This is a clip from a conversation with Elon Musk from Nov 2019, his second appearance on the podcast. New full episodes are released once or twice a week and 1-2 new clips or a new non-podcast video is released on all other days. You can watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smK9dgdTl40
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Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and a co-founder of several other companies.

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Ultimately, we currently operate on 2 layers.

We have a limbic, primitive brain layer, which is where all of our impulses are coming from.

of like we've got a monkey brain with a computer stuck on it.

And a lot of our impulses and everything are driven by the monkey brain.

And the computer, the cortex, is constantly trying to make the monkey brain happy.

It's not the cortex that's steering the monkey brains, the monkey brain's steering the cortex.

But the cortex is the part that tells the story of the whole thing so we convince ourselves It's it's more interesting than just the monkey brain

Cortex is like what we call like human intelligence, you know, so it's like That's like the advanced computer relative to other creatures.

Other creatures do not have either, really they don't have the computer, or they have a very weak computer relative to humans.

But it's like, it sort of seems like surely the really smart thing should control the dumb thing, but actually the dumb thing controls the smart thing.

So do you think some of the same kind of machine learning methods, whether that's natural language processing applications, are going to be applied for the communication between the machine and the brain to learn how to do certain things like movement of the body, how to process visual stimuli and so on.

Do you see the value of using machine learning to understand the language of the two-way communication with the brain?

So it's like digital neural net will interface with biological neural net.

And hopefully bring us along for the ride.

But the vast majority of our intelligence will be digital.

So think of the difference in intelligence between your cortex and your limbic system is gigantic.

Your limbic system really has no comprehension of what the hell the cortex is doing.

It's just literally hungry, you know, or tired or angry or Taxi or something, you know, that's and just and then that communicates that that impulse to the cortex and Tears the cortex to go satisfy that then love a great deal of like a Massive amount of thinking like truly stupendous amount of thinking has gone into sex without purpose, without procreation, without procreation.

Which, which is actually quite a silly action in the absence of procreation.

Because it makes the limbic system happy.

Well, the whole of existence is pretty absurd in some kind of sense.

But I mean, this is a lot of computation has gone into how can I do more of that?

With procreation not even being a factor.

This is, I think, a very important area of research by NSFW.

An agency that should receive a lot of funding, especially after this conversation.

But people generally like the fact that they have a limbic system and a cortex.

I haven't met anyone who wants to delete either 1 of them.

And then people generally don't lose their cortex either.

So they like having the cortex and the lumbar system.

And then there's a tertiary layer which will be digital super intelligence.

And I think there's room for optimism given that the cortex is very intelligent and the limbic system is not, and yet they work together well.

Perhaps there can be a tertiary layer where digital superintelligence lies, and that will be vastly more intelligent than the cortex, but still coexist peacefully and in a benign manner with the cortex and limbic system.


Speaker 0: Ultimately, we currently operate on 2 layers. We have a limbic, primitive brain layer, which is where all of our impulses are coming from. It's sort

Speaker 1: of like we've got a monkey brain with a computer stuck on it. That's the human brain. And a lot of our impulses and everything are driven by the monkey brain. And the computer, the cortex, is constantly trying to make the monkey brain happy. It's not the cortex that's steering the monkey brains, the monkey brain's steering the cortex.

Speaker 2: You know? But the cortex is the part that tells the story of the whole thing so we convince ourselves It's it's more interesting than just the monkey brain

Speaker 1: Cortex is like what we call like human intelligence, you know, so it's like That's like the advanced computer relative to other creatures. Other creatures do not have either, really they don't have the computer, or they have a very weak computer relative to humans. But it's like, it sort of seems like surely the really smart thing should control the dumb thing, but actually the dumb thing controls the smart thing.

Speaker 2: So do you think some of the same kind of machine learning methods, whether that's natural language processing applications, are going to be applied for the communication between the machine and the brain to learn how to do certain things like movement of the body, how to process visual stimuli and so on. Do you see the value of using machine learning to understand the language of the two-way communication with the brain? Sure.

Speaker 0: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: I mean, we're a neural net. And AI is basically a neural net. So it's like digital neural net will interface with biological neural net. And hopefully bring us along for the ride. But the vast majority of our intelligence will be digital.

So think of the difference in intelligence between your cortex and your limbic system is gigantic. Your limbic system really has no comprehension of what the hell the cortex is doing. It's just literally hungry, you know, or tired or angry or Taxi or something, you know, that's and just and then that communicates that that impulse to the cortex and Tears the cortex to go satisfy that then love a great deal of like a Massive amount of thinking like truly stupendous amount of thinking has gone into sex without purpose, without procreation, without procreation. Which, which is actually quite a silly action in the absence of procreation. It's a bit silly.

So why are you doing it? Because it makes the limbic system happy. That's why. But it's pretty absurd, really.

Speaker 2: Well, the whole of existence is pretty absurd in some kind of sense.

Speaker 1: Yeah. But I mean, this is a lot of computation has gone into how can I do more of that? With procreation not even being a factor. This is, I think, a very important area of research by NSFW.

Speaker 2: An agency that should receive a lot of funding, especially after this conversation.

Speaker 1: I propose the formation of a new agency.

Speaker 2: Oh boy.

Speaker 1: But people generally like the fact that they have a limbic system and a cortex. I haven't met anyone who wants to delete either 1 of them. They're like, okay, I'll keep them both. That's cool.

Speaker 2: The limbic system is kind of fun.

Speaker 1: It does. Well, the fun is absolutely. And then people generally don't lose their cortex either. So they like having the cortex and the lumbar system. And then there's a tertiary layer which will be digital super intelligence.

And I think there's room for optimism given that the cortex is very intelligent and the limbic system is not, and yet they work together well. Perhaps there can be a tertiary layer where digital superintelligence lies, and that will be vastly more intelligent than the cortex, but still coexist peacefully and in a benign manner with the cortex and limbic system.

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Elon Musk: Limbic System, Cerebral Cortex, and a Tertiary Layer of Digital Super-Intelligence