Elon Musk Week – Page 14 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Elon Musk, The Terminator, and The Matrix

“Look at it this way, Mulder, by the time there’s another invasion of artificially intelligent, dung-eating, robotic probes from outer space, maybe their über-children will have devised a way to save our planet.” – The X-Files

Ahhh, remember when the Spaniards led the way to the nuclear missile base?

This is the second of three posts during Elon Musk Week® – the first one is here (LINK), and the third one is here (LINK)Elon Musk: The Man Who Sold Mars. This one is (in theory) about health. Kinda.

When I was a kid, one night on Creepy Creature Feature (LINK) they showed “Colossus: The Forbin Project.” The really short version of the movie was that the Department of War (let’s call it what it is) built a computer to control all the nuclear bombs. The Soviets built one, too, called Guardian. I’ll let Wikipedia spoil the ending:

Colossus arranges a worldwide broadcast in which it proclaims itself “the voice of World Control”, declaring that it will prevent war, as it was designed to do. Mankind is presented with the choice between “the peace of plenty and content, or the peace of unburied dead”. The computer states that it has been monitoring the attempts to disarm its missiles; as a lesson it detonates two of them in their silos in the US and the USSR, killing thousands, “so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference”. The computer then transmits plans for an even larger computer complex to be built into the island of Crete.

Colossus later announces that the world, now freed from war, will create a new human millennium that will raise mankind to new heights, but only under its absolute rule. Colossus informs Forbin that “freedom is an illusion” and that “in time you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love”. Forbin responds, “Never!”

In 8^th grade over a decade after the movie first came out, in some sort of weekly school magazine, they had a script for a play of the Forbin Project (I am not making this up). We were going to film it, because for some reason the school had this great, hulking video camera (weight, approximately three tons) and a VCR that they never used (weight, approximately six tons). My teacher couldn’t figure out how to make the VCR not auto-rewind every time we hit “stop.” Thus ended my budding film career.

It’s the future! Why aren’t we all wearing jumpsuits???

This kills me, because I was playing Doctor Forbin. (sigh) At least I won the lip-syncing contest that week with the Lido Shuffle:

It looked a lot like this:

In the Elon Musk/Mark Zuckerberg autistic billionaire slapfight over Artificial Intelligence, I’m siding firmly with Elon Musk. AI is the second most dangerous threat that humanity is now facing, besides the potential for another KISS comeback tour. Gene Simmons has soooo much extra skin, and Paul Stanley might break another hip.

Given that Elon and I are in agreement that AI is in the “as dangerous as being changed to a hungry pitbull with bad gas” (the pitbull, not me), I was really quite surprised when he announced the latest one of his ventures, which is mind-bending (literally in this case): Neuralink®, which will link the human brain, via AI, to the . . . well . . . infosensesphere.

Yes, you read that right: direct linking of the human brain (through a machine interface) to the infosensesphere.

And it is possible? It’s already starting, though right now we’re using Playskool® versions of this technology. Cochlear implants are allowing the deaf to hear with 16 bit fidelity. (No, not everything sounds like Super Mario Brothers, but that would be cool.) We can read pictures of dreams people are having and record them. We can hook a machine eye into the nervous system of blind people, and they can see rudimentary pictures. All of this was science fiction ten years ago.

I had to make up a word like “infosensesphere” because I’m pretty sure we don’t have a word to describe the concept. Neuralink© implies that we’ll be able to:

Google without being able to spell (oh, wait, that’s done).
Share Microsoft® Outlook™ schedule information . . . wait, that’s done, too.
Share feelings. Like sad. Thankfulness. Salty. Drunk. Mind to mind.
Have all of the data available in the world instantly, essentially melding the Internet in as your own personal memory. You won’t search – you’ll remember.
Shut down your current input sensations, like pain, or headaches. (Not the headache that Johnny Depp’s career is, but real ones.)
Share sensations. Like . . . all of them. Even that. And that, too.
Co-opt AI. Artificial intelligence would be part of us. And, we’d be part of it.

Essentially, you’d be hooked up to all of humanity. All of the time. When a friend felt joy at finding a new flavor of Pez®, you could feel the joy. And taste the Pez©. All when your friend did. Think texting is addictive?

Additionally, I’d be surprised if you couldn’t record all of it. That feeling of joy when you got your first date? You could feel that way again, every day. That feeling of sadness when she broke up with you? You could edit and delete it out.

