Elon Musk Is Going To Build AI-Powered Rockets | HackerNoon

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WASHINGTON, Jan 31 – Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to launch a constellation of 1 million satellites that will orbit Earth and harness the sun to power AI data centers, according to a filing at the Federal Communications Commission.

Source – Reuters.com

Only 2 days later, Elon announced the merging of xAI and SpaceX.

JUST AI Was Never the Story

Everybody thinks AI is the story.

1 Million AI servers bathing in multiple kilowatts of infinite sunlight. Cooled by outerspace, streaming knowledge from above us. Straight down into our phones via Starlink on Starlink-enabled Tesla phones.

But it is not.

AI is the Trojan horse for highly-monitored payment rails, massive personal information rails, and now, … a new existential crisis. A reason to fear so much that we have no option but to behave. (Nukes tamed us, which is why there is no WW3 and the military-industrial complex is sour).

A reason so big we forget the then seemingly mundane.. like the sex crimes of a disgraced man who died decades ago … and worry about rockets in the hands of AI. Mega missiles, actually. Megatron, if we’re unlucky.

1 million years ago, humans threw spears at each other over a few metres. Now, they could potentially throw rocket-sized spears at each other ( “accidentally”).

Blame the AI, blame human error. Not evil intentions. Space is big, though, so the errors will likely be small.

Meanwhile, back on Earth is you. For closure, some justice for the victims of the disgraced man and his now disgraced friends will be put together.

A small win, but you take it and move on. For you are oh-so-distracted (Anybody know what’s going on with President Maduro?). Move to your AI-powered car, get driven to your AI-powered job, to ponder what you’re playing with when you put barely-mice-brained autonomous systems in charge of the most powerful rockets on the planet.

It’s hard not to feel the impending doom.

(Not the Marvel movie. Stay focused).

How is Fear Profitable?

It’s not fear per say but uncertainty. Volatility turned to the max.

If you thought Bitcoin was volatile, the potential threat of an AI-powered rocket malfunctioning seems to me to be a better source of volatility. Hence money.

Afterall.

“Volatility is vitality”, says Saylor.

One potential upside—You can literally pump the price of gold without any humans being involved, by letting AI rockets move some gold bars to the moon. Cost — a few barrels of cheap Venezuelan oil turned rocket fuel.

(I just don’t like the way people stick to these ancient rocks when modern gold is available. So, I somewhat like the idea of dumping gold quite far away).

Or you can let the AI do more rocket backflips (no more human-command-centre skills. Humans would now be ineffective) and get those TikToks going.

OR—Have it go wrong with the rocket going elsewhere. A great way to make money for shortsellers and fear mongers. Many of whom will also be AI bots.

Whichever way you see it, a lot of money will be put on the line. Of course, AI servers in space will be the story. But at the back of our minds, we shall really be keeping an eye on those rockets. Again, Judgement day playing rent-free.

What I Would Prefer

I would prefer that instead of bootstrapping rockets to AI (or is it the other way around?), AI is bootstrapped to Bitcoin. So, it (not a rocket) can take it to the moon.

Yeah, doesn’t make much sense right now. But after those AI servers are built, I bet you, they’ll find trading Bitcoin to be their favorite activity.

Hodl.