That's actually pretty common among those "gifted with mild ASD/ADHD" types, they can't be assed to talk about anything that doesn't pique their interest. I struggled with it a lot until I learned to be more social with other folks' topics of discussion. I think Elon is the logical endpoint of what happens when you have zero pressure to socially accommodate.
It does seem like he's increasingly emboldened to act an ass since being crowned world's richest man.
One thing that almost everybody on HN should be able to judge as completely wrong is his claim about "L5 autonomy very close / later this year" [1].
L5 autonomy is the equivalent of the halting problem. L5 is a goal that can't be achieved [2], just like no program can be written that determines if the input program will ever terminate. [3]
So what to make of this, if this apparently smart guy says entry-level stupid things?
[1]: https://electrek.co/2020/07/09/tesla-tsla-elon-musk-level-5-...
[2]: https://macdailynews.com/2019/01/07/waymo-ceo-level-5-fully-...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem
Edit: Because so many replies here about why I compare it to the Halting problem: That comparison is invalid as many of you pointed out. My reasoning was not in a strict mathematical sense, but more like this: even experienced humans can't drive in every condition. There are situations where you just need to stop. L5 autonomy will only work if we create AGI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...), so that the system can observe itself and think about itself. An AGI might be possible (in the far future), whereas the Halting problem is mathematically impossible. Thanks for pointing this out.
There is absolutely nothing fundamental that makes L5 autonomy impossible, while the halting problem is provably impossible, as normally formulated.
I don't know how close or far away L5 autonomy is, but it's definitely theoretically reachable, while the halting problem is always going to be impossible.
A car that would complete all the trips I'm willing to complete, and some more, but refuses under some circumstances (e.g. whiteout blizzard conditions) would be a L4 vehicle under the ISO definition.
I interperate your comparison to the halting problem to mean that even if we ignore the feasability of a particular solution, it is literally an impossible problem to solve.
My understanding of L5 is driving without external human intervention. In one sense we already have the technology to do that - our brians. It would never be feasible (or ethical), but if we could put a human brain inside every tesla, wouldn't that achieve L5?
* Level 5 is a vehicle that never needs a human to take over and can drive in "all conditions". Humans do not meet this driving standard.
* Level 4 is a vehicle, that within a set of vehicle-defined conditions can drive the vehicle without a human ever having to take over. It refuses to drive unless the conditions are met.
So a level 4 car could be a vehicle that can drive in a 1 block area of residential streets only... or something that can drive in way more conditions than I could safely attempt, but refuses to drive in say, whiteout blizzard conditions at night.
It would achieve L5 of a sort, but people don't usually mean "L5 autonomy" in the sense of "capable of crashing the vehicle deliberately to protest the horror of their existence".
Not saying he's right, but find me a company that doesn't polish their own turds, even just a little bit. Everyone trying to sell something is painting the best picture of their product possible.
Then he claimed we'd have that solved by 2023.
Not sure what the upside is of being known for repeatedly making non-rational predictions and being wrong.
Intellectually everyone can deduct that a long distance hyperloop is science fiction, ridiculously expensive, complicated, and will likely face long outages at any incident (see the channel tunnel, but like if it was 10-100x as long and a vacuum). But because Musk says it with Confidence, an army of fans jumps onto it.
Your claim conflates a nebulous, squishy, human goal with a formally and rigorously proven mathematical problem. The only support offered is links to wikipedia and news articles, none of which help connect the two in an equally formal and rigorous fashion.
However, for L5, you just have a quote saying it doesn't work. We know it is mathematically possible for L5 to work because, well, humans perform at that level. We know that our vision, our ears, our hands and senses are enough input to solve the problem.
Do you have a direct connection between them or are you just using it as a metaphor for an unsolvable problem?
Which is not only funny, it's exactly why the halting problem is so hard…
Personally I think full auto-drive requires us to change to the roads to make them work for machines... but that's a different story.
I am not convinced that L5 is fundamentally impossible (unless we posit that humans are also not L5 autonomous, which I suppose one could argue, as they are prone to driving errors). Granted I subscribe to Universality, and assume that humans are not capable of hyper-computation.
But as far as Musk, yes he lies and isn't shy about it. It's shameless and overt. Perhaps he justifies it as being part of his job.
Recently he said "complexity and cost of a car is greater than that of a humanoid robot".
Musk looked bored with Tim, was often evasive, gave the appearance of wanting to get away from a fanboy.
The few times he would "open up" it was more like a recitation from someone to a disinterested audience — or as though Musk's mind was somewhere else, not really engaged or focused on the interviewer.
EDIT: Skimming the two-part interview again, Musk seems to switch between seemingly being engaged to not. Maybe it is because the interview went on really long and appears to be uncut.
I think it's telling that he didn't tell Tim to scram or he even got that close of a look at all. If he wanted to get away, he could have easily done so.
The disparity is even more obvious in the pressers when reporters ask typical reporter questions, vs when someone (often Tim, but there are others) asks something technical.
Can you even imagine being Musk and running an EV company and a rocket company and having to field questions from your typical journalists? Like that Q from a journalist about why the new image of the black home at the center of our galaxy is so blurry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31353677.
Later on when he was giving that update at Starbase he mentioned the heat shield and thanked someone for a "robust" shield. I couldn't quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
Having said that, Musk is pretty much the worst communicator i've ever heard at the C suite level. I hope/pray he's better when talking to direct reports trying to get his crazy ass ideas and timelines done. Those poor poor people if he's not...
Despite people in tech conflating ASD/ADHD and using them as some kind of weird bragging right (and excuse for not considering others), I don't know that there is any public information about his having either condition.
> He seems to open up more when talking to people he considers "on his level" or at least deeply interested in what he is interested in.
That's just called childish behavior, and despite it's name it is common in a lot of adults, not just Musk.
But most adults who act that way can't get away with it. When it is paired with wealth and a megaphone as it is with Musk and others like him, not only can they get away with it, but it can be amplified by a mass following of people who wish they could get away with it, and live vicariously through them. That is basically how cults work.
> That's just called childish behavior,
That's pretty judgy, IMHO.
> But most adults who act that way can't get away with it. When it is paired with wealth and a megaphone as it is with Musk and others like him, not only can they get away with it, but it can be amplified by a mass following of people who wish they could get away with it, and live vicariously through them.
True.
I punch up. Even if he has Aspergers, with his amount of wealth and power he doesn't get to escape my judgement.
He’s posting his cold brew pics to Twitter. Caffeine is a psychoactive substance that can foster manic behavior. Lack of sleep can create cognitive stability issues. Been there with both.
Who knows if he’s taken other things here and there as Mr Private Plane bounces around socializing.
Despite Twitter, how much of Elon’s life we don’t see is significant.
