Speaker 1: You must thank you very much for being here, sir.
Speaker 2: We appreciate it's not hot to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really great, honor.
Speaker 1: Well, we're really excited for you to help us kick
Speaker 1: off our intellectual theme, Human in the Machine, which is
Speaker 1: leadership on the emerging battlefield, and we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that the academy the cadets are focused on not
Speaker 1: tomorrow but the next twenty thirty forty years. And underlying
Speaker 1: the entire theme is an emphasis on the importance of
Speaker 1: preparing cadets for future warfare and really where humans and
Speaker 1: machines intersect. It's as if your background was made for
Speaker 1: this theme. However, Sure, I actually talked to quite a
Speaker 1: few people and they really don't know who you are,
Speaker 1: so neither do I. Yeah, so I thought I should
Speaker 1: tell people a little bit about your bio. Who are
Speaker 1: we really? Yeah, you'll make a company that figures it out, sir.
Speaker 1: All right, So if you don't know, if you don't know,
Speaker 1: and this is ridiculous, of course you know, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do Anyways. Elon Musk sitting next to me, co
Speaker 1: founded and leads or leads x Tesla SpaceX Neurolink. Here's
Speaker 1: my favorite as an academic the boring company. That's good.
Speaker 2: That was good.
Speaker 3: Come on, I thought it as a joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah it did. That's real. That's awesome. By the way,
Speaker 1: you have a new company also, XAI. And that's all
Speaker 1: of them, unless you started one this morning. I don't
Speaker 1: know about I'm not sure right, but basically what this
Speaker 1: means is everybody in this room has the opportunity, based
Speaker 1: on these companies, to drive a futuristic electric truck through
Speaker 1: a gigantic underground tunnel while using a digital connection in
Speaker 1: their brain to start a rocket, while simultaneously getting updates
Speaker 1: on Army football. His innovations have revolutionized electric vehicles, batteries,
Speaker 1: space exploration, advanced human machine interactions, made information instant, access
Speaker 1: to information instantaneous, and have starting to help integrate AI
Speaker 1: throughout our daily lives. After the convocation, I'm hoping to
Speaker 1: have a little bit of time so you can give
Speaker 1: me some personal tips, because somehow you have founded and
Speaker 1: lead multiple companies. You're a father to multiple children, and
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted after two hours of coaching one's kids sport.
Speaker 1: That's sure, So whatever you can do to help me out,
Speaker 1: I'd appreciate it. So we have cadets and staff and
Speaker 1: faculty who can speak on multiple disciplinary perspectives that would
Speaker 1: interest you. Drone swarms, electric batteries and molecular brain science, engineering, psychology, philosophy, law,
Speaker 1: Chinese language. But that's just the start. I think this
Speaker 1: one particularly relevant because we can even cover the intense
Speaker 1: science of boxing with our world class Department of Physical Education,
Speaker 1: just in case, you never know, some random head of
Speaker 1: state challenges you to a fight. You know, I did
Speaker 1: challenge Putin to one on one combat. Did you take it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: And then I was like, I was like, I actually
Speaker 3: on you know, the x FK Twitter, I said, I
Speaker 3: hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to one on one combat, and
Speaker 3: I made sure to use his name in Russian cerrillic.
Speaker 3: And then I said, and the stakes saw Ukraine and
Speaker 3: the use of Ukraine and Ukrainian curillic and uh and
Speaker 3: then and then and then the people thought I wasn't serious,
Speaker 3: and like, no, I'm absolutely serious. I mean, he he
Speaker 3: does have he has ah, you know he's good at judo.
Speaker 3: I hear and uh, I think would be I mean
Speaker 3: the paper view and loan on that would be incredible.
Speaker 1: I could get everybody in here to start channing twomen
Speaker 1: in or one line leaves tumin in or one man leaves.
Speaker 3: So but I'd watch that and I'm in it.
Speaker 1: So I will tell you that our thirty first Superintendent
Speaker 1: Douglas MacArthur once said, there's no substitute for victory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when it when it comes to fighting, it's not
Speaker 1: just our military, but it's also the whole country and
Speaker 1: the whole industrial base. Yeh, that's so important. And you've
Speaker 1: innovated across so many areas, whether it's beneath O's surface
Speaker 1: to outer space and everything in between. And we're again
Speaker 1: truly truly grateful for you to be here as we
Speaker 1: start to talk about some of these some of these
Speaker 1: things that you've been working on. As you look into
Speaker 1: the audience, I just want to give you a bit
Speaker 1: of context. A lot of these are the leaders who
Speaker 1: will face our nation's most complex and challenges going forward.
