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Elon Musk | Full interview | Code Conference 2016

Recode · Youtube · 39 HN points · 6 HN comments
HN Theater has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention Recode's video "Elon Musk | Full interview | Code Conference 2016".
Youtube Summary
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Walt Mossberg about his plans to send a one-way rocket to Mars in 2018. He estimates colonists could start arriving on the Red Planet by 2025. Musk also talks about the proliferation of electric vehicle initiatives that compete with his other company, Tesla, and why autonomous cars will become the norm. He says he doesn't see Google as a competitor, but that "Apple will be more direct." Plus: Why Musk wants more people to have access to the power of artificial intelligence.
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Citation needed?

Coast to coast autonomous drive, cross country summon mode, full self driving on highways from entry to exit, the fsd fake demo video with "driver is there only for legal reasons", million robotaxis that earn you 30k$ a year from 2020, lidar is a fools errand etc etc.

You need more? Here's Elon musk in 2016 proclaiming self driving to be easy and solved. Showing entire lack of understanding what driving is like and why computers fail at it. https://youtu.be/wsixsRI-Sz4?t=1h17m57s

pooya13
Let’s go over them one by one:

> Coast to coast autonomous drive, cross country summon mode

They have not claimed that they have achieved that yet.

> full self driving on highways from entry to exit

This is from the Tesla website when I search for the above: “The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous” [1]

> the fsd fake demo video with "driver is there only for legal reasons"

Based on what evidence do you claim it is “fake”? That video is to demonstrate FSD and show the future value of the system. It does not say here is how you should operate AP.

> million robotaxis that earn you 30k$ a year from 2020

Oh shit, is it 2020 already?

> lidar is a fools errand

How is that even relevant to this thread?

> You need more?

More than the zero citations you have provided so far? Yes. Yes I do need more.

> Here's Elon musk in 2016 proclaiming self driving to be easy and solved. Showing entire lack of understanding what driving is like and why computers fail at it.

Again not relevant here since we are not talking about future promises here. The discussion is on how Tesla encourages its drivers to use the car today. If they say they are working on a flying car would anyone try to drive their car of a cliff?

Again, if you think any of the above are not accurate please provide citations for your claim. (I’m starting to think folks around here don’t know what citation means)

[1] https://www.tesla.com/support/full-self-driving-capability-t...

bussierem
First off, you need to remember that Tesla has made Musk's twitter feed an official announcement platform, so literally any promise, claim, or offhanded remark he makes there can (and often does) get treated as fact by people and by media.

Second, regarding your link, it also states you can

>[...] summon your car to come find you.

How can it do this but _also_ "require active driver supervision"? This statement implies that it can, without you in the car, drive to come find you, and it _definitely_ implies the vehicle is autonomous.

Yes, they also say like you said, but these are conflicting statements, and it's VERY easy between this, average Joe's understanding of autonomous cars, and Elon's behavior on twitter to see why so many people think that the Tesla is fully autonomous, and thus get into accidents like they have by simply not paying attention. You can link stuff from Tesla all you want showing how they do a good job covering their ass, but if people are still doing this, then Tesla isn't doing a good job of making this clear. They simply hide it inside the legal documents so that when people _do_ treat the car as autonomous, they can't be sued for it.

pooya13
> ... treated as fact by people and media

Sure it is a fact that Elon Musk predicts they will have robotaxis in a year. It is not however a fact that Elon Musk advises the drivers to drive carelessly.

> How can it do this but __also__ "require active driver supervision"? This statement implies ....

Yes it does. In a parking lot. At parking lot speed. While you are not in the car.

> and it __definitly__ implies the vehicle is autonomous.

If by autonomous you mean it can automatically come to you in a parking lot then yes. If by autonomous you mean you can sleep behind the wheel while it is driving in the streets then it __definitly__ does not imply that.

> But these are conflicting statements...

No they are not. One is about operation in a parking lot. One is about future functionality/value of the product. And one is about the current functionality of the product.

> people think that Tesla is fully autonomous and thus get into accidents like this

Citation needed. I'd say it is more likely that they are not using the car as intended, not that they mistakenly think their car is fully autonomous.

> ... covering their ass

Not sure what your point is here. So they are damned if they do damned if they don't?

> but if people are still doing this then Tesla isn't doing a good job of making this clear

People don't always use things as designed. This is not exclusive to Tesla cars.

> They simply hide it inside the legal documents

Not true. It is on the first page when you search for Tesla FSD. And I am pretty sure the warning is shown to the users at different steps before AP can be activated.

Musk has used the pallet of cash analogy several times.

Here is Musk using it in regards to saving the fairing @ ISS Research and Development Conference 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cPMS6cT0Ig&t=825

In regards to the first stage (booster stage) at Code Conference 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsixsRI-Sz4&t=545

