On Wednesday, thousands of attendees gathered at Cannes Lions, the world's largest advertising and creativity venue, for a one-on-one interview between WPP CEO Mark Read and Elon Musk.
He opened his session, “Exploring New Frontiers of Innovation,” by revealing his penchant for gaffes when asked why he told advertisers a year ago to “fuck you” when they were boycotting X because of hate speech on the platform.
“The key difference is we don't want to spend money on censorship. Free speech is the foundation of democracy,” Musk said.
He added: “Advertisers have the right to show their ads next to content, and that's totally fine. What's problematic is when people say you can't have content on your platform that you don't agree with.”
“I believe in freedom of choice and a company like Red Bull is going to be more adventurous than a brand that sells baby toys.”
While trying all his best to lure advertisers back to the platform, he said, “X is committed to good advertising standards. If you want to reach the most important decision makers, the X platform is by far the best choice. You can reach the most influential people in the world.”
Big change
The tech billionaire then offered some strong views on AI, one of the hot topics at Cannes Lions this year.
“Things are going to change rapidly,” he said. “You're going to see some pretty big changes by next year, and you're going to see some pretty big changes within the next five years.”
“There will be many existential crises with AI, leading to major redundancies. From an AI safety perspective, it is best to train AI to be honest and curious, and we should not force it to lie or hide.” He added that AI will become creative and inventive.
Speaking about his various other ventures, Musk also mentioned interplanetary space travel, saying, “I am driven by curiosity about the nature of the universe. SpaceX's goal is to spread life to multiple planets and expand the life of consciousness.”
“To achieve that, we would need to move humans to Mars, which is a dangerous situation on Earth. As a multi-planet civilization, our potential lifespan is much longer.”
When asked if he values data and research before starting something, Musk laughed and said, “I'm not a particularly data-driven person, so I don't usually ask people for advice on my decisions. Most people don't understand new things. If I asked people, I wouldn't have started Tesla.”
He also spoke about Tesla's humanoid robot “Optimus,” saying he wants people to think of the robot as a friend that will do all of their daily chores for them. Optimus, also known as the Tesla Bot, is a general-purpose humanoid robot.
The robot was unveiled at the company's Artificial Intelligence Day event in 2021, with a prototype unveiled in 2022. Musk also joked that he wants the robot to look cool.
“We are heading towards the most important moment in history, so enjoy the journey,” he said at the end of the session.
Tags:Cannes Lions 2024Elon Musk
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