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The author forgot to add that this is only true from the perspective of their own bias.
To someone else it might make a lot of sense, e.g. someone who expects militant resistance to the "data centers" from the general public or some other actor that is highly unlikely to achieve space capabilities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its very simple, xAI needs money to win the AI race, so best option is to attach to Elon’s moneybank (spacex) to get cash without dilution
> xAI needs money to win the AI race Off on a tangent here but I'd love for anyone to seriously explain how they believe the "AI race" is economically winnable in any meaningful way. Like what is the believed inflection point that changes us from the current situation (where all of the state-of-the-art models are roughly equal if you squint, and the open models are only like one release cycle behind) to one where som…
Because the first company to have a full functioning AGI will most likely be the most valuable in the world. So it is worth all the effort to be the first.
This sentence proves the author has no ability for logical thinking: Data centers in space only make sense if they are cost effective relative to normal data centers. I too don't think it's currently a sensible solution. But the author completely unable to make a proper case. For instance, just to refute that one claim, there are many reasons to do it in space even at an cost. Space-based data centers provide an off-…
I think the main reason to host them in space is to escape Earth jurisdictions, but even that is dubious as there will be people involved that reside on the Earth.
I would not assume cooling has been worked out. Space is a vacuum. i.e. The lack-of-a-thing that makes a thermos great at keeping your drink hot. A satellite is, if nothing else, a fantastic thermos. A data center in space would necessarily rely completely on cooling by radiation, unlike a terrestrial data center that can make use of convection and conduction. You can't just pipe heat out into the atmosphere or build…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people underestimate how quickly heat radiates to space. A rock in orbit around Earth will experience 250F/125C on the side facing the Sun, and -173C/-280F on the other side. The ability to rotate an insulating shield toward the sun means you're always radiating.
I think you may be overestimating how quickly this happens and underestimating how much surface area that rock has. Given no atmosphere, the fact that the rock with 1/4 the radius of Earth has a temperature differential of only 300C between the hot side and the cold side, there's not a lot of radiation happening. In deep space (no incident power) you need roughly 2000 sq meters of surface area per megawatt if you wan…
Electric cars make no sense. Reusable rockets make no sense. Autonomous cars make no sense. Data centers in space make no sense. Humanoid robots make no sense.
Solar roof tiles: makes no sense
Lot's of tiny tunnels under cities: makes no sense
Performance of the new roadster: makes no sense
All four of the above were likely scams. Musk is not beyond running a scam.
This sentence proves the author has no ability for logical thinking: Data centers in space only make sense if they are cost effective relative to normal data centers. I too don't think it's currently a sensible solution. But the author completely unable to make a proper case. For instance, just to refute that one claim, there are many reasons to do it in space even at an cost. Space-based data centers provide an off-…
You also underestimate the cooling problem. The fact that space is cold doesn’t mean it’s easy to cool things off in space. On earth the main cooling strategy is to transfer heat through direct contact and move the hot stuff away. Be it air or water, as you mentioned. In space your only option is to radiate heat away. And that’s while half of you is under intense sunlight.
I think you also undersell the thread of warfare in space. Sure, a guy with Molotov can’t get you space data center but we’ve had satellite shot down. So maybe not every war is a threat but, say China or Russia (or other space-faring nation) could take care of a satellite if absolutely needed.
National seizures are also still a threat. If only being outside national borders was such a great defense we’d see some data centers in the sea by now.
So being in space is immune to some of the known problems but also comes with a whole lot of novel issues, not solved at scale yet. And so far I haven’t seen any sufficiently detailed proposed solutions to even consider the trade of known problems with readily available solutions for new issues with lots of unknowns.
If we won't stop what he is doing with grok and ai-generated CSAM, he will be completely free from oversight up there.
The really crazy thing is you don't need to know more then basic (non Hollywood) physics to know how dump this is 1. every gram you need to send to space is costly, a issue you don't have at ground level 2. cooling is a catastrophe, sure space is cold, but also a vacuum, so the cooling rate is roughly the infrared radiation rate. This means if you are not careful with the surface of a satellite it can end up being ve…
> The really crazy thing is you don't need to know more then basic (non Hollywood) physics to know how dump this is And yet journalists at major institutions have been repeating Musk's claims with very little skepticism ("xAI and SpaceX are merging to bring data centers to space").