Speaker 1: We have our cadets who will serve as army officers,
Speaker 1: leading hundreds and eventually thousands of soldiers through this complexity
Speaker 1: that we talk about. And we also have our faculty
Speaker 1: and who are preparing them to do just what I
Speaker 1: just said, lead through these complex situations, and many of
Speaker 1: our faculty will also re enter the army and be
Speaker 1: required to lead. Thank you for taking the time to
Speaker 1: help us think deeper and inform us as we start
Speaker 1: to inform our cadets on how we can be successful
Speaker 1: not just fighting, but winning in the contemporary and future
Speaker 1: battle space. So let me start with this broad question,
Speaker 1: how do you see warfare transforming in the future.
Speaker 3: I mean, the biggest effect I think by far as
Speaker 3: AI and drones. So the next well, in fact, the
Speaker 3: current war in Ukraine is very much a drone war already.
Speaker 3: It's sort of a contest between Russia and China to
Speaker 3: see who can deploy the most number of drones. Now,
Speaker 3: if there's a major power war, it's very much going
Speaker 3: to be a drone war. It's it's going to be
Speaker 3: drones and AI. And you know it's a sort of
Speaker 3: I mean, I do worry about the existential risk of AI,
Speaker 3: which is that if you if you employ AI and drones,
Speaker 3: do you do you go down this path where eventually
Speaker 3: you get to terminator. You know, try to avoid that.
Speaker 3: That'd be good, that would be good, minimize the terminator risk.
Speaker 3: But but I mean, essentially, if your are when you're
Speaker 3: when you're making military drones, you are making terminators, and
Speaker 3: when you're I think you're you're somewhat be forced into
Speaker 3: giving localized the dron localized AI because if the AI
Speaker 3: is far away, it can't control as well as localized AI.
Speaker 1: So what do you mean by localized the.
Speaker 3: Meaning it's autonomous scaling machine.
Speaker 1: Completely autonomous.
Speaker 3: Well, you give it the okay, yeah, in a particular arena,
Speaker 3: and it's just and it.
Speaker 1: Goes with certain parameters. Yeah, hopefully do you think our
Speaker 1: you think our adversaries will have those same type of
Speaker 1: concerns or limitations.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean it depends on how much existential
Speaker 3: risk there is in these wars. So if it's if
Speaker 3: it's a regional war, I think it'll be more temperate.
Speaker 3: If it goes beyond a regional war, then it's all
Speaker 3: bets roll and you know, and then you just started
Speaker 3: playing things that you really wouldn't want it to fly.
Speaker 3: So hopefully that doesn't happen, but.
Speaker 1: You would, but you said it, and I would agree
Speaker 1: that if you just look at the contemporary conflicts that
Speaker 1: are taking place, you would agree that machines aren't just
Speaker 1: disrupting war fora they're now commonplace.
Speaker 2: H drones, drones are going to be overwhelmingly the.
Speaker 3: What what matters in any in any between, you know,
Speaker 3: any powers that have significant technology. It's so my personal
Speaker 3: belief is like that, you really it'll actually be my
Speaker 3: I think probably too dangerous to have humans at the front.
Speaker 3: It's it's growns, it's grones at the front.
Speaker 1: It's too dangerous, don't miss because of the lethality. Then
Speaker 1: it's too dangerous to have humans at the front.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I mean if you've seen in some
Speaker 3: of the computer controlled sniper rifles, I mean, they just
Speaker 3: don't miss. So you're in the you're you're finding a
Speaker 3: machine that it's gonna you know, aim with micro level
Speaker 3: accuracy and.
Speaker 2: Never gets tired.
Speaker 1: So how do you think the United States should be
Speaker 1: levering technology to further a national defense?
Speaker 3: Well, I think we probably need to invest in drones.
Speaker 3: The the United States is strong in terms of the
Speaker 3: technology of the items, but the production rate is low,
Speaker 3: so it's it's a it's a small number of units
Speaker 3: relatively speaking. But yeah, but with basically I think there's
Speaker 3: there's a there's a there's.
Speaker 2: A production rate issue.
Speaker 3: Like the you like, how fast can you make drones?
Speaker 3: If you say there's a drone conflict, the outcome of
Speaker 3: that during conflict will be how many drones does each
Speaker 3: side have in that particular skirmish at times of kill ratio?
Speaker 3: So if you've got you can have a if let's
Speaker 3: say we would the United States would have a durn
Speaker 3: set of drones that have have a high kill ratio,
Speaker 3: But then the other side has four more drones. If
Speaker 3: you've got a two to one kill ratio, the other
Speaker 3: side has four times many drones, You're still gonna lose.
Speaker 1: Do you think our industrial base can scale to make
Speaker 1: the volume of drones that you're you're just you're you're.
Speaker 2: You know talking about. I think that's that's going to
Speaker 2: be the same.
