4 ms·
> because it's the tyrant manchild's latest obsession, technology constraints be damned. Imho, there's only one reason that justifies Musk's space-based comput
by ethbr1 2mo ago
> because it's the tyrant manchild's latest obsession, technology constraints be damned.
Imho, there's only one reason that justifies Musk's space-based compute obsession: sovereignty.
Specifically, avoiding terrestrial country's.
This isn't about AI in space (though I'm sure dumb investors love that), it's about uncensorable Twitter in space, beamed down to Starlink terminals.
Which would be one of the few things you'd care about, if you were one of the richest people on the planet... but still subject to those damned nations and their meddling laws.
- jacquesm 2mo agoThat's exactly it. Musk sees space as extraterritorial, which in the true sense of the word of course it absolutely is. But all those bits have to go to ground somewhere. As long as that somewhere is friendly no problem. That can change.
- solid_fuel 2mo agoYeah, I think Musk loves the idea of sticking his CSAM generators in space, where he thinks they will be beyond the reach of terrestrial laws and morals.
- grim_io 2mo agoIf Elon wants to offer space-twitter, he still needs to abide by the rules of the country he is offering the service to. Unless he's offering it to the aliens orbiting his magical lawless space data centers.
- ethbr1 2mo agoDoes he? Short of countrywide ku-band jamming and/or drone-based RDF at scale, what's the country going to do? It was one thing when you needed a C-band dish to receive, but much harder to deal with a 1-2 ft dish.
- vrganj 2mo agoThey could shoot down those data centers for example.
- ethbr1 2mo agoUnreasonably expensive for pLEO volumes (same problem/advantage militaries are looking at) + collateral damage to other nations satellites The only nations who would realistically have that as an option would have a robust scaled ASAT capability (maybe US and China) but no pLEO satellites (rules out US and China).
- ben_w 2mo agoCurrently, yes. However, based on the rapid development of high-powered lasers, I think we're not too far from it being very cheap. Mostly an optics (adaptive and aperture) problem. This also means it's likely to get deniable very quickly.
- ben_w 2mo agoThey could, but this would be unnecessary. I suspect that simply blocking payments from locals to Musk may be enough, considering how Musk reacted when advertisers voted with their wallets to leave X. But nations have other tools, as Brazil showed when a judge ordered a freeze on Starlink assets because X didn't have reachable assets within Brazil to be frozen.