Elon Musk as Inspiration for Science Fiction (Alex Garland) | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | - Drawing inspiration from real life,
00:00:03.440 | so for devs, for Ex Machina,
00:00:07.040 | look at characters like Elon Musk.
00:00:10.080 | What do you think about the various big technological efforts
00:00:12.840 | of Elon Musk and others like him
00:00:16.040 | that he's involved with, such as Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink?
00:00:20.780 | Do you see any of that technology
00:00:22.720 | potentially defining the future worlds
00:00:24.600 | you create in your work?
00:00:26.040 | So Tesla is automation, SpaceX is space exploration,
00:00:30.160 | Neuralink is brain-machine interface,
00:00:32.800 | somehow a merger of biological and electric systems.
00:00:36.920 | - In a way, I'm influenced by that almost by definition
00:00:41.320 | because that's the world I live in
00:00:42.960 | and this is the thing that's happening in that world.
00:00:45.400 | And I also feel supportive of it.
00:00:47.580 | So I think amongst various things,
00:00:52.160 | Elon Musk has done, I'm almost sure
00:00:55.880 | he's done a very, very good thing with Tesla for all of us.
00:00:59.680 | It's really kicked all the other car manufacturers
00:01:03.720 | in the face, it's kicked the fossil fuel industry
00:01:07.280 | in the face and they needed kicking in the face
00:01:09.840 | and he's done it.
00:01:10.680 | So, and so that's the world he's part of creating
00:01:15.480 | and I live in that world, just bought a Tesla in fact.
00:01:19.440 | And so does that play into whatever I then make?
00:01:25.020 | In some ways it does, partly because I try to be a writer
00:01:30.020 | who quite often filmmakers are in some ways fixated
00:01:34.560 | on the films they grew up with
00:01:36.480 | and they sort of remake those films in some ways.
00:01:39.160 | I've always tried to avoid that.
00:01:40.800 | And so I look to the real world to get inspiration
00:01:45.240 | and as much as possible sort of by living, I think.
00:01:48.880 | And so, yeah, I'm sure.
00:01:51.920 | - Which of the directions do you find most exciting?
00:01:55.780 | - Space travel.
00:01:56.760 | - Space travel.
00:01:59.060 | So you haven't really explored space travel in your work.
00:02:03.660 | You've said something like if you had unlimited amount
00:02:07.220 | of money, I think I read it at AMA,
00:02:09.700 | that you would make like a multi-year series
00:02:12.460 | of space wars or something like that.
00:02:14.580 | So what is it that excites you about space exploration?
00:02:18.220 | - Well, because if we have any sort of long-term future,
00:02:23.220 | it's that.
00:02:24.400 | It just simply is that.
00:02:27.720 | If energy and matter are linked up
00:02:31.360 | in the way we think they're linked up,
00:02:33.400 | we'll run out if we don't move.
00:02:37.000 | So we gotta move.
00:02:38.160 | But also, how can we not?
00:02:44.300 | It's built into us to do it or die trying.
00:02:48.860 | I was on Easter Island a few months ago,
00:02:53.860 | which is, as I'm sure you know,
00:02:56.700 | in the middle of the Pacific
00:02:57.720 | and difficult for people to have got to,
00:03:00.360 | but they got there.
00:03:01.540 | And I did think a lot about the way those boats
00:03:04.780 | must have set out into something like space.
00:03:09.580 | It was the ocean.
00:03:12.220 | And how sort of fundamental that was to the way we are.
00:03:17.220 | And it's the one that most excites me
00:03:21.180 | because it's the one I want most to happen.
00:03:23.220 | It's the thing, it's the place
00:03:25.120 | where we could get to as humans.
00:03:27.160 | Like in a way, I could live with us never really unlocking,
00:03:31.120 | fully unlocking the nature of consciousness.
00:03:33.520 | I'd like to know, I'm really curious.
00:03:36.660 | But if we never leave the solar system
00:03:39.520 | and if we never get further out into this galaxy,
00:03:41.800 | or maybe even galaxies beyond our galaxy,
00:03:44.440 | that would, that feels sad to me
00:03:47.600 | because it's so limiting.
00:03:52.040 | - Yeah, there's something hopeful and beautiful
00:03:54.400 | about reaching out, any kind of exploration,
00:03:57.680 | reaching out across earth centuries ago
00:04:00.880 | and then reaching out into space.
00:04:02.720 | So what do you think about colonization of Mars?
00:04:04.640 | So go to Mars.
00:04:05.480 | Does that excite you, the idea of a human being
00:04:07.300 | stepping foot on Mars?
00:04:08.840 | - It does.
00:04:09.760 | It absolutely does.
00:04:10.760 | But in terms of what would really excite me,
00:04:12.840 | it would be leaving the solar system.
00:04:14.680 | In as much as that, I just think,
00:04:16.560 | I think we already know quite a lot about Mars.
00:04:20.300 | And, but yes, listen, if it happened,
00:04:22.880 | that would be, I hope I see it in my lifetime.
00:04:26.520 | I really hope I see it in my lifetime.
00:04:28.600 | So it would be a wonderful thing.
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