Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Syt]

Also, no, Elon, stealth fighters aren't "invisible". But by the time you see them it might be a bit too late - unless you cover the lands with AI cameras ... but then you will still struggle to see beyond your borders.

[Tamas]

Jesus Christ, Musk IS some teenage edgelord getting his "knowledge" from other edgelords.

[grumbler]

Imaginary systems like "AI cameras" and "sophisticated drones" that can shoot down fighters "very quickly" are always better than real systems. Just like imaginary self-driving cars are always the better option to actual "self-driving" cars.

Musk shows no understanding of the realities of life outside of his tiny area of expertise. He's exactly the kind of stooge Trump likes.

[Josquius]

A horror scenario I heard mentioned the other day.
It used to be that the road was for everyone. You walked there if you wanted.
Then cars took over.
In some countries it is actually a crime to walk on the road.

With autonomous cars it's feasible that we coil get to a situation where pedestrians have to wear transponders. If someone gets hit by a self driving car people will tut and go "what does he expect, not wearing his transponder"

I can see a place for self driving vehicles on motorways. But in cities fuck no. That stuff needs to be kept out until it is far far more mature.

But still Musk pushes....

[Barrister]

So Musk is right to the extent that there is something to be said for having a fighter like the F-35, but unmanned.  That's several hundred pounds of weight that would be dropped in favour of making it cheaper, or faster, or whatever.

But these quadcopter-like drones have proven themselves to be quite useful in combat, but are no match (nor are they intended to be) for a precision fighter jet like an F-35.  Heck look how much Ukraine even wants older tech like the F-16 - which isn't even stealth.

[Tamas]

So Musk is right to the extent that there is something to be said for having a fighter like the F-35, but unmanned.  That's several hundred pounds of weight that would be dropped in favour of making it cheaper, or faster, or whatever.

It is also, I assume, a signal-interference away from becoming uncontrollable.

[Zanza]

I rarely agree with him, but I feel he has a point here. Over-saturating your enemy with legions of cheap drones seems the state of the art.

On the other hand, airpower has been what made the American military supreme since 1941.

[The Minsky Moment]

Drones and unmanned systems are terrific unless your adversary has some way to spoof or jam communications or uses some cheap missiles to take out GPS and communications satellites.  If that happens, the side without effective manned platforms is screwed.

[Syt]

How is EMP shielding on electronic warfare equipment these days?

[The Minsky Moment]

Almost every significant military innovation gives to rise to two opposing responses.  There is the Colonel Blimp response of trashing its significance and insisting that the old tech will continue to be superior when borne or operated by real men.  The other is insisting that the new tech will entirely obliterate the old - leading to thinking like replacing entire navies with nothing but torpedo boats, or "the bomber will always get through."

It's clear from the recent wars in Ukraine and the Caucasus that drones are having a big, even revolutionary impact; it's also clear that counters exist and that other systems and tactics have not been rendered entirely obsolete.  How this plays out in a peer great power conflict like US-PRC is unclear.  Making an irreversible one-way multi-trillion dollar bet on that outcome is probably not optimal unless you are a multi-billionaire well positioned to cozy up to whichever side wins.

[Iormlund]

Drones and unmanned systems are terrific unless your adversary has some way to spoof or jam communications or uses some cheap missiles to take out GPS and communications satellites.  If that happens, the side without effective manned platforms is screwed.

That's where machines take over. You can always launch them as you would a wire-guided torpedo. If the link is cut, it defaults to a search pattern and engages (hopefully) enemy signatures.

[Barrister]

So Musk is right to the extent that there is something to be said for having a fighter like the F-35, but unmanned.  That's several hundred pounds of weight that would be dropped in favour of making it cheaper, or faster, or whatever.

It is also, I assume, a signal-interference away from becoming uncontrollable.

So it's more of an issue for the really cheap (almost consumer level) drones being used in Ukraine.

But the F-35 itself is really built around connectivity - that it has constant access to radar and other imagery from other air and ground based sources about all manner of friends and foes.

It's also many orders of magnitude more expensive than some quad-copter drone armed with a grenade, or even a Predator-level drone.

I suspect the days of human-powered combat aircraft are numbered - but whether that's in the thousands of days, or tens of thousands of days, I have no idea.

And those days certainly have nothing to do with ultra-cheap drones.

[grumbler]

So Musk is right to the extent that there is something to be said for having a fighter like the F-35, but unmanned.  That's several hundred pounds of weight that would be dropped in favour of making it cheