The 45-minute conversation was billed as a debate, but in reality it was a series of meandering TED-esque talks by Musk on how, like, Earth is totally doomed in, like, millions of years or something. Ma, a guy who once played an unbeatable martial arts master in a movie with Jet Li, was having none of it. Musk lead with the assertion that humanity underestimated how powerful AI would become: He goes on like this for a bit, explaining that human limitations and exponential machine-growth would lead to AI becoming god-like, to which Ma responds: And with that, mere moments into the so-called debate, we’d learned everything we needed to know. Ma was there to discuss how modern AI technology can make life better for people today. Musk was there to talk about the end of humankind and what he’s personally doing to save us all. More Musk (on why humans should become a multi-planet species): It’s important to understand that Musk appeared to be telling jokes throughout the debate, but he doesn’t pause or give any facial clues here – at one point earlier he pointed out to the audience that he’d told a joke and that it was okay for them to laugh, but it’s unclear from watching if this line was meant to be funny (it wasn’t). Musk plowed through and explained that he believes it’s now possible to inhabit other planets for the first time, and it’s imperative our species does so as soon as possible. Ma’s perfectly-delivered response: And back-and-forth it went. Musk explained that he’s not saying we should give up on Earth “I’m very pro Earth,” but that we should spend a small amount of the planet’s resources and talent coming up with a plan to put people on Mars: Musk’s continued lust for space talk eventually put Ma off, prompting him to respond “Should we pick up another topic? Jobs? Jobs or life. Jobs.” The entire talk was a study in dichotomy. Perhaps no exchange best captures the men’s different approaches to technology than this one: Elon Musk, a billionaire engineer, is hellbent on solving the biggest possible problems through engineering future technology. Ma, a billionaire investor, is an optimist who wants to solve the problems faced by people on Earth right now by investing in and developing current AI technology. These wildly different approaches serve equally different ends. Ma: Yeah, I never worry about the things that I cannot solve. I let other people solve it. If nobody can solve it, just let it be. That’s my life. Oh, let’s talk about education. I’m quite interested in education. As Ma put it in one of his responses to Musk: Watch the whole thing here:
