Slashdot Mirror
In a Wide-Ranging Interview, Elon Musk Talks About Visiting Mars, Battle To Keep Tesla Afloat, and Neuralink (medium.com)
Elon Musk reckons there's a 70 percent chance he'll go to Mars, even as he knows there's a good chance he won't survive there. "I'm talking about moving there," the SpaceX and Tesla CEO said in a wide-ranging, but brief interview with Axios on HBO. "We've recently made a number of breakthroughs that I'm just really fired up about."
In the interview, he also spoke about Neuralink, the company he launched last year to build brain-enhancing implants. "The long-term aspiration of Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," he said. "If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."
Musk also revealed that Tesla had been "single-digit weeks" away from death with the company "bleeding" cash as it ramped up Model 3 production. He said he was worried about imploding and that the stress of working seven days a week and sleeping at the Tesla factory was very painful."It hurts my brain and my heart," said Musk, who recently publicly urged people to explore electric cars, even if they come from companies Tesla competes with.
In the interview, he also spoke about Neuralink, the company he launched last year to build brain-enhancing implants. "The long-term aspiration of Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," he said. "If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."
Musk also revealed that Tesla had been "single-digit weeks" away from death with the company "bleeding" cash as it ramped up Model 3 production. He said he was worried about imploding and that the stress of working seven days a week and sleeping at the Tesla factory was very painful."It hurts my brain and my heart," said Musk, who recently publicly urged people to explore electric cars, even if they come from companies Tesla competes with.
IMHO, there are people that zap mosquitoes with lasers, then shy away from delivering an actual useful product at the end. And there are people who deliver a mosquito laser zapping box, but along the way, blind a few early adopters while they get the real world kinks out.
I put Musk in the later category. The world needs more Musks, I just don't want to be an early adopter of his products.
"If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."
I am afraid most of us would become immensely powerfully idiotic. Most humans are probably born as smart as your good scientist or good writer. Like most people are born with a body with the potential to be an athlete.
It is just most people have not desire for excellence. They are not educated that way. Our problem is not that much a lack of brain processing power. We already have intelligence magnifying tools. Take writing for example. Wonderful things have indeed been written and that is not over. But most people won't bother with books and plenty of magazines with stories about celebrities are sold. Internet is used to watch porn and hurl insults to each other, etc...
Tools and system are fine and all. But you need the right people to do nice things with them. We are not there yet.
Tesla deserves a lot of credit, but they were not the only ones driving this revolution.
Nissan produced an affordable, practical EV that figured out a lot of the basic issues with an electric drivetrain, from the instrumentation to the integration with existing car tech to how to sell it to the public. They also built large rapid charging networks in several countries.
There are many more too, especially in the commercial vehicle space. People said busses were too large to go electric, so BYD and others build 450kWh batteries and proved they worked just fine. LG have made a huge breakthrough in getting the battery cost down by using flat "pouch" cells (like in phones) rather than cylindrical ones. Hyundai and Kia have developed the most efficient EV drivetrains and figured out how to subtly adjust the bodywork to make their vehicles look "normal" but also get excellent range.
So credit where credit is due. Tesla gets a lot of press but they are only the performance end of the market, they don't even make an affordable model and are only a bit player in many important markets like Europe, Japan and China.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
0.001%? Electric cars are 39% of new car sales in Norway, 8% in California, and around 5% in China. If you live in a backwater that can't even keep up with China, maybe it's not relevant to your area yet.
This space intentionally left blank