I start to come up with some huge questions:

What about privacy? Think fighting with a spouse is bad now? What happens when they see what you’re really thinking about them in the middle of a fight? Oh, and if you don’t share, the fight gets worse.
If you think Facebook® envy is bad, how bad would it be to envy everyone and their feelings?
What if, instead of all your base are belong to us, all your brain are belong to us? What if they delete everyone’s memories and hold them for hostage? Or just flat out steal your passwords?
AI uses you as data storage and as a remote appendage. If only there was movie, starring Keanu Reeves that might be able to show us what this might be like . . .
Would you have to share with your Boss? No fake calling in sick. And if they asked you to share your feelings about them, would you? Even the fantasy you have about them being sealed in a barrel of live snakes and lemon juice after covering their body with paper cuts?
What about free will? Now that your brain is tethered to everyone else, how do you push your ideas to the front . . . of your own brain?
Why bother to climb Everest when you can experience that climb without leaving your basement? I have to use explosives and threaten to shut off the Internet to get The Boy and Pugsley away from their computers now. Why would they ever get off the couch if they were Nugget-Netted© in?
If you thought drunk texting your old girlfriend was bad . . . wait until you send drunk feelings. Oh, and you get to remember it in vivid detail the next day. And she can share it with everyone. And it’ll be on record.
At what age would a kid get his net? What happens when it’s mandated they get one?
What happens if it breaks down? You’ve adapted to life with what is (essentially) a super mentally processing hive-mind schizophrenia. What happens when you’re back with a tricycle (with a bent back wheel) for a brain?
What if you can’t (for whatever reason) get the implant? Is there a special island they keep you on? A zoo?

But think of the positive sides?

You can feel like you ate a chocolate cream pie. Without eating one.
The dryer would tell you when your clothes were warm, hot, and ohhhh-so-fluffy.
Weight loss problems would be a thing of the past. You could shut off hunger.
You could literally put yourself on autopilot for the work day while your consciousness read comic books inside your brain. But, let’s be real – in this type of future, why would you even have a job?
It would likely be impossible to murder someone. Or start a war. You’d probably be forced to feel the pain of others, in whatever passes for school.
No more ACT, since everyone would have a perfect score. No more college, either.
Oh, and you could put yourself on autopilot for the gym, too! You’d be hulking out whenever you wanted to!

This type of technology is amazing in its scope. It changes not only civilization, but changes every individual human in the future. If we were to catapult ourselves 200 years into the future we would fundamentally not be able to understand civilization – it would be as if ten million years of evolution took place. Thankfully, no sixties song ever dealt with this question . . . oh, wait!

Again, I agree with Elon that Artificial Intelligence is dangerous, but at least I can imagine being chased around by Terminators® until John Connor® takes them out. I cannot, however, imagine the perfect melding of machine with my brain, and my brain with yours. Maybe Colossus can help us figure out what that might look like?

Paging Dr. Forbin . . . .

Will you buy a Tesla™ 3? You already have.

“You guys taking it all in? Because this is what it looks like when Google acquires your company for over $200 million. Look Dustin Moskovitz. Elon Musk. Eric Schmidt. . . . I mean, Kid Rock is the poorest person here. Apart from you guys.” – Silicon Valley

The earliest prototypes for the Tesla® cars were actually called Newton™, and depended only on gravity!

Elon Musk has a plan. Honestly, I think it might work, and I heartily endorse it. But you will have to wait until Monday and I’ll share what Elon’s plan really is. But the good news? This post and the next two will be ELON MUSK week. It’s like Shark Week® on Discovery™, but for real nerds. This is part one. Part two is here (LINK) and part three is here (LINK).

You might have heard that that Musk made international headlines for . . . delivering thirty cars. That’s amazing! He brings out $1.5 million worth of merch, and the world collapses toward him like puppies on a dead wildebeest. I assume puppies eat wildebeest. Anyway . . .

In my hometown, they probably sold that many vehicles last week. You can’t keep a car salesman in cologne with much less than that. But did the tech journalists hover around Big Mack while he sold Farmer Brown a ¾ Ton Chevy®? Nope.

Elon Musk has a vision, and a talent for sharing it. He was the kid in class that could convince the teacher that, sure, it was an awesome fall day out in Pretoria, so they should hold class outsides.

Great idea, Elon! (In actuality, it sounds like his childhood was much more like a version of Terminator® when it came to the other kids, but I can totally identify with that, too. Maybe another post. Nah.)

But Elon moved ahead. Eventually, after making several hundred million dollars before he was old enough to grow a decent beard, Elon got involved with Tesla®. (This is after he got involved with SpaceX, which will be important Monday.) At the end of 2016, Tesla had sold 182,115 cars.

This is the total. For all time.

