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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsElon Musk Just Made These 5 Bold Claims About the Future
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-just-made-5-144336803.html?nhp=1If Elon Musks vision of the future proves to be correct, well 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 Recodes 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 thats 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 its 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. Were less than two years away from complete autonomy. Regulators however will take at least another year; theyll want to see billions of miles of data.
An Apple Car is coming in 2020. Musk said he expects Apples much-rumored yet unconfirmed electric car to go into production by 2020. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Apples first vehicle could arrive in 2019. He also added that he believes Apple should have embarked on its car project sooner.
hatrack
(59,442 posts)hunter
(38,264 posts)... just make the Martian trip a video game set in low earth orbit.
Nobody will know the difference.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)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?
villager
(26,001 posts)If you happen to know that particular Bradbury story...
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)I think thats better because the potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus representative democracy.
Ex Lurker
(3,808 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)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.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)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...
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)What a beast, Gabi. Hubby loves it!
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)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)his boy Elroy, what was the maid robots name and don't forget the salt mine, Spacely's Sprockets.
trudyco
(1,258 posts)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.
RobinA
(9,878 posts)is going to implode one of these days/months/years. Wait for it.
sendero
(28,552 posts)..... 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.