making life multi-planetary is outside of the normal time horizon of Wall Street analysts, to say the least.对，让生命成为多星球的，这超出了华尔街分析师正常时间视野的范畴，这么说还是很保守的。
Chris AndersonI think something’s changed, though. What’s changed is that Tesla is now so powerful and so big, and throws off so much cash, that you actually could connect the dots here. Just tell the public that x billion dollars a year, whatever your number is, will be diverted to the Mars mission. I suspect you’d have massive interest in that company. And it might unlock a lot more possibility for you, no?不过我觉得有些事情变了。变了的是 Tesla 现在如此强大和庞大，产生如此多的现金流，以至于你实际上可以把这些点连起来。只需告诉公众，每年将有 x 亿美元，不管你的数字是多少，会被拨付到火星任务中。我猜会有大批投资者对那家公司感兴趣。这也可能为你解锁更多可能性，不是吗？
Elon MuskI mean, I would like to give the public access to ownership of SpaceX. But the overhead associated with public company is high. I mean, as a public company, you’re just constantly sued. It does occupy like a fair bit of, you know, time and effort to deal with these things.我的意思是，我确实想让公众能够持有 SpaceX 的股份。但作为一家上市公司，管理成本是很高的。我的意思是，作为上市公司，你会不断被起诉。应对这些事情确实会占用相当多的时间和精力。
Chris AndersonRight, but you would still only have one public company. It would be bigger and have more things going on. But instead of being on four boards, you’d be on one.对，但你还是只有一家上市公司。它会更大，里面有更多事情在发生。但与其身兼四家公司的董事会，你就只在一家的董事会。
Elon MuskI’m actually not even on the Neuralink or Boring Company boards. And I don’t really attend the SpaceX board meetings. We only have two a year, and I just stop by and chat for an hour. So, the board overhead for a public company is much higher.实际上我甚至不在 Neuralink 或 Boring Company 的董事会。我也基本上不参加 SpaceX 的董事会会议。我们一年只开两次，而且我就过去聊一个小时。所以上市公司的董事会管理成本要高得多。
Chris AndersonRight. I think some investors probably worry about how your time is being split, and they might be excited by that. Anyway, I just woke up the other day thinking, just, there are so many ways in which these things connect. And you know, just the simplicity of that mission, of building a future that is worth getting excited about, might appeal to an awful lot of people. Elon, you’re reported by Forbes and everyone else as now, you know, the world’s richest person.对。我想一些投资者可能会担心你的时间是怎么分配的，他们可能会对此感到兴奋。不管怎样，我只是某天醒来，觉得这些东西有那么多连接的方式。你知道，就是打造一个值得为之振奋的未来这个使命的简洁性，可能会吸引大量的人。Elon，据 Forbes 和所有人报道，你现在是全球首富。
Elon MuskThat’s not a sovereign. You know, I think it’s fair to say that if somebody is like the king or de facto king of a country, they’re wealthier than I am.那可不算一个主权国家。我觉得公平地说，如果一个人是某个国家的国王或实际上的国王，他们的财富比我更多。
Chris AndersonBut it’s just harder to measure. But what people do… so $300 billion. I mean, your net worth on any given day is rising or falling by several billion dollars. How insane is that?只是更难衡量而已。但人们……所以，$3,000 亿。你的净资产每天的涨跌都以几十亿美元计。那有多疯狂？
Elon MuskIt’s bonkers, yeah.真的是疯了，没错。
Chris AndersonI mean, how do you handle that psychologically? There aren’t many people in the world who have to even think about that.我是说，你在心理上怎么应对？世界上能想到这个问题的人没几个。
Elon MuskI actually don’t think about that too much. The thing that is actually more difficult, and that does make sleeping difficult, is that every good hour, or even minute, of thinking about Tesla and SpaceX has such a big effect on the company that I really try to work as much as possible, you know, to the edge of sanity, basically. Because Tesla’s getting to the point where – probably will get to the point later this year – where every high-quality minute of thinking is a million dollars impact on Tesla. Which is insane. I mean, the basic, you know, if Tesla’s doing sort of $2 billion a week, let’s say, in revenues, sort of $300 million a day, seven days a week, you know, it’s…我其实没怎么想过这个。真正让我难以入睡、更折磨我的是：我在 Tesla 和 SpaceX 上投入的每一个优质小时、甚至每一分钟，对公司的影响都太大了，所以我真的拼命工作，基本上逼到理智的边缘。因为 Tesla 已经到了——大概今年晚些时候就会到——一个节点：我每花一分钟高质量思考，就能给 Tesla 带来一百万美元的影响。这太疯狂了。算一下基本数字：如果 Tesla 每周收入大约 $2 billion，也就是每天大约 $300 million，七天都算进去……