Speaker 3: The biggest challenge that that is it can scale, but
Speaker 3: it is not currently scaling.
Speaker 1: Why would that be?
Speaker 3: I think the procurement is still I mean, this is
Speaker 3: I mean, I read a lot of military history and
Speaker 3: and actually like the thing that I go to sleep
Speaker 3: with is using an audio book on on on military
Speaker 3: history on of one kind or another. So I find
Speaker 3: the subject very interesting. And one of the things that
Speaker 3: tends to happen is that countries pretty much are geared
Speaker 3: up to fight the last war, not the next war.
Speaker 3: And it's it's hard to change. I mean, you look
Speaker 3: at the the uniforms at the start of World War
Speaker 3: One and the tactics and strategies they use. The sought
Speaker 3: of World War One, they were not significantly different from.
Speaker 2: Than Napoleonic era.
Speaker 3: You know, the the French room watching it to war
Speaker 3: with brightly colored uniforms look great.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's not what you want to be.
Speaker 3: You know, when somebody starting to pointing, you don't want
Speaker 3: a great look in uniform. You want to you want
Speaker 3: to inflement planes in So there's a tenancy to be
Speaker 3: gearing up to fight the last war in the last
Speaker 3: one of the US four is kind of the Cold War,
Speaker 3: I guess. So, uh, it usually takes like some kind
Speaker 3: of shock factor to adjust. I would recommend adjusting now.
Speaker 3: And and you are seeing some startups like Andrel and
Speaker 3: a few others that are.
Speaker 2: Have different mindset.
Speaker 3: But it's really it's it's it's it's gonna be can
Speaker 3: you make a lot of drones? And what's the kill ratio?
Speaker 3: That's what it comes down to.
Speaker 1: So there was recently a report that said that President Lensky.
Speaker 1: By February twenty twenty five, there'll be a million drones
Speaker 1: produced by the Ukrainian So it seems like it's doable.
Speaker 1: And this might be a process question. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about process in a second. But as you were, as
Speaker 1: you were just talking, I was thinking about and you
Speaker 1: said that you can't have humans at the front, and
Speaker 1: so you haven't created a company that's solved aging yet,
Speaker 1: have you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, so one hundred years.
Speaker 2: I wonder whether we should solve aging. There's a ques
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah, I'd like to wrap it
Speaker 1: up sometimes right, well it's.
Speaker 3: Like hot, yeah, how long do you want to putin?
Speaker 2: And Kim joguntlove that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But let's say you go first. Let's say you
Speaker 1: go forward to fifty hundred years. How do you envision
Speaker 1: this evolution? And I think this might get to neurolink.
Speaker 1: How do you see this evolution between the human who
Speaker 1: maybe can't be at the front any longer, the technologies
Speaker 1: at the front yet keeping them integrated and synchronized, Like
Speaker 1: how does that? How is that going to work? In
Speaker 1: your mind?
Speaker 3: I mean, canmunications is essential? Like it is actually very
Speaker 3: important to have space based communications that are it cannot
Speaker 3: be intercepted, which is which is starlink.
Speaker 2: Stallink offers Staalink is.
Speaker 3: Starlink is the backbone of the Ukrainian military communication system
Speaker 3: because it can't be blocked by the Russians, essentially the
Speaker 3: only thing that can't be so on the front lines,
Speaker 3: all the fiber connections are cut, the cell towers are
Speaker 3: blown up, and the geostationary satellite links are jammed. The
Speaker 3: only thing that is jammed is starlink, so so the
Speaker 3: only thing and then GPS is also jammed. The GPS
Speaker 3: signal is very faint, but stallink can offer location capability
Speaker 3: as well, so it is a strategic advantage that's very significant.
Speaker 3: And when you're trying to communicate with the drones, the
Speaker 3: drones need to like basically they need to know where
Speaker 3: they are and they need to receive instructions. So if
Speaker 3: you don't have communications and positioning, then the drawings dont work.
Speaker 3: So that's that's that's quite important. It's essential.
Speaker 1: But do you find it important that there's still that
Speaker 1: that communication between the human and the machine or the drum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and there's like.
Speaker 3: It's a different question of like, where are things like
Speaker 3: right now versus where we'll things be in ten years.
Speaker 3: But I have to say I do look at the
Speaker 3: future with some trepidation. I have to have some deliberate
Speaker 3: suspension of disbelief to sleep sometimes because I think the
Speaker 3: we're headed into a pretty wild future. And I'm n
Speaker 3: actually an optimistic person. So yeah, but but AI is
Speaker 3: going to be so good, including a localized AI. I mean,
Speaker 3: at the count rates, you'll have, you know, some of
Speaker 3: that sort of rock level AI probably that can be
Speaker 3: run on a drone, and so you could literally say,
Speaker 3: you know, this is the equipment that the drone needs
Speaker 3: to destroy. Going to that thing and recognize what equipment
Speaker 3: needs to be destroyed and take it out.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of your work of Neurolink, though, is
Speaker 1: to because what you're saying is that AI is going
Speaker 1: to quickly surpass, at least in your estimation, the humans
Speaker 1: ability to control it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, I mean I'd like to say no, but
Speaker 3: the answer is yes.
