Friday 3 November 2023

What Elon Musk Said

Futuristic sf is relevant now. Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry talks about a girl and her kitten at ground zero - on either side of a conflict. In several works by Anderson, his characters respond to future consequences of technology, consequences that have to be thought about now because they are happening/beginning to happen now. Past, present and future are a continuum.

Elon Musk has just said that at some stage people will no longer have to work because AI will do everything. "Work"? There are many tasks that people will no longer have to perform in exchange for a wage or salary. However, people will still be capable of enjoyable, meaningful, creative, satisfying, self-realizing activities on every level. The work/leisure distinction can be transcended. This will not satisfy everyone during a transitional period precisely because it will be a transitional period but we can look beyond that to future generations raised in a transformed milieu that will have become their norm.

I think that a challenge for Anderson's successors could be to write not only dystopias of human stagnation and extinction, like his Genesis, but also utopias of human development and fulfilment. In Wells' The Time Machine, human beings conquer nature and atrophy whereas, in his The Shape Of Things To Come, they transcend their earlier confusions and conflicts. Wells shows two ways. The Things To Come way could be the longer term outcome of an Andersonian future history.

15 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Problem is, I don't Utopian science fiction stories are going to be interesting. Stories where everybody is happy, peaceful, "self realized," are going to be boring. It's conflicts, problems, clashing idea and ideals, etc., which makes the best SF interesting and worth reading.

A post scarcity economy of the kind Musk implied will be possible only if mankind gets off this rock! It's also my belief that kind of economy will come with the problems seen in "Quixote and the Windmill."

It's not enough to talk so vaguely about "education." What kind of education? Education by whom? So many public schools in the US are terrible, due to corrupt teachers unions dominated by leftists. Many of the best schools are religious (Catholic or evangelical Protestant). In the situation hope for would you allow them to exist?

I'm also annoyed by the careless use of "AI." As commonly used it refers not to actual conscious, self aware computers, but merely to programs which can only do what they were designed/programmed for.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I would prefer if all children received the same education and if any religious instruction were given separately in "Sunday school" or equivalent. HOWEVER, that is my preference. Many other parents prefer denominationally based schools. In Leicester, a Catholic school and a Krishna Consciousness school share the same driveway which splits to go to different buildings. (It is to be hoped that they have some cultural exchanges.) As long as groups of parents want this, it would be quite wrong for the state or anyone else to prevent them from organising such schools. How long into the future will large numbers of people want to do this? We will have to live into the future to find out.

Paul.

DaveShoup2MD said...


1. Musk's predictions of IOCs have a way of ... slipping, to put it mildly.
2. Utopian SF has been done, and sold well - but it is boring. ;) See:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/624/pg624-images.html

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Dave!

Paul: Absolutely no to all children getting the same one size fits all "education." Parents alone should make the choice. We have religious schools because parents don't trust the State when it comes to their children--rightly so! Far too often, these days, public schools are brain washing children with "values" their parents finds disgusting and repugnant.

But I am glad you agree religious believers have a right to their own schools. It's my belief that many religious and other private schools does a far better job of teaching such basics as literacy, numeracy, writing, science, history, etc., than far too many public schools.

Dave: Whatever silly things Elon Musk might occasionally say does not change the fact he has fundamentally shaken up and changed vastly for the better our long stagnant, even moribund, space program. That makes me willing to forgive some silliness from Musk!

At least we agree Utopian science fiction is more likely than not to be boring. I'm satisfied with the original exemplar, Sir Thomas More's satirical UTOPIA.

Ad astra! Sean

DaveShoup2MD said...


Sean - Except when executives at multi-billion corporations say "silly things" while accepting $billions in public funds is somewhat off-putting, both to the Street, the customer, and the taxpayer - especially when national security missions are involved.

Ever wonder why the names of the CEOs of, say, Douglas Aircraft or North American or Supermarine in their heyday (even though one of them is right there on the tin, so to speak) are pretty close to unknown today, while Howard Hughes was is still a name many recognize?

Despite - for example - the relative impact of the work of Donald Douglas, James H. Kindelberger, or Hubert Scott-Paine - hardly anyone not in the aerospace industry knows their names ... yet a lunatic like Hughes 'is" a figure in popular culture.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Dave!

Disagree, those "billions" came as payments for services rendered by Musk's companies. Reread Mr. Stirling's comments about that.

Nor does it bother me if Musk is more colorful than the executives of other firms.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Utopian societies will be dynamic, not static. Writers need to be able to envisage that.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Again, you are merely asserting what you hope for, with no evidence given that what you desire will actually happen.

So I remain skeptical!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

None of us has any evidence of what will happen. But the society that we aim for has to be dynamic, not static.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree neither of us has any evidence of what will happen 100, 500, or 1000 years from now. But there is plenty of evidence showing human beings are going to remain aggressively competitive, quarrelsome, violent, strife torn, prone to folly, etc., indefinitely.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Disagree. Contradiction saying there's evidence of what will happen forever. Have been out of town all day. Busy tomorrow.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Then we cannot agree.

I hope what you are doing is fun!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Well, of course we can't agree if you insist that what has happened until now is conclusive evidence for negative statements about what cannot happen in the future for ever more. Over many comments, I have put forward my reasons for thinking that we CAN, not that we inevitably WILL, change human society and psychology in various ways in the future. If, despite all that, you continue to state simply that, whatever else happens, no such human changes can ever occur, then, certainly, there is no need for us to keep repeating this.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Because "can" is simply not good enough when I've never seen evidence of people changing the way you would like them to. It's wiser for statesmen to base their policies on what real people are actually like.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

But I am not advising statesmen. I am saying that, if we generally, not just statesmen, remove some causes of conflict, the we will remove those kinds of conflict. You reply that other causes of conflict will still exist and so on but we can aim to make some progress. Poverty is a cause of crime. Poverty can be ended. That will not solve all problems but it will end one cause of crime. Then we can aim to do something else.

People have not changed the way I would like them to because we have not done it yet.

Paul.