Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Musk vs. Bezos: very different tech-driven visions of the future

Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man in the world and is in the process of converting his "Amazon lottery winnings" (his term) into a space transportation infrastructure so that future generations can innovate space-based business on the cheap. He envisions a trillion people inhabiting the solar system. Nor is he worried about the emergence of an evil artificial super-intelligence that's an existential risk to humanity. In contrast, THAT's Musk's greatest worry. At the moment his SpaceX is probably ahead of Bezos's Blue Origin in the space race, but that's a loooong race, long. He sees man-in-space primarily as insurance against Earth-failure, which Bezos thinks silly/unlikely. Musk's into sustainable energy as well, Tesla (& its Solar City subsidiary). It would be interesting to seem them discuss these issues face-to-face. Who knows, maybe they have already.

Still, here's a pair of videos, one of each, that lay out some of the issues.





But, you know, their imaginations seem to in in thrall to bigness – Bezos perhaps more than Musk – and that's a problem. & they'd don't say a thing about music, dance, painting, quilt-making...

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