Speaker 1: So how first off, how long until you think that happens?
Speaker 1: Before that the AI has has evolved to the point
Speaker 1: where and I you know, the AIS can start working
Speaker 1: together even relying on computers like in a d Hall
Speaker 1: old way, and therefore surpasses the ability for the human
Speaker 1: to be able to influence how it's working.
Speaker 3: Well, I think humans will be able to influence how
Speaker 3: it's working for a long time. This is an esoteric
Speaker 3: subject that what really goes into pretty well speculation. I
Speaker 3: think it's sort of agree that the AIS, I think,
Speaker 3: will want humans as a source of will. So if
Speaker 3: you think of how the human mind works, there's limit
Speaker 3: system and the cortex. You're sort of your kind of
Speaker 3: base instincts and the sort of thinking and planning part
Speaker 3: of your brain. But you also have a tertiary layer already,
Speaker 3: which is that all of the electronics that you use,
Speaker 3: your phones, computers, applications, so you're already sort of have
Speaker 3: three layers of intelligence, but all of those the cortex
Speaker 3: and the machine intelligence, you're sort of cybernetic third layer.
Speaker 3: It's trying to make the Limbic system happy, because the
Speaker 3: Olympic system is.
Speaker 2: A source a source of will.
Speaker 3: So there's some you know, it might be that that
Speaker 3: the AIS just want to make the humans happy. And
Speaker 3: part of what your links trying to do is improve
Speaker 3: the communication bandwidth between the cortex and the digital tertiary layer.
Speaker 3: Because our bandwidth band output bandwidth of a human is
Speaker 3: less than one but per second per day, there's eighty
Speaker 3: six thousand, four hundred seconds in a day. You don't
Speaker 3: output eighty six thousand, four hundred tokens. So yes, it's
Speaker 3: like the number of words that I can say at
Speaker 3: this forum you saying just like, just look at it
Speaker 3: from an information theory standpoint, how much information am I
Speaker 3: able to convey? Not that much because I can only
Speaker 3: say a few number of words. And in order to
Speaker 3: in order to convey an idea, I have to take
Speaker 3: a concept in my head. I have to compress it
Speaker 3: down to a small number of words. Try to aspirationally
Speaker 3: model how you would decompress those words into concepts in
Speaker 3: your own mind. That's communication. So your brain is doing
Speaker 3: a lot of compression decompression and then has a very
Speaker 3: small output bandwidth. Neuralink can increase that bandwidth by several
Speaker 3: orders and magnitude. And also you don't have to spend
Speaker 3: as much time compressing thoughts into a small number of words.
Speaker 3: You can do conceptual clepathy. That is the idea behind
Speaker 3: your links. So it is intended to be a mitigation
Speaker 3: against AI existential risk.
Speaker 1: You talk about alignment, Can you explain what you mean
Speaker 1: by alignment to help everyoners.
Speaker 3: In Yeah, just is AI going to do things that
Speaker 3: make civilization better, make people happy or will it be
Speaker 3: contrary to uh humanity? Will will will it foster humanity
Speaker 3: or not will be against humanity? So obviously we want
Speaker 3: an AI that will fuster humanity. I think you developed
Speaker 3: me an AI to fuster humanity because I've thought about
Speaker 3: AI safety for a long time. I think I've had
Speaker 3: probably one thousand hours of discussion about this, and my
Speaker 3: ultimate conclusion is that the best course for AI safety
Speaker 3: is to have an AI that is maximally truth seeking
Speaker 3: and also curious.
Speaker 2: And if you have both of those things, I think.
Speaker 3: It will foster it will naturally foster humanity because you
Speaker 3: will want to see how humanity develops. Humanity is more
Speaker 3: interesting than not humanity, you know.
Speaker 2: I like Mars.
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of oas obviously, and I think
Speaker 3: we should become a multi planet civilization. Like that's that's
Speaker 3: very important that the purpose of SpaceX is to make
Speaker 3: life multiplanetary. That's the reason I created the company, and
Speaker 3: and that's the reason that we have the starship development
Speaker 3: in South Texas. That rocket is far, far too big
Speaker 3: for just satellites. It's it's an intendant to establish life
Speaker 3: on Mars, not just that, you know, said astronauts there briefly,
Speaker 3: but to build a city on Mars. And that's ultimately
Speaker 3: self sustaining. So but getting back to AI, the if
Speaker 3: you've got a true c A I that is actually curious.