Chris AndersonIf you can change that by 5% in an hour’s brainstorm, that’s a pretty valuable hour.如果你能在一小时头脑风暴里把这个数字提升 5%，那这一小时的价值就非常惊人了。
Elon MuskI mean, there are many instances where a half-hour meeting… I was able to improve the financial outcome with the company by $100 million in a half-hour meeting.有很多次，就一场半小时的会议……我就能让公司的财务结果改善 $100 million。
Chris AndersonThere are many other people out there who can’t stand this world of billionaires. Like, they are hugely offended by the notion that an individual can have the same wealth as, say, a billion or more of the world’s poorest people.外面还有很多人对这个亿万富翁的世界深恶痛绝。他们对一个人能拥有和世界上十亿甚至更多穷人财富总和相当的财富这件事，感到极度愤慨。
Elon MuskIf they examined sort of… I think there’s some axiomatic flaws that are leading them to that conclusion. For sure, it would be very problematic if I was consuming, you know, billions of dollars a year in personal consumption. But that is not the case. In fact, I don’t even own a home right now. I’m literally staying at friends’ places. If I travel to the Bay Area, where most of Tesla’s engineering is, I basically rotate through friends’ spare bedrooms. I don’t have a yacht. I really don’t take vacations. It’s not as though that my personal consumption is high. I mean, the one exception is a plane. But if I don’t use the plane than I have less hours to work.如果他们仔细想想……我觉得他们的结论有一些公理层面的错误。如果我每年在个人消费上花掉数十亿美元，那当然是很大的问题。但事实根本不是这样。我现在甚至没有自己的房子，真的就是住在朋友家里。每次去湾区——Tesla 大部分工程师都在那边——我基本上轮流睡朋友的客卧。我没有游艇，也几乎从不度假。我的个人消费并不高。唯一的例外是私人飞机。但如果我不用飞机，我的工作时间就会更少。
Chris AndersonI mean, I personally think you have shown that you are mostly driven by really quite a deep sense of moral purpose. Like, your attempts to solve the climate problem have been as powerful as anyone else on the planet that I’m aware of. And I actually can’t understand… personally, I can’t understand the fact that you get all this criticism from the left about, “Oh my God, he’s so rich.” That’s disgusting. When climate is their issue, philanthropy is a topic that some people go to. Philanthropy is a hard topic. How do you think about that?我个人认为你已经展示出，你的驱动力大部分来自非常深层的道德使命感。比如你在解决气候问题上付出的努力，在我所知道的人里面，没有人比你做得更有力。我真的理解不了……个人来说，我理解不了你为什么会从左派那里收到这些批评：'天哪，他好有钱'，太令人作呕了。气候本来就是他们的核心议题。慈善是一些人会谈到的话题，但慈善本身是个复杂的命题。你怎么看待这件事？
Elon MuskI think if you care about the reality of goodness instead of the perception of it, philanthropy is extremely difficult. SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink and The Boring Company are philanthropy. If you say philanthropy is love of humanity, they are philanthropy. Tesla is accelerating sustainable energy. This is a love of… philanthropy. SpaceX is trying to ensure the long-term survival of humanity with a multi-planet species. This is love of humanity. You know, Neuralink is to help solve brain injuries and existential risk with AI. Love of humanity. Boring Company is trying to solve traffic, which is hell for most people, and that also is love of humanity.我觉得，如果你在乎的是善的实质而不是善的表象，那慈善极其难做。SpaceX、Tesla、Neuralink 和 The Boring Company 本身就是慈善。如果你说慈善是对人类的爱，那它们就是慈善。Tesla 在加速可持续能源的普及，这是对人类的爱——慈善。SpaceX 是在努力确保人类的长期存续，让我们成为多星球物种，这是对人类的爱。Neuralink 是为了帮助解决脑损伤问题，并应对 AI 带来的生存风险，这也是对人类的爱。Boring Company 是在努力解决交通拥堵——对大多数人来说那就是地狱——同样也是对人类的爱。
