Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared thoughts on how Elon Musk’s goal of going to Mars is good for humanity.
“It’s a serious attempt to unite humanity around an open frontier and positive-sum goals (man vs. nature instead of man vs. man), which reduces the risk of creating hostile AIs in the goal to go very fast to beat the other team.
His response on Twitter was addressed to Alexey Guzey, Executive Director of new science.
The Mars obsession is good. It’s a serious attempt to unite humanity around an open frontier and positive-sum goals (man vs nature instead of man vs man), which reduces the chances of creating hostile AIs in the aim to go very fast to beat the other team.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 31, 2022
Guzey shared a January 2015 tweet from Elon Musk about funding artificial intelligence security research.
Guzey noted that Elon Musk is often criticized for being obsessed with Mars, but those who criticize him overlook the fact that Elon Musk funded AI security initiatives, catalyzed AI, and pushed the subject in several of his interviews.
Vitalik Buterin thinks an obsession with Mars could unite humanity and prevent dangerous AI.
Uniting humanity around Mars would certainly help humanity as a whole. Buterin thinks this will reduce the chances of creating hostile AIs.
I think he’s probably right. If we were all united, we wouldn’t be competing to see who can create AI, weapons or anything else.
Elon Musk on building a civilization on Mars.
Elon Musk has said this in numerous interviews, including on my podcast in July.
I think it’s important to share because we’re at a point in civilization where we need to put aside our differences and come together.
“Well, first of all, I think it’s very important to point out that what really matters is getting lots of people to Mars and enough equipment to make a city self-sufficient. I mean, sure, whoever gets there first, I guess, will be famous, but that’s not what’s important from a civilizational point of view.
“What we really need is to create a self-sustaining city on Mars. That’s the critical threshold and we need to do it while civilization still has the ability to do it. And that ability to do it might take It might end because of World War III, it might end because civilization is gradually wearing itself out.
“The arc of civilizations – the different kinds of civilizations that have been on earth have not had a continuous upper trajectory. They have risen, they have culminated, and they have fallen.
Vitalin Buterin is right. And Elon Musk too.