Speaker 3: My neural net, my biological ural net says that that's
Speaker 3: going to be the safest outcome because it's, like I said,
Speaker 3: wildlike Mars. You could Mars is not as interesting as
Speaker 3: Earth because there's no human civilization there, or thought of
Speaker 3: another way, if you're if you're if you want to
Speaker 3: render Mars, Rendering Mars is pretty it's basically red red
Speaker 3: rocks on a looks kind of like some parts of Arizona.
Speaker 2: You know, there's not a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It's it's just it's that's it's easy to render. It's
Speaker 3: rendered like to Mars. But but but rendering human civilization
Speaker 3: much more, much hotter, mutch, more complex, much more interesting.
Speaker 3: And so I think I'm curious to the taking a
Speaker 3: I would fuster the humanity and want to see where
Speaker 3: it goes.
Speaker 1: But that relies on requires trust between the human and
Speaker 1: the machine. And that's where I want to ask you
Speaker 1: a question on this. So the army leaders in the
Speaker 1: Army are no strangers to implement any new technologies. Think
Speaker 1: about how GPS, for example, transform navigation. It'd be unheard
Speaker 1: of not to use GPS today, Bhen I was a lieutenant,
Speaker 1: no one used GPS. So recently I was watching this
Speaker 1: incredibly important realistic documentary called Top Gun Maverick. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in it, I learned it's really good. It's really good.
Speaker 3: It's it's I mean, if you don't want to think
Speaker 3: about the plot too closely, but it's in a great movie.
Speaker 1: It's a fantastic movie. I learned that Tom Cruise is
Speaker 1: actually not an actor. He's like a pilot apparently. But
Speaker 1: he taught me something really important in it. He says
Speaker 1: it's about the pilot, not the plane. And right, that's
Speaker 1: right before she defeats a fifth generation fighter with a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy fourteen.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, So I mean, just go with a biplane.
Speaker 1: There you go. Tom Cruise could do it. But in it,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a bit of a cynicism or
Speaker 1: a cynical view of the need for technology. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: technology is a perflus. Humans can do it, but we
Speaker 1: know that's I don't. I don't question Tom Cruise a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't ever question Tom Cruise. I'm just kidding, But
Speaker 1: I guess the question is how do we get humans
Speaker 1: to be able to trust the machines because there is
Speaker 1: a lot of stories. For example, we just recently had
Speaker 1: a conversation where where a pilot patch pilots we're given
Speaker 1: new technology and they're like, we're not going to use
Speaker 1: it because we don't really trust it, So they use it,
Speaker 1: And so how do you get the how do you
Speaker 1: when new technology is implemented, we have to be able
Speaker 1: to trust, especially if it's going to be the difference
Speaker 1: maker to win. So how do we do that? How
Speaker 1: do we build the trust between the human and the machine?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't, I don't. I think we shouldn't just
Speaker 3: automatically trust these things. I mean, I think you want
Speaker 3: you want to test it out. You're gonna do a
Speaker 3: lot of testing and see how it actually works in
Speaker 3: a conflict that's small scale, and then scale it up
Speaker 3: if if it's effective. But yeah, I mean I have
Speaker 3: to say like, I'm not sure, for example, that there
Speaker 3: is a unfortunately this is not air force gathering, but
Speaker 3: there's there's not No, I'm not sure there's a lot
Speaker 3: of opportunity for fighter pilots because I think the if
Speaker 3: you've got a drown swarm coming at you, well, what
Speaker 3: the pilots of liability in the fire plane? To be honest,
Speaker 3: So you know, if you say that you compare a
Speaker 3: drone versus a fighter plane, how easy is it to
Speaker 3: make a drone?
Speaker 2: You could? Could? You can?
Speaker 3: It's an orderomatitude maybe a hundred at least at least ten,
Speaker 3: maybe a hundred times easier to make the drone, and
Speaker 3: you can afford to sacrifice the drones, whereas the pilots.
Speaker 3: You don't want to sacrifice the pilots. So my guess
Speaker 3: is that actually the age of human piloted fighter aircraft
Speaker 3: is coming to an end.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, then there's a there's a question
Speaker 1: that is oftentimes debated and law and ethics debates about
Speaker 1: killer robots. Yes, and really are these things that should
Speaker 1: we be willing to lean so forward with the technology
Speaker 1: that we start to supplant the human pilot with the
Speaker 1: technology and where is that go And so what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts as we talk about technology replacing humans on
Speaker 1: the battlefield.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess what I'm saying is that the at
Speaker 3: the front of the battle lines is going to be
Speaker 3: just drones and any humans quote in the crossfire are
Speaker 3: going to get will be killed.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a it's then then it's irrelevant.
