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WhiteTara

(29,676 posts)
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 02:49 PM Jun 2016

Elon Musk Just Made These 5 Bold Claims About the Future

https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-just-made-5-144336803.html?nhp=1

If Elon Musk’s vision of the future proves to be correct, we’ll zipping around in driverless cars by 2018 and colonizing Mars not long thereafter.

Musk, who founded Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal, shared these and other bold predictions when speaking on stage at Recode’s Code Conference on Wednesday. Here are a few of his boldest statements:

People will go to Mars by 2025. “If things go according to plan, we should be able to launch people probably in 2024 with arrival in 2025,” said Musk. When asked about how he views establishing law and government on Mars, Musk said he believes a direct democracy would work most efficiently. “I think that’s better because the potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus representative democracy.”
Video games will become indistinguishable from reality. Musk has heavily considered the possibility that we may very well be living in a simulation. His main argument to support this is the rapid advancement of the technology that powers video games, which he believes will one day become so realistic they will be impossible to distinguish from real life. “Forty years ago, we had pong,” he said. “Now forty years later, we have photorealistic, 3-D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year . . . If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality.”
Completely autonomous cars will arrive in fewer than two years. Companies like Google, Uber, and Ford are already experimenting with self-driving car technology. While many of these advancements are in their early stages, Musk believes automobiles will be completely autonomous in two years. “I consider autonomous driving to be a basically solved problem,” he said. “We’re less than two years away from complete autonomy. Regulators however will take at least another year; they’ll want to see billions of miles of data.”
An Apple Car is coming in 2020. Musk said he expects Apple’s much-rumored yet unconfirmed electric car to go into production by 2020. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Apple’s first vehicle could arrive in 2019. He also added that he believes Apple should have “embarked” on its car project sooner.
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hunter

(38,264 posts)
2. Ha, ha, I see what he's up to... you don't actually have to go to Mars...
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 02:59 PM
Jun 2016

... just make the Martian trip a video game set in low earth orbit.

Nobody will know the difference.

 

Tierra_y_Libertad

(50,414 posts)
3. Making our species even more redundant and unnecessary.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 03:05 PM
Jun 2016

What happens when the robot that turns on the robots breaks down and doesn't turn on the robots. Or, who turns on the robot who turns on the other robots?

abelenkpe

(9,933 posts)
4. Direct Democracy
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 03:06 PM
Jun 2016

“I think that’s better because the potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus representative democracy.”

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
8. Hey, I predict it will take one ride chatting with a
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:14 PM
Jun 2016

totally relaxed host, as if you're in his living room, to make you wonder about getting your own. At most. By then of course, they will probably be common among affluent people and the sites for many TV and movie scenes, and they will be a luxury that the typical work-a-day driver hunched over the wheel of an old fashioned car for an hour and more most days aspires to.

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
13. No chance... I actually *enjoy* driving
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 08:26 AM
Jun 2016

and as I've said before, a self-driving car is like being married to your dream woman and paying somebody else to screw her...

Fumesucker

(45,851 posts)
9. You haven't ridden with my sister in law
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 09:22 PM
Jun 2016

It's about as safe as being launched from a trebuchet except you have more control over your trajectory with a trebuchet launch.

sarcasmo

(23,968 posts)
10. Meet George Jetson, his daughter Judy, Jane his wife
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 11:57 PM
Jun 2016

his boy Elroy, what was the maid robots name and don't forget the salt mine, Spacely's Sprockets.

trudyco

(1,258 posts)
12. they need to be able to defy gravity a bit
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:16 AM
Jun 2016

So either the cars go over an intersection or at ground level but intersecting roads do not have traffic on the same level running perpendicular. No more traffic lights. Cars go over an intersection when peds are crossing, and are on ground level when peds are walking parallel.

My commute would be so much better.

sendero

(28,552 posts)
15. What if someone made an "autonomous car"....
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 08:56 AM
Jun 2016

..... and nobody would ride in them?

I've had enough problems with nav systems to be wary of such ideas. As a software engineer, I've seen how errors in code can remain hidden for years and only manifest in the face of numerous stars lining up.

I will never be interested in riding in an "autonomous" car and I suspect I am not remotely alone.

Just because technology CAN do something doesn't mean it SHOULD do it.


And as for Musk himself, well I think he is a mover and a shaker but not a genius.

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