Kara Swisher is a terrible interviewer. She was terrible here [1], and she was terrible in this interview. You have an hour with Elon Musk and you ask what BFR means again (knowing the answer) and don't know that they attempt to catch fairings? Why does she always look like she did not do her research? Why do I never learn anything new if she interviews?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsixsRI-Sz4

lalos
I'll never forget the train wreck the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview was. She kept interrupting them and adding nonsensical meta commentary ("oh that was sweet"). You can see in their faces that both were uncomfortable with her poor professionalism. At the end Jobs seemed to be ignoring her fully. One small example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76mVGGlFGRA
leesec
Hadn't seen this. Wow.
leesec
Yeah I thought she was really bad as well. Kept interrupting him and also seemed disinterested in things he was saying. Like she was looking for certain answers and he wouldn't give them so she would just interrupt. She also asked really irrelevant questions, and in some cases condescending.
dorianm
Yes, all the interruptions, and trying to lead to the answers she wants to hear. Pretty cringeworthy.
fhood
Oof, I didn't listen originally, just read the transcript, and I thought everyone was overreacting, but it comes of a lot worse in audio format.
rayvy
I personally think both of the RECODE interviewers (don't know their names) try to be a little too cool for school when interviewing these once-a-generation people.
charlesism
Your reaction is understandable. It's obvious Kara prides herself on being a grouch and a hard-ass. I remember thinking the same during the D5 interview with Steve Jobs, where she mouthed off to the point that Mossberg shushed her.

In retrospect, I've changed my mind. It isn't healthy for an industry to only have reporters who softball every interview, who just parrot crap from press releases. In tech, that's close to what we have. It's allowed companies to get away with a lot of shady nonsense.

So these days I'm really thankful that tech has a Kara Swisher.

ryanmercer
>Kara Swisher is a terrible interviewer.

Agreed, I used to listen to her podcast but she can be very agenda-pushing and condescending if someone even remotely has a different belief than her.

I mean, if you want to do that that's fine be like Adam Carolla, a comedian, and market yourself as such, but if you're doing it as a 'journalist' you need to be impartial.

travbrack
An interview is supposed to be about the subject. Kara makes the interviews about herself by being the biggest personality in the room.
Reedx
Yeah, I've been frustrated with that ever since the Gates & Jobs interview in 2007.

Here's the question I've been wondering: How does such an interviewer manage to keep getting these historically important interviews?

None
None
fasteddie31003
I don't know if she was trying to act naive to relate to a common denominator audience or just was clueless and did not do her research.
daedalus_j
Agreed. She always seems to me to be far more interested in herself than in the person she's interviewing. Previously I thought it was runaway narcissism, but I think you may have nailed it in saying she doesn't do her research. Perhaps everything is phrased as "Well when I did this...how does that relate to you", because she didn't prepare and is just vamping. (Good old Hanlon's Razor...)
omarforgotpwd
She's done her research. She is trying to ask questions ordinary (more uninformed) people would ask.
May 30, 2018 · 18 points, 5 comments · submitted by theCricketer
TheCapeGreek
To call Musk an extreme optimist in these cases has become a big understatement these days. He's a visionary at the cost of jumping the gun all the time. It's like he's so desperate to achieve his visions that he mentally lives in the future. That being said I do hope these current issues pan out soon enough.
xkcd-sucks
Visionaries are a dime a dozen in the psych ward
Sangermaine
Or if one were less charitably inclined toward Musk and his cult of personality, one might say he's a con man deliberately misleading people, especially investors, to get money out of them and papering over his distortions/deceptions with prattle about the future.
Doxin
I don't think a proper con-man would go to the trouble of actually launching rockets/building cars/digging tunnels though. You can argue whether or not he is conning people but to me it seems that even if that were true it's not on purpose.
buvanshak
>I don't think a proper con-man would go to the trouble of actually launching rockets/building cars/digging tunnels though...

Why do you think that? Wouldn't it just give away the fact that he is a fraud? A smart conman will be able to run the con as long as possible with as many victims as possible...

>You can argue whether or not he is conning people but to me it seems that even if that were true it's not on purpose.

May be he is a natural then. I mean, he is as stupid as the people he ends up fooling. I really think that might be the case here. So in that case he is not smart. He is just dumb is a way that is just in tune with a lot of dumb people out there, who then buy into his "vision" and invest in him, because their understanding of the problems are as shallow as the perp who is proposing the solutions...

Elon Musk has constantly underestimated the difficulty of autonomous driving.

This video (https://youtu.be/wsixsRI-Sz4?t=1h18m28s) shows Elon Musk, two years ago, saying the following:

"I basically consider autonomous driving to be a solved problem".

"A Model S and Model X can drive with greater safety than a person, already. Right now."

"We are less than two years away from complete autonomy".

I think he says something about spending time with his kids, etc in this Recode interview (don't remember clearly though) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsixsRI-Sz4
Apple could easily make a laptop with better battery - it would just be bigger, heavier and more expensive.

Elon Musk claims the same thing about Tesla - that he could easily increase the range on Tesla's cars if they wanted to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsixsRI-Sz4 . But with a range of ~300 miles he thinks they're fine.

_ph_
The current MacBook pro has with about 100Wh the largest battery you are allowed to carry onto airplanes - any larger battery would prohibit it traveling by air. So there is a very good reason not to make the battery any larger.
Caprinicus
It's like when apple got to 7+ hours with battery life, their laptops started getting drastically smaller instead of continuing to have longer lasting batteries. I'd like to have a 400 mile tesla, but I'd like to have a tesla that doesn't weigh 40 tons first.
Jun 05, 2016 · 4 points, 0 comments · submitted by beniaminmincu
Jun 04, 2016 · 9 points, 0 comments · submitted by simonorlovsky
Jun 04, 2016 · 2 points, 0 comments · submitted by asenna
Jun 02, 2016 · 3 points, 0 comments · submitted by rdl
Jun 02, 2016 · 3 points, 0 comments · submitted by atupem
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