Speaker 1: It's just going to be that. It's just going to
Speaker 1: be the way military operations take place. There isn't going
Speaker 1: to be if you make the choice to be there,
Speaker 1: then you're you're at a significant disadvantage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's to just think like
Speaker 3: you got drones that that you know are constantly scanning,
Speaker 3: they're scanning and infrared scanning, invisible that there's thousands, thousands
Speaker 3: of the Motanza thousands you mentioned million that Ukraine is
Speaker 3: going to make.
Speaker 2: This is good. You've got a million drones coming at you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you do you want to be on the there with.
Speaker 3: Trying to try to take out drones of this whul rifle.
Speaker 2: It's like not going to be a good situation.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that there is there is something
Speaker 3: where if you go fully analog.
Speaker 2: Where if you if you're if you can do.
Speaker 3: Sort of an e M I like electromagnetic explosion of
Speaker 3: some kind that could trick it take out electronics, But
Speaker 3: then then your electronics is gonna go to so you're
Speaker 3: gonna go either fully analog or fully digital. So I
Speaker 3: think that they actually would be a role for a
Speaker 3: fight or plane if it was fully analog and had
Speaker 3: mechanical controls, because then you could do an sort of
Speaker 3: an e M F last take out the drones and
Speaker 3: the analog.
Speaker 2: I mean that that could be another Tron time cruise.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe I don't know, you know, he just just
Speaker 3: gets a fully analog aircraft and all the drones fall
Speaker 3: out of the sky because of.
Speaker 2: M F bomb.
Speaker 1: How do you reply to those in uh say, industry
Speaker 1: that would say, I don't we don't want to contribute
Speaker 1: to the development of technology that could be used by
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense, Like basically, we need to build
Speaker 1: we need to build trust with with the industrial base
Speaker 1: and with society. Maybe something we're doing, how do we
Speaker 1: how do we do that? Well, I'm very pro military,
Speaker 1: So to be clear, it's good your audience will like that, yes, the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So but I think what what what?
Speaker 3: What if there's a significant conflict, the U. S. Industrial
Speaker 3: base will switch quickly to military. Active military production just
Speaker 3: is dead in World War two? Is a you know,
Speaker 3: is it quick enough? I don't know, but that's what
Speaker 3: will probably happen. Yeah, Ai Andron, That's that's the future
Speaker 3: of warfare. And I mean, tell me if I'm listening
Speaker 3: to something here, but where do you.
Speaker 1: See where you see the domain of space?
Speaker 3: Space? Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, space is how many?
Speaker 3: Space is the ultimate high ground, so it really goes.
Speaker 3: Space is big, real big.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you ever see like Earth to scale with the
Speaker 3: Sun and the you know, it's like, wow, we're just
Speaker 3: like a tiny little dust moat and you know, floating
Speaker 3: around space.
Speaker 2: That's Earth.
Speaker 1: But space is becoming increasingly militarized. And so how do
Speaker 1: you see that, especially as it relates to land warfare,
Speaker 1: Like what's your thoughts on the space domain as it
Speaker 1: relates to land warfare and and what are things that
Speaker 1: we should be doing to to start to gain those advantages.
Speaker 2: That are necessary?
Speaker 3: Well, I mentioned I mentioned the space space communications is critical.
Speaker 3: Like if you can't communicate, you don't know what's going on,
Speaker 3: care received orders, you can't report information and whether it's
Speaker 3: a tuman or a drone. They need communication, so you're
Speaker 3: going to have communications. Any ground based communications like fiberctic,
Speaker 3: fiber octic cables and sulphonetowers will be destroyed, so it's
Speaker 3: it's basically only or you've got our basically analog rato radios.
Speaker 3: And then but for any kind of data communications, it's
Speaker 3: space based. And then while GPS has been effective for
Speaker 3: a long time, GPS jamming at this point is pretty
Speaker 3: easy because the GPS signal is it's a weak signal,
Speaker 3: so it's easy to jat do GPS jamming. So having
Speaker 3: sort of a next generation a system that can provide
Speaker 3: positioning is going to be very important. The space can
Speaker 3: also probably offer you know, the ultimate weapons where you
Speaker 3: just have you know, tounguesten cannibals from all but.
Speaker 1: How about offensive weapons in space? Do you see those?
Speaker 2: That's what I mean by rods from God.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so if.
Speaker 3: You have like you know, class they talked about this
Speaker 3: in the Small Wars program in the eighties. But this
Speaker 3: is certainly something that can be done, which is you
Speaker 3: have just kinetic weapons from space or space based lasers.
