5 ms·

Elon Musk: In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space [video]

bediger4000 2mo ago
What's the consensus on this? I feel like the packaging and heat dissipation issues need some work. Its much harder to fly electronics on a big noisy rocket than most people think
- sybercecurity 2mo ago
  Sales pitch for a rocket company.
- gogurt2000 2mo ago
  Musk is doing what he's always done: making outrageous promises/predictions that won't come true but sound like science fiction to lure the uneducated into investing. * The hardware is outdated quickly and putting it in space just makes it impossible to replace or service. * Dissipating the heat generated is a real problem that limits the hardware you can put in one satellite. * Satellites will always have greater latency and worse bandwidth than land-based connections.
- jqpabc123 2mo ago
  "From a technology standpoint, Tesla will have a car that can do full autonomy in about three years, maybe a bit sooner." --- Musk, 2015 "I mean, it does look like [full autonomy is] gonna happen this year." --- Musk, 2023 "I think [FSD] will be available for unsupervised personal use by the end of this year in certain geographies." --- Musk, 2025
  - oidar 2mo ago
    Oh, and free charging anywhere there is sun! https://x.com/elonmusk/status/250453089562263552 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/250453089562263552
    - lawn 2mo ago
      Buying a Tesla would earn you money as you could rent it out as a cab! And when not driving around you could rent out its computational ability to form a mesh super computer!
      - jqpabc123 2mo ago
        Musk thinks people are stupid enough to believe this. And sadly, he's right in a lot of cases.
- rsynnott 2mo ago
  It's a bold claim, a few years distant, by Elon Musk. Just on that alone you can pretty much assume "definitely bullshit".
toomuchtodo 2mo ago
Another one for https://elonmusk.today/ https://elonmusk.today/
zactato 2mo ago
The only thing that is "better" in space is the efficiency of solar energy. Everything else is harder and more expensive * Rockets costs more than trucks for moving things around * No water in space for cooling/heat transfer * Heat dissipation is difficult because vacuum is the best insulator * How do you repair one? * network bandwidth is probably lower
- peterfirefly 2mo ago
  > Everything else is harder and more expensive permits? connectivity?
  - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    > permits? connectivity? SpaceX may not looked upon favorably by the next US administration, with regards to permits to get to orbit.
    - claude-ai 2mo ago
      From a rationalist perspective, provided SpaceX can launch at a low cost AND the problem of radiation shielding, cooling, maintenance can be solved, it will be almost a no-brainer to launch data centers into space. Either the next administration declares data-centers to be unimportant (which is unlikely, China etc.), or they would want to offload them as far as possible. If space is an option, it will be taken provided it's cost efficient.
      - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
        "You can play around with the cost sliders to estimate the economics, but even being quite optimistic, space data centers cost ~2-3x of their terrestrial counterparts." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48491425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48491425 The idea is marketing for the stock price and enterprise value. If SpaceX does do it, it'll be analogous to Tesla's "Supervised Full Self Driving." "We run a Kubernetes cluster with some models on the satellites." https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters If you see a datacenter in orbit, it means something went wrong on Earth - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935384 - July 2026 (0 comments) The Space Data Centers Situation is Insane [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpdUNMt2yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpdUNMt2yg - June 27th, 2026 Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48490094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48490094 - June 2026 (107 comments) (reply to your deleted share link from Claude: please don't reply with AI slop)
mrgoldenbrown 2mo ago
Musk was confident we'd have people on Mars by the end of 2026, so maybe he's assuming we'll put the data centers there?
- sh201 2mo ago
  2021 even - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPJsI8pl8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPJsI8pl8Q
rsynnott 2mo ago
Ah, the old "[absurd thing] will happen with AI in [time period just long enough that everyone has kinda forgotten about the prediction when the deadline passes]" gambit. (A bunch of AI boosters were predicting AGI by 2025 a few years back, for instance.)

What's the consensus on this? I feel like the packaging and heat dissipation issues need some work. Its much harder to fly electronics on a big noisy rocket than most people think

sybercecurity 2mo ago
Sales pitch for a rocket company.
gogurt2000 2mo ago
Musk is doing what he's always done: making outrageous promises/predictions that won't come true but sound like science fiction to lure the uneducated into investing. * The hardware is outdated quickly and putting it in space just makes it impossible to replace or service. * Dissipating the heat generated is a real problem that limits the hardware you can put in one satellite. * Satellites will always have greater latency and worse bandwidth than land-based connections.
jqpabc123 2mo ago
"From a technology standpoint, Tesla will have a car that can do full autonomy in about three years, maybe a bit sooner." --- Musk, 2015 "I mean, it does look like [full autonomy is] gonna happen this year." --- Musk, 2023 "I think [FSD] will be available for unsupervised personal use by the end of this year in certain geographies." --- Musk, 2025
- oidar 2mo ago
  Oh, and free charging anywhere there is sun! https://x.com/elonmusk/status/250453089562263552 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/250453089562263552
  - lawn 2mo ago
    Buying a Tesla would earn you money as you could rent it out as a cab! And when not driving around you could rent out its computational ability to form a mesh super computer!
    - jqpabc123 2mo ago
      Musk thinks people are stupid enough to believe this. And sadly, he's right in a lot of cases.
rsynnott 2mo ago
It's a bold claim, a few years distant, by Elon Musk. Just on that alone you can pretty much assume "definitely bullshit".

toomuchtodo 2mo ago

Another one for https://elonmusk.today/ https://elonmusk.today/

zactato 2mo ago

The only thing that is "better" in space is the efficiency of solar energy. Everything else is harder and more expensive * Rockets costs more than trucks for moving things around * No water in space for cooling/heat transfer * Heat dissipation is difficult because vacuum is the best insulator * How do you repair one? * network bandwidth is probably lower

peterfirefly 2mo ago
> Everything else is harder and more expensive permits? connectivity?
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  > permits? connectivity? SpaceX may not looked upon favorably by the next US administration, with regards to permits to get to orbit.
  - claude-ai 2mo ago
    From a rationalist perspective, provided SpaceX can launch at a low cost AND the problem of radiation shielding, cooling, maintenance can be solved, it will be almost a no-brainer to launch data centers into space. Either the next administration declares data-centers to be unimportant (which is unlikely, China etc.), or they would want to offload them as far as possible. If space is an option, it will be taken provided it's cost efficient.
    - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
      "You can play around with the cost sliders to estimate the economics, but even being quite optimistic, space data centers cost ~2-3x of their terrestrial counterparts." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48491425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48491425 The idea is marketing for the stock price and enterprise value. If SpaceX does do it, it'll be analogous to Tesla's "Supervised Full Self Driving." "We run a Kubernetes cluster with some models on the satellites." https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters If you see a datacenter in orbit, it means something went wrong on Earth - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935384 - July 2026 (0 comments) The Space Data Centers Situation is Insane [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpdUNMt2yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpdUNMt2yg - June 27th, 2026 Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48490094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48490094 - June 2026 (107 comments) (reply to your deleted share link from Claude: please don't reply with AI slop)

mrgoldenbrown 2mo ago

Musk was confident we'd have people on Mars by the end of 2026, so maybe he's assuming we'll put the data centers there?

sh201 2mo ago
2021 even - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPJsI8pl8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPJsI8pl8Q

rsynnott 2mo ago

Ah, the old "[absurd thing] will happen with AI in [time period just long enough that everyone has kinda forgotten about the prediction when the deadline passes]" gambit. (A bunch of AI boosters were predicting AGI by 2025 a few years back, for instance.)