Comment by tombert
12 hours ago
My dad found it extremely amusing that Elon said "we just have to solve the 'AI problem' and we'll have robots doing shopping for us", or something like that. I can't remember the exact verbiage, but that was the gist.
The word "just" is doing a lot of work there. Going by that logic: We "just" need to figure out cold fusion to have effectively infinite energy. We "just" need to develop warp drives to travel across the galaxy. We "just" need to figure out the chemo problem to cure cancer.
It is like me at the climbing gym: "This problem is too hard for me, let's work on a harder one instead, then I at least look cool while failing."
"Since we failed on self-driving since 2016, robotaxis since 2020 (1 million on the road), and ASI since 2023, we might as well start on failing on robots now".
Nice. I think my new climbing routine will be to just look at the 5.13 and mime moves from the ground for an hour, then go home.
I _could_ flash this V12 but what would be the point?
I find it amusing listening to his Q1 earnings calls; every year the same exact blabber of robots everywhere 'end of the year', self driving tesla's everywhere after the summer, mars next year etc. Every Bloody Year. The real clever thing of this guy, no matter how smart/not/nazi/whatever he is, is the fact that investors KEEP throwing money in even though the major ones are on those earning calls every year for a decade already and of course that these stocks are not cratering.
But I recommend listening to those calls, start 5 years back; because on reddit but also here, you get wide eyed awestruck people who say 'ow optimus is december this year! ow self driving everything in september!'.
And why would we even need or want robots shopping for us? I mean, most of us. For some disabled individuals it could be a benefit. For everyone else, it seems like the height of laziness and absurdity.
Tons of people hire people to do their shopping. Curbside pickup and grocery delivery has existed for a while.
A large amount of the people I see in grocery store around me are working as pickers filling online orders.
Its classic Elon over-promising. Problem with robots is that they are useless without AI, while cars can be driven by a human, so as long as controls work and range is good they are viable
Interview in Davos. The “right” has the same touch than the “just” here:
> MUSK: Yeah. But I think self-driving cars is essentially a solved problem at this point, right? And Tesla’s rolled out a sort of robo-taxi service in a few cities, and will be very, very widespread by the end of this year within the U.S. And then we hope to get supervised full self-driving approval in Europe, hopefully next month.
Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgifEgm1-e0
It's amazing how much hand-waving rich people are allowed to get away with. If I tried that people would (correctly) call bullshit.
Ah, see, no, and this is why you'll never be rich^. The rich people don't ever listen to that "if I tried that people would call bullshit" voice. They just try it. And try it again. And keep trying it. And then they become CEOs or President or whatever. They literally just keep doing it. It doesn't matter how untethered what they're saying is from reality. It doesn't matter that it's pure bullshit. They just keep going and pick up enough followers and the rest snowballs from there. Twas ever thus. How do you think every cult or religion to every form has come about? How do you think every dictator has come to power? They vehemently, psychotically ignored "if I tried that" and just tried it and kept repeating it until the cognitive dissonance wore down into oblivion and the pathological washed over them.
^Sociopathic rich, I mean. I'm sure you're doing fine.
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MUSK: Yeah. But I think self-driving cars is essentially a solved problem at this point, right? And Tesla’s rolled out a sort of robo-taxi service in a few cities, and will be very, very widespread by the end of this year within the U.S.
He said that would happen in 2025. And probably earlier, too.
I am also certain given time this problem is achievable but the problem is what we expect after that ????? mass unemployment or we just convert all human into robot repairer ???? what the end goal there
Basically yes. The robots take care of the rich, and poor people with their need to have a cut of the resources just go away.
They do believe in a post capitalism utopia, they just think only about a thousand people need to enjoy it.
We "just" need to figure out the terraforming problem then we can all move to Mars and be interplanetary explorers. Imagine how cool it would be to have corporate leaders who had vision--environmentally friendly automobiles, cheap space travel, etc.--without the clammy snake oil grifter bullshit. Reality is cool AF. The things that are actually achievable are amazing. We don't need to spout nonsense to do great things. We don't need "AGI" (whatever that might be) to do neat things with machine learning. The Jetsons is a cartoon. Trying to make it real is dumb.
The Mars obsession absolutely blows me away. Like, he's obviously read KSR's Red Mars. He's obviously aware of the conditions out there. Mars is a fuckin' bummer. It is absolutely hostile to human life. Sure, we'll land people there, and maybe set up some sort of station if we really want to throw a few trillion dollars away from actual problems here on earth... but it's not going to be pleasant. Not anytime, ever. The gravity sucks. The dust and fines suck. The storms suck. And last for months. The temperatures suck. There's no "outside". There's no trivial way to generate power at scale. There's no magnetosphere, so you'll get cancer. The soil is poisonous.
Elon's stuck with this 12-year-old-boy absurdity about "becoming interplanetary to save the species" as if Mars could ever be a practical lifeboat when we inevitably drive the planet into the ground or a meteor hits. It's... absurd, puerile fantasy.
The funniest part is that the Mars Trilogy is hella optimistic about the tech needed to get and live there.
Doing such seemingly impossible things have been what humans have been doing. The tech developed for Mars would definitely influence our Earth society. Hard to say how and when, but it has been historically the case. I think instead of spending billions on election influence campaign, spending that on Mars has a better impact to society.
The guy owns a rocket company and still hasn't even been to LEO. Katy Perry has spent more time in space than Elon.
Mars isn't happening, at least not on his watch.
>he's obviously read KSR's Red Mars
If he had, he was clearly not paying attention to the social and economic message of the book.
I think there's value in space exploration even for its own sake, but I think it's utterly idiotic to think that we're going to realistically be able to terraform Mars in the next century if ever.
Even if I do think it's worth exploring space, including Mars, I think it's silly to assume that it's going to be a way to guarantee the permanence of humanity.
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That’s the point. Don’t listen, keep trying and you can achieve anything. Rich people are either bored or stupid so you will get money eventually.
we need AGI and robot so people can leave chore in house to a robot