Speaker 3: Starting system technically does have lasers, but they're low power
Speaker 3: lasers for now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me let me ask you about back
Speaker 1: to this question about the process process. So so I
Speaker 1: like military history also yeah, so in so I like
Speaker 1: all disciplines at West Point, by the way, I love
Speaker 1: all of it. So in there was the Third Punic
Speaker 1: War is ongoing, and the Roman legions are outside Carthage
Speaker 1: and they lay siege to Carthage and it's not going
Speaker 1: very well. The pro consuls that are in charge are passive,
Speaker 1: risk averse, and they're losing. And there's a young guy
Speaker 1: who's from the famous Scipio line of pro consuls, and
Speaker 1: it is a Scipio Emilianus who is the grandson, the
Speaker 1: adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus, And so Scipio is the
Speaker 1: only one who's doing something. And so Cato the elder
Speaker 1: is sitting in the Senate and he says this. He
Speaker 1: says he alone still thinks the others flit about in
Speaker 1: the shadows. And he's basically an argument was I want
Speaker 1: Scipio in charge. And the problem with Scipio is too young.
Speaker 1: You had to be forty two to be a pro consul.
Speaker 1: And so Cato's like, I don't care. He's the right guy.
Speaker 1: And then what does Scipio do. He goes in and
Speaker 1: he puts juice into He's innovative and they and obviously
Speaker 1: we don't how the third Punic Warrians because we know
Speaker 1: about Roman, not Carthage. Right, So what Cato was getting
Speaker 1: at is this need for innovative and creative and entrepreneurial leaders, right,
Speaker 1: That's what is necessary. And so process is really as
Speaker 1: good as those who lead it. And so what are
Speaker 1: the traits you look for and those who lead your
Speaker 1: various businesses and enterprises.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm very much in technology.
Speaker 3: So for me, if somebody is going to lead something
Speaker 3: in technology, they must themselves be good at technology. I
Speaker 3: think that if they're going to lead something that evolves
Speaker 3: complex engineering, they must themselves be good at engineering. They
Speaker 3: don't necessarily need to be the best engineer on the team,
Speaker 3: but they need to be a They need to be
Speaker 3: very competent in their field.
Speaker 2: So this is this is incredibly important to me. If
Speaker 2: if somebody.
Speaker 3: Is leading a given engineering field or engineering department and
Speaker 3: they are not good at that, then that would be
Speaker 3: like a cavalry captain who can't ride a horse.
Speaker 1: Problem problem.
Speaker 3: Great leader in every way except can't ride a horse,
Speaker 3: and then you've got to charge the battle and cavalry
Speaker 3: captain pulls off the horse, you know, not aspiring. So, uh,
Speaker 3: calvary captain must be able to ride a horse. That's
Speaker 3: that's so that that that's actually need. Don't need to
Speaker 3: be the best horsh rider, but they must be competent
Speaker 3: in this regard. Otherwise they cannot evaluate the talent of
Speaker 3: the team and they don't understand the technology that's being developed.
Speaker 3: This may seem like a simple thing, but it is
Speaker 3: often the case the case that this this is overlooked.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to pick on the.
Speaker 3: CEO of Boeing, but uh thing's got a you know,
Speaker 3: a degree in accounting or something, which I think that's
Speaker 3: the case. You know, you want to have like a
Speaker 3: someone who knows how our planes foot work right running
Speaker 3: the airplane company.
Speaker 1: I guess cross out my job that Boeing CEO can't
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: But it's like it's like you want to you want
Speaker 3: to not be the It's just if you're running airplane company,
Speaker 3: you should know how a plane. You should know how
Speaker 3: airplanes work and how they fly and how to design airplane.
Speaker 3: I think that's pretty important. So I think it's vital.
Speaker 1: But how do you create innovative intuition and those that
Speaker 1: work for you? I mean, you're you're you're famous for
Speaker 1: UH trying to gain efficiencies, create create better processes, pushing
Speaker 1: UH to try to to try to to gain those
Speaker 1: not just efficiencies but effectiveness. So how do you Is
Speaker 1: it possible can you build this innovative intuition in a person?
Speaker 2: Well, let's.
Speaker 3: I think it is possible to learn to be innovative.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of times for for any given.
Speaker 2: Thing, you have to say, did you try?
Speaker 3: This may sound sound obvious, UH, but actually try like
Speaker 3: you If somebody might wonder what.
Speaker 2: Can I be innovative? Well, have you tried?
Speaker 3: Just try thinking of interesting ideas? I mean, I do
Speaker 3: find A good source of innovation is if you read it.
Speaker 3: If you read about a whole bunch of fields, you
Speaker 3: can cross fertilized ideas from one field into another, and
Speaker 3: so you can synthesize, say, takes a SpaceX and Tesla.
