Elon Musk left ‘speechless’ after one flaw pointed out in Mars plans

  • Elon Musk’s plans are to eventually colonize Mars
  • However, an AI guru pointed out one crucial flaw in his scheme
  • The SpaceX founder was apparently left “speechless”

Published on Jan 04, 2024 at 9:32 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones

Last updated on Jan 15, 2024 at 1:46 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by Adam Gray

Elon Musk was said to be rendered “speechless” when an artificial intelligence (AI) guru pointed out a basic flaw in his plan to colonize Mars.

Based on dozens of insider interviews, the New York Times (NYT) reported that Elon Musk met Google DeepMind cofounder, Demis Hassabis, in 2012.

The pair were at a conference that their shared investor, PayPal’s infamous founder, Peter Thiel, had organized.

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The pair soon began talking about the South African-born billionaire’s plans to take humanity to Mars to escape global overpopulation and the other issues facing our planet.

The chat happened as he gave Hassabis a tour of the SpaceX headquarters.

The plans form part of the SpaceX Mars program, of which Musk is CEO and chief engineer – and the company has certainly had some failures amid its success.

However, Elon Musk was apparently left dumbfounded and speechless when Hassabis pointed out a basic flaw in his much-hyped scheme.

Musk recently had to eat crow (to a point) and discuss the Tesla Giga Factory incident when a robot ‘attacked’ a worker.

Per the NYT retelling, Hassabis’s plan was to get Elon Musk to fund his dream of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) – and AI has only continued to become more powerful.

Hassabis agreed that the Mars mission was a good idea but asked: what if AI surpassed human intelligence?

Wouldn’t it be possible for it to easily follow us to Mars and pose a threat there too?

While he usually has a retort to everything, per the NYT, Musk was left “speechless”.

It seems he hadn’t considered that problems from Earth could simply follow human beings to the Red Planet.

Soon after Musk invested in DeepMind, trashing the firm later as his “top concern” when it came to AI.

Musk later spoke to the NYT in 2020 and referenced the firm’s early innovation in AI that allowed it to beat humans at video games.

“Just the nature of the AI that they’re building is one that crushes all humans at all games,” he said.

“I mean, it’s basically the plotline in War Games.”

Hassabis recounted the conversation to Musk biographer, Walter Isaacson.

He noted that, not only was Musk speechless, but he was also dumbfounded that he could have overlooked something in his SpaceX plans.

One thing’s for sure: in spite of his losses, Musk always seems to come out on top.

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All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”