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> It’s hard to even imagine today what we will have discovered by 2035; maybe we will go from solving high-energy physics one year to beginning space colonizati

> It’s hard to even imagine today what we will have discovered by 2035; maybe we will go from solving high-energy physics one year to beginning space colonization the next year I heard similar things in my college dorm, amid all the hazy smoke. It’s very difficult to take this stuff seriously. It’s like the initial hype around self driving cars wound up by 1000x. Because we got from 1 to 100 of course we’ll get from 100 to 200 in the same amount of time. Or less! Why would you even question it?

simmanian 1y ago
I find it hard to believe too, but at the same time, Demis Hassabis has also said that AI will help us "colonize the galaxy" in as little as five years [1]. Maybe Sam Altman was emboldened by Hassabis' statement. I would not be opposed to living in a future where I can personally live in space. It would be quite fun. [1] (paywalled) https://fortune.com/2025/06/06/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis-ai-smarter-than-humans-space-colonization-robot-nurses/ https://fortune.com/2025/06/06/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-has...
- smackeyacky 1y ago
  Fun? It would be like signing up to live in an inescapable prison.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    Seriously. It would be like living on a submarine. But I guess if you don't like sky, mountains, beaches, nature, weather, animals, etc... Like, if you hate the outdoors and spend all your time in windowless rooms with poor air quality? Then OK, maybe space is for you? Also the food is probably going to be extremely monotonous, so that also needs to not matter. Unless people are envisioning living in magical holodecks all the time, with magical food replicators? But those don't come along automatically with "space", no matter how much Star Trek you've seen...
  - simmanian 1y ago
    Well, I didn't say I look forward to living in a tiny capsule in space, just that it would be fun to live in a time where that's possible. I'd imagine most people would not venture into space until they can make it comfortable enough.
- afavour 1y ago
  To extend my previous comparison, I believe Altman and Hassabis are the ones in the smoky room passing a joint around the circle. They’re absolutely emboldened by each other but that doesn’t mean they’re tethered to reality. (my comparison is incomplete though, it doesn’t factor in that these two also have a huge financial incentive to be hyping this stuff up)
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  Colonize the… what now? In how long!? What is that man smoking and can I have some? Five years wouldn’t be enough time to “colonise” Antarctica, let alone another planet (just one!), and certainly not anything at a larger scale, even if we were visited by aliens tomorrow and they gifted us five hundred spaceships to give us a boost.
- insin 1y ago
  We'll get that shortly after he delivers the infinite polygon engine…
- yencabulator 1y ago
  https://archive.ph/XlLOK https://archive.ph/XlLOK > “If that all happens, then it should be an era of maximum human flourishing, where we travel to the stars and colonize the galaxy. I think that will begin to happen in 2030.” You are confusing "era of maximum human flourishing ... begin to happen" with "have colonized galaxy".
xg15 1y ago
nah, 100 to 200 would be mere limitless linear growth, but we're in the age of exponentials now. So it'll be at least 100 to 100.000 obviously!
jamilton 1y ago
And there's plenty of reason to not take it seriously from Sam Altman in particular.
paxys 1y ago
No we'll totally have flying cars and cure cancer and live life in an AR/VR multiverse and make all knowledge 100% free to everyone worldwide. Meanwhile the only real advancements in tech in the last two decades have been smaller computers (smartphones) and ads.
- km3r 1y ago
  And self driving cars. Real time ray tracing. WiFi. Cloud computing. starlink. Crispr. mRNA vaccines. Blockchain. Voice assistants.
  - NoGravitas 1y ago
    Fully half of these are "bad, actually".
  - zeofig 1y ago
    A humorously underwhelming list.
  - paxys 1y ago
    All the significant tech on that list is still "two years away from being two years away".
    - km3r 1y ago
      What do you mean? I take a self driving car around every week. I got a mRNA vaccine that enabled us to get out of a pandemic much quicker. You can get fast internet in the middle of nowhere via starlink.
mkfs 1y ago
> It’s very difficult to take this stuff seriously. It’s like the initial hype around self driving cars wound up by 1000x. Because we got from 1 to 100 of course we’ll get from 100 to 200 in the same amount of time. Or less! Why would you even question it? It turned out automating creative output, like art or writing, at least to be competitive enough with entry-level humans, was much easier, and the consequences for getting bad output are much less serious, and far short of death, seriously injury, and major financial liability as with self-driving. Fields like concept art and copy editing are already being devastated by generative AI. Voice overs too. And looking at Google's Veo, I can easily see this tech being used to generate short ads, especially for YouTube, where before you would have had to hire human actors, cameramen, sound/lighting people, and an editor.
woah 1y ago
> It’s like the initial hype around self driving cars Wait... Self driving cars actually happened. Seems like the hype was true, but 5 years later than expected and now people just think it's normal so they feel the hype was overblown.
- ab5tract 1y ago
  I have not ever been in a self-driving car. I've seen a few of them visiting the Bay Area. Only taxis seem to be allowed to use this tech so far. I've always been a proponent that we would see self driving cars in our lifetime. But they have absolutely not arrived outside of the sheltered enclaves of a handful of tech-centered cities.
  - lubujackson 1y ago
    Goal post: moved.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - danenania 1y ago
    There aren't just a "few" in the Bay Area—they've become totally ubiquitous in SF.
    - ab5tract 1y ago
      That hardly entails that self-driving cars have "arrived". Am I mistaken or is it true that you can't even own and operate one yourself? In my opinion, it's as similarly off-base as to making claims that 'mach speed consumer air travel' "arrived" just because for a few decades you could catch a Concorde flight between NYC and London.
      - danenania 1y ago
        I didn’t say they’ve arrived—I was just pointing out the very misleading “few” in your earlier comment. Anyone who spends an hour or two in SF can tell you how wrong that is. They’re literally everywhere. You’re right that they have a long way to go before being fully mainstream. But thousands of people are using them every day in multiple major cities. That’s a pretty big milestone.

