Seems like a way to put a lot of junk in space. If thats in earth orbit it will lead to a lot of junk falling from the sky in 10 years. If it all burns up that will be a lot of nasty shit in the atmosphere - millions of tons!
xAI joins SpaceX
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Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
You operate them like Microsoft's submerged data center project: you don't do maintenance, whatever fails fails. You start with enough redundancy in critical components like power and networking and accept that compute resources will slowly decrease as nodes fail No operational needs is obviously ... simplified. You still need to manage downlink capacity, station keeping, collision avoidance, etc. But for a large con…
How do you make a small fortune? Start with a big one. The thing being called obvious here is that the maintenance you have to do on earth is vastly cheaper than the overspeccing you need to do in space (otherwise we would overspec on earth). That's before even considering the harsh radiation environment and the incredible cost to put even a single pound into low earth orbit.
The idea here is that the economics of launch are changing with Starship such that the "incredible cost" and "overspeccing" of space will become much less relevant. There's a world where, because the cost per kg is so low, a data center satellite's compute payload is just the same hardware you'd put in a terrestrial rack, and the satellite bus itself is mass-produced to not-particularly-challenging specs. And they don't have to last 30 years, just 4-ish, when the computer is ready for retirement anyway.
Will that come to be? I'm skeptical, especially within the next several years. Starship would have to perform perfectly, and a lot of other assumptions hold, to make this make sense. But that's the idea.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#373> The basic math is that launching a million tons per year of satellites generating 100 kW of compute power per ton would add 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity annually, with no ongoing operational or maintenance needs. Ultimately, there is a path to launching 1 TW/year from Earth. > My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space. This is so obviously false. Fo…
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> He's got more information about space based compute deployments than any other person in the world...
He also had more information about self-driving progress than any other person in the world - yet he was wrong with his predictions every year for last 10 years.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#374What this tells me - xAI is essentially a failure, though at what level I'm not sure.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Setting aside the possibility it's window dressing for a financial bailout, there would be two ways compute in space makes sense: 1) new technology improves vacuum heat radiation efficiency 2) new technology reduces waste heat generation from compute All the takes I've seen have been focused on #1, but I'm starting to wonder about #2... Specifically spintronics and photonic chips.
If you solve 2, heat dissipation goes away on earth too, so what’s the advantage of space
> space is called “space” for a reason.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#376The Goalpost shift continues, If elon were working for me, I would have fired him for having never delivered on any of his projects. Hyperloop > Neuralink > Self-Driving Cars > Robotaxi fleets > Personal Robots > Orbital Datacenters > [Insert next]
In a way, its kind of cool to see how robber barons work in real time in our generation. Its also insanely depressing as they will systematically enshittify and extract as much wealth from society as is possible.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#377I am concerned, and haven’t seen anyone else point this out yet, that Musk will move Grok’s CSAM generation capabilities to space to be beyond the reach of terrestrial policing. Does this create some sort of legal loophole here so Musk can do this with impunity?
Remember that he wants to make X a bank. An orbital tax haven. But seriously, I think legally satellites are under the jurisdiction of the country they were launched from.
Well, offshore launches are already a thing.
Or he could just buy a small island in the Carribean. There's one in particular that is available.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
hmm Tesla shipped millions of cars SpaceX launches 90% of space payloads, Starlink is working well. Thats hard to categorize as never delivered on any of his projects
The crucial thing is that Tesla's valuation has the hype projects baked in. The fact that it never delivered self driving or a robotaxi fleet and is now being saved solely by an import ban on Chinese EVs means that any success he had with Tesla is now an illusion.
I don't follow his promises but have seen first hand how far ahead Tesla FSD is compared to competitors in the consumer space. It's not even close.
This current announcement seems silly, though.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#379This is definitely better than merging with Tesla.
They can sell xAI/Grok to all automobile companies along with Tesla and other businesses(X.com included) just like the SpaceX services.
It would good to see how it was valued.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey now. Huperliop was designed to scuttle California’s light rail project. Which it did. Mission accomplished.
This is the funniest conspiracy theory.
It’s not really so much a conspiracy theory as a thing that he outright said.
https://www.jalopnik.com/did-musk-propose-hyperloop-to-stop-...