From the Big Short (movie) Jared Vennett (narration): "In the years that followed, hundreds of bankers and rating agency's executives went to jail. The SEC was completely overhauled, and Congress had no choice but to break up the big banks and regulate the mortgage and derivatives industries." "Just kidding. Banks took the money the American people gave them, and they used it to pay themselves huge bonuses, and lobby…
Where's the government bailout in this transaction that would make this a relevant comparison?
xAI joins SpaceX
581–590 of 1001 posts
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#582> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…
This is such a hypebeast paragraph.
Datacenters in space are a TERRIBLE idea.
Figure out how to get rid of the waste heat and get back to me.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#583I'm sure these comments will be rational and non-biased by political emotions /s
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#584> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…
You really can't grasp that GPUs scaled at this level is the most ambitious thing possible? That it will be the foundation of unfathomable technological innovation?
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
In fairness, solar cells can be about 5x more efficient in space (irradiance, uptime).
And how much of that power would be spent on high speed communications with Earth that aren't, you know, a megabit or two per second
The intractable problem is heat dissipation. There is to little matter in space to absorb excess heat. You'd need thermal fins bigger than the solar cells. The satellite's mass would be dominated by the solar panels and heat fins such that maybe 1% of the mass would be usable compute. It would be 1000x easier to leave them on the moon and dissipate into the ground and 100000x easier to just keep making them on earth.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#586SpaceX is too big to fail. It's important for national security. I wonder if Elon wants to tangle all his businesses into SpaceX so they are all kept afloat by SpaceX's importance.
When you’re connected to Epstein, you’ll always be too big to fail
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#587> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
Context missing. This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers. Full paragraph quote comes from: > While launching AI satellites from Earth is the immediate focus, Starship’s capabilities will also enable operations on other worlds. Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be ca…
Why is it cheaper to ship all of the materials to space, then to the moon for assembly (which also includes shipping all of the people and supplies to keep them alive), then back into space vs just…
building them on earth and then shipping them up?
We’re not exactly at a loss for land over here.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#588The 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]
Hey now. Huperliop was designed to scuttle California’s light rail project. Which it did. Mission accomplished.
California's light rail still exists, as does California High-Speed Rail, which is not light rail.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#589At least there will be AI and Agentic stuff in mars.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
Context missing. This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers. Full paragraph quote comes from: > While launching AI satellites from Earth is the immediate focus, Starship’s capabilities will also enable operations on other worlds. Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be ca…
Why would satellites be manufactured on the moon? There's nothing on the moon. The raw materials would have to be ferried over first. What would be the point?
It would appeal to naive technofetishists, the same crowd of investors enamored by many of Elon's other impossible schemes.
The moon mfg makes significantly more sense than the hilarious plan to establish a permanent Mars base in the next 50 years, but that's not saying much.