simmanian 1y ago

I find it hard to believe too, but at the same time, Demis Hassabis has also said that AI will help us "colonize the galaxy" in as little as five years [1]. Maybe Sam Altman was emboldened by Hassabis' statement. I would not be opposed to living in a future where I can personally live in space. It would be quite fun. [1] (paywalled) https://fortune.com/2025/06/06/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis-ai-smarter-than-humans-space-colonization-robot-nurses/ https://fortune.com/2025/06/06/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-has...

smackeyacky 1y ago
Fun? It would be like signing up to live in an inescapable prison.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Seriously. It would be like living on a submarine. But I guess if you don't like sky, mountains, beaches, nature, weather, animals, etc... Like, if you hate the outdoors and spend all your time in windowless rooms with poor air quality? Then OK, maybe space is for you? Also the food is probably going to be extremely monotonous, so that also needs to not matter. Unless people are envisioning living in magical holodecks all the time, with magical food replicators? But those don't come along automatically with "space", no matter how much Star Trek you've seen...
- simmanian 1y ago
  Well, I didn't say I look forward to living in a tiny capsule in space, just that it would be fun to live in a time where that's possible. I'd imagine most people would not venture into space until they can make it comfortable enough.
afavour 1y ago
To extend my previous comparison, I believe Altman and Hassabis are the ones in the smoky room passing a joint around the circle. They’re absolutely emboldened by each other but that doesn’t mean they’re tethered to reality. (my comparison is incomplete though, it doesn’t factor in that these two also have a huge financial incentive to be hyping this stuff up)
jiggawatts 1y ago
Colonize the… what now? In how long!? What is that man smoking and can I have some? Five years wouldn’t be enough time to “colonise” Antarctica, let alone another planet (just one!), and certainly not anything at a larger scale, even if we were visited by aliens tomorrow and they gifted us five hundred spaceships to give us a boost.
insin 1y ago
We'll get that shortly after he delivers the infinite polygon engine…
yencabulator 1y ago
https://archive.ph/XlLOK https://archive.ph/XlLOK > “If that all happens, then it should be an era of maximum human flourishing, where we travel to the stars and colonize the galaxy. I think that will begin to happen in 2030.” You are confusing "era of maximum human flourishing ... begin to happen" with "have colonized galaxy".

xg15 1y ago

nah, 100 to 200 would be mere limitless linear growth, but we're in the age of exponentials now. So it'll be at least 100 to 100.000 obviously!

jamilton 1y ago

And there's plenty of reason to not take it seriously from Sam Altman in particular.

paxys 1y ago

No we'll totally have flying cars and cure cancer and live life in an AR/VR multiverse and make all knowledge 100% free to everyone worldwide. Meanwhile the only real advancements in tech in the last two decades have been smaller computers (smartphones) and ads.

km3r 1y ago
And self driving cars. Real time ray tracing. WiFi. Cloud computing. starlink. Crispr. mRNA vaccines. Blockchain. Voice assistants.
- NoGravitas 1y ago
  Fully half of these are "bad, actually".
- zeofig 1y ago
  A humorously underwhelming list.
- paxys 1y ago
  All the significant tech on that list is still "two years away from being two years away".
  - km3r 1y ago
    What do you mean? I take a self driving car around every week. I got a mRNA vaccine that enabled us to get out of a pandemic much quicker. You can get fast internet in the middle of nowhere via starlink.

mkfs 1y ago

> It’s very difficult to take this stuff seriously. It’s like the initial hype around self driving cars wound up by 1000x. Because we got from 1 to 100 of course we’ll get from 100 to 200 in the same amount of time. Or less! Why would you even question it? It turned out automating creative output, like art or writing, at least to be competitive enough with entry-level humans, was much easier, and the consequences for getting bad output are much less serious, and far short of death, seriously injury, and major financial liability as with self-driving. Fields like concept art and copy editing are already being devastated by generative AI. Voice overs too. And looking at Google's Veo, I can easily see this tech being used to generate short ads, especially for YouTube, where before you would have had to hire human actors, cameramen, sound/lighting people, and an editor.

woah 1y ago

> It’s like the initial hype around self driving cars Wait... Self driving cars actually happened. Seems like the hype was true, but 5 years later than expected and now people just think it's normal so they feel the hype was overblown.

ab5tract 1y ago
I have not ever been in a self-driving car. I've seen a few of them visiting the Bay Area. Only taxis seem to be allowed to use this tech so far. I've always been a proponent that we would see self driving cars in our lifetime. But they have absolutely not arrived outside of the sheltered enclaves of a handful of tech-centered cities.
- lubujackson 1y ago
  Goal post: moved.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- danenania 1y ago
  There aren't just a "few" in the Bay Area—they've become totally ubiquitous in SF.
  - ab5tract 1y ago
    That hardly entails that self-driving cars have "arrived". Am I mistaken or is it true that you can't even own and operate one yourself? In my opinion, it's as similarly off-base as to making claims that 'mach speed consumer air travel' "arrived" just because for a few decades you could catch a Concorde flight between NYC and London.
    - danenania 1y ago
      I didn’t say they’ve arrived—I was just pointing out the very misleading “few” in your earlier comment. Anyone who spends an hour or two in SF can tell you how wrong that is. They’re literally everywhere. You’re right that they have a long way to go before being fully mainstream. But thousands of people are using them every day in multiple major cities. That’s a pretty big milestone.