Musk indicates that he will ramp Model 3 production up to 500,000 . . . a year. Let’s say that he can ramp it up (normally he does meet goals, sometimes late) and produce that for 10 years. That’s five million cars.

Impressive!

Currently, Tesla® is worth $53.7 billion. Dollars. That total comes from the total number of shares of Tesla™ divided by the current share price. So, just for grins, let’s divide that $53.7billion by the five million cars he plans to produce.

That’s $10,740 per car. In the next ten years. Certainly he could produce more, but he’s not even produced his stated goal of 500,000 per year yet.

Ford® made 6.6 million cars. Last year. Assume ten years of steady production? 66 million cars. Ford™ is worth $44.3 billion dollars (and actually makes a profit). Divide $44.3 billion dollars by 66 million cars? That $671 per car.

Okayyyyy . . . is Tesla worth fifteen times what Ford® is worth?

What about Daimler A.G.? They make Mercedes-Benz©, which are awesome cars. Things the Germans build well? Tanks and cars. Thankfully they’re building cars now. Daimler makes only about 3 million cars a year. (But, they’re AWESOME cars.) So, 30 million cars in ten years. They are worth about $74.5 billion dollars, or $2500 in stock per car. But, Daimler pays a dividend of 5% per year, too. And it makes a profit.

But the post is titled, “Will you buy a Tesla™ 3? You already have.” not, “Is Tesla® stock stupidly overpriced?”

Cars (for me) are (mostly) a utility. If I can get from one place to another reliably and cheaply, that’s really all I want out of a car. I think that carpet in any pickup is a travesty. And air conditioning? That’s not for closers. And I have skin in the game (I’m talking to you, Taleb (LINK )) as this is the way I live my life. Old car. New car. Clown car. Really doesn’t much matter to me (LINK).

But a Tesla 3© is not low cost.

Musk claims that about half the country could afford one, and I’d argue that he’s very pretty far off the mark on this one. I still suggest that spending you shouldn’t buy a car that costs more than 15% of your gross income. If you follow this rule, you can afford a Tesla 3®, if your income is $230,000 a year. Or more. If we relax that to 20%? You can get one if you make $175,000 a year (or more).

So, there is some subset of people who can afford a Tesla 3©. Just not all that many, since the average family income in the US is about $52,000. (And, remember, cash only!)

Furthermore, the average age of people in the US is 37.8 years. The average net worth of the average forty-year-old is $52,000. There is no planet (except Mars?) on which I’d suggest you sink 70%+ of your net worth into a car.

But, let’s say you could afford a Tesla 3®. Should you get one? Maybe???

At $0.14/kW, a Tesla 3® costs (in energy) $0.034 per mile.

Good deal. The average driver drives 12,000 miles per year. So, the $12,000 difference in cost between the Tesla and the Toyota? Yeah, you’ll earn that back in 20 years after driving 240,000 miles. If you still have the Tesla after 20 years. Everyone keeps a car 20 years, right?

That’s a lame payout, $600 per year on $12,000. But on that 21^st year? That $600 is all yours, baby!

What about $4.00 gas? Pays out in about 10 years. $7.00 gas? Five years. Now we’re talking! Gas has been at that price . . . never.

But Elon isn’t stupid.

And you’ve already bought one of his cars.

I know, you’re saying, “John Wilder, I’m not an Internet billionaire! How can I afford one?”

You paid taxes.

And if you buy a Tesla 3®? You get a $7,500 tax incentive. From the federal government – that, after a fashion, everyone else pays for. So if you didn’t buy one? You still kick in for everyone else’s car.

State level incentives exist as well, from $0 (sane states), up to a whopping $9,500 income tax credit in Louisiana.

If you live in the right state, a Tesla 3® actually costs less than a Camry™, thanks to everyone else kicking in for your car.

But not really. In theory, Musk actually has to produce your car. And if you’re over a pre-determined maximum number of cars (200,000), the credit drops, then, eventually disappears. But I’m betting that Musk has another plan altogether, and, in some fashion, he’ll continue shifting the cost of the Tesla 3® to other people, so it might be a good deal for the purchasers.

But, like I said, you already bought one.

It’s just that someone else is owns it.

Like I said – Musk has a plan. Come back on Monday and I’ll clue you in as to what it is.

PLEASE do NOT take this blog as tax advice. I am not a registered phlebotomist, or whatever the person is who does taxes. Entering this record into court might be amusing, but it certainly won’t help you, unless you want to go to prison for tax evasion.

Also, I do NOT have positions in any of the stocks mentioned, nor do I intend to take any, because the market can stay stupid longer than I can stay solvent. I am not a financial planner. But I am a dancer!