Speaker 3: The automotive industry is very good at manufacturing. In terms
Speaker 3: of manufacturing complex machines at volume, the automotive industry is
Speaker 3: the best that now the rocket industry. Space industry is
Speaker 3: very good at advanced materials and making things very light
Speaker 3: and uh and so so taking a mass materials and
Speaker 3: mass optimization UH concepts from the space industry, applying it
Speaker 3: to automotive and taking automotive mass manufacturing tech niques and
Speaker 3: applying it to space was kind of like a superpower.
Speaker 1: But when you that's interesting because when you think about it,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about innovating though, and you say that
Speaker 1: people can try, I mean you have to be willing
Speaker 1: to let them fail, yes, And so where do you
Speaker 1: draw the line between recklessness and over being overly cautious?
Speaker 3: No, if you're not if you're not failing at least
Speaker 3: some of the time, you're not trying hard enough. You
Speaker 3: have to fail some of the time. So you know,
Speaker 3: it's more like a batting average. Somebody should have a
Speaker 3: good batting average, but nobody bats a thousand. But if
Speaker 3: somebody bats zero all the time, I mean, okay, you
Speaker 3: know you've got to take them off. So you know,
Speaker 3: So I think I do have this sort of simplest
Speaker 3: principles algorithm that I think could be quite helpful. And
Speaker 3: I sort of say it as a monitor to myself
Speaker 3: because I've made this mistake someone many times. So the
Speaker 3: first element is for any given thing, make make make
Speaker 3: the requirements less dumb. So so whatever problem your solved,
Speaker 3: make the requirements less down and whoever gave you those requirements,
Speaker 3: even if they are the smallest person in the world,
Speaker 3: they're still dumb.
Speaker 2: So the so if if say.
Speaker 3: Like this is where save military procurement, it goes wrong
Speaker 3: right at the outset with excess requirements, so you'll get
Speaker 3: sort of this giant document of requirements that actually should
Speaker 3: be like one page. So step one, make the requirements simplifying.
Speaker 3: Just make the requirements less done. Because if you don't
Speaker 3: make it, if you don't do that as the first step,
Speaker 3: then you can get the right answer but to the
Speaker 3: wrong question. If the question is wrong, it's it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: So then then the the step two is delete the
Speaker 3: part or process. Step delete. And if you're not putting in,
Speaker 3: if you're not adding back ten percent of what you deleted,
Speaker 3: you're not you haven't deleted enough. This is again the
Speaker 3: substance I think maybe very obvious, but it's very effective
Speaker 3: because the idea is like.
Speaker 2: If you're not if you're not if some of the ideas.
Speaker 3: That you're doing. Don't fail, You're not trying not enough.
Speaker 3: And then only the third step is to optimize the thing.
Speaker 3: And if I say, like, what's one of the mistakes
Speaker 3: that I see smart people making all the time, especially
Speaker 3: spat engineers. Is optimizing a thing that should not exist?
Speaker 3: Sounds obvious? You know, like you could try to make
Speaker 3: let's have the world's best biplane cloth biplane. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: actually know we should have jet our planes instead, you know,
Speaker 3: so you should not have the thing that should not exist.
Speaker 3: And then step four is go faster. Again, this sounds
Speaker 3: really obvious, but people just don't try going faster. And
Speaker 3: the first step would be to automate something, but only
Speaker 3: automated once you've done those those other four things. Now,
Speaker 3: the reason I have this mantra is because I have
Speaker 3: personally many times automated something, sped it up, optimized it,
Speaker 3: and then deleted it. And I'm like, wait, I am
Speaker 3: tired of going backwards here. So if you run that
Speaker 3: simple algorithm in many arenas of life, you will be
Speaker 3: shocked at how effective it is.
Speaker 1: So shockingly, we are already running out of time. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you this, If you could choose one attribute,
Speaker 1: just one autre ut that'd be critical for our future
Speaker 1: officers to have to be successful. What would it be?
Speaker 3: Curiosity as long as you're not a cat, but curiosity,
Speaker 3: try to read as much as possible, learn as much
Speaker 3: as possible, and in many different fields, and apply critical
Speaker 3: thinking to anything that you're told.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So i'd like to say, on behalf of
Speaker 1: the tenant, General Gillan and the entire academy, we're really
Speaker 1: thankful that you're here. We're really thankful you took the
Speaker 1: time to help us celebrate the excellence of the faculty
Speaker 1: and the cadets and really sharing some wisdom with us
Speaker 1: because we're really thinking about what do we need to
Speaker 1: do to be successful because we have a very important mission,
Speaker 1: which is a no fill mission, which is we have
Speaker 1: to fight and win, and we're laser focused on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, in my view, I don't think probably
Speaker 3: a lot of people's views. You know, America is like
Speaker 3: like Atlas holding up the free world, and you are
Speaker 3: the arms of Atlas.
Speaker 1: So thank you, mister must