Chris AndersonHow upsetting is it to you to hear this constant drumbeat of, “Billionaires, my God, Elon Musk, oh, my God”? Like, do you just shrug that off, or does it actually hurt?那种不断轰炸你的声音——'亿万富翁，天哪，Elon Musk，天哪'——你有多烦？你是直接无视，还是真的会伤到你？
Elon MuskI mean, at this point, it’s water off a duck’s back.我现在已经无所谓了，像水从鸭背上滑走一样。
Chris AndersonElon, I’d like to, as we wrap up now, just pull the camera back and just think… you’re a father of seven surviving kids, and…Elon，我想在我们收尾之前，把镜头拉远一点想想……你是七个孩子的父亲，还在世的七个，而且……
Elon MuskWell, I mean, I’m trying to set a good example because the birthrate on Earth is so low that we’re facing civilizational collapse unless the birthrate returns to a sustainable level.我是在以身作则——因为地球的出生率已经低到这种程度，如果不恢复到可持续的水平，我们正面临文明崩溃。
Chris AndersonYeah, you’ve talked about this a lot, that depopulation is a big problem. And people don’t understand how big a problem it is.是的，你谈过很多次，人口减少是个大问题，而且人们根本不明白这个问题有多严重。
Elon MuskYes, population collapse is one of the biggest threats of the future of human civilization. And that is what’s going on right now.是的，人口崩溃是人类文明未来面临的最大威胁之一，而这正是现在正在发生的事情。
Chris AndersonWhat drives you on a day-to-day basis to do what you do?是什么在日复一日地驱动你做你所做的一切？
Elon MuskI guess, like, I really want to make sure that there is a good future for humanity and that we’re on a path to understanding the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, why are we here, how did we get here? And in order to understand the nature of the universe and all these fundamental questions, we must expand the scope and scale of consciousness. Certainly, it must not diminish or go out, or we certainly wouldn’t understand this. I would say I’ve been motivated by curiosity more than anything, and just a desire to think about the future and not be sad, you know.我想，我真的非常希望人类能有一个美好的未来，能走在一条理解宇宙本质、理解生命意义的道路上——我们为什么在这里？我们是怎么来的？而要理解宇宙的本质和这些根本性的问题，我们必须扩展意识的广度与深度。意识一定不能萎缩或消亡，否则我们永远不会弄明白这些问题。我觉得，比任何东西都更驱动我的是好奇心，还有一种渴望——想着想着未来，不要觉得悲伤，你知道的。
Chris AndersonAnd are you? Are you not sad?那你现在呢？你没有感到悲伤吗？
Elon MuskI’m sometimes sad. Mostly I’m feeling I guess, relatively optimistic about the future these days. There are certainly some big risks that humanity faces. I think the population collapse is a really big deal that I wish more people would think about. Because the birth rate is far below what’s needed to sustain civilization at its current level. And, yeah, there’s obviously… we need to take action on climate sustainability, which is being done. And we need to secure the future of consciousness by being a multi-planet species. We need to address the… essentially, it’s important to take whatever actions we can think of to address the existential risks that affect the future of consciousness.我有时候会悲伤。但大多数时候，我觉得对未来还是相对乐观的。人类当然面临一些巨大的风险。我认为人口崩溃是一件非常严峻的事，我希望有更多人去认真思考它——因为出生率远远低于维持当前文明水平所需的数字。还有，我们显然需要在气候可持续性上采取行动，而这一点正在推进中。我们需要通过成为多星球物种来确保意识的未来。我们需要尽一切可能去应对那些威胁意识未来的生存风险——这本质上是非常重要的事。
Chris AndersonThere’s a whole generation coming through who seem really sad about the future. What would you say to them?现在有整整一代年轻人似乎对未来感到非常悲观。你想对他们说什么？
Elon MuskWell, I think if you want the future to be good, you must make it so. Take action to make it good. And it will be.我觉得，如果你希望未来是美好的，你就必须去让它变得美好。采取行动，让它变好。它就会变好的。
Chris AndersonElon, thank you for all this time. That is a beautiful place to end. Thanks for all that you’re doing.Elon，感谢你花了这么长时间。这是一个很美的结尾。感谢你所做的一切。
Elon MuskYou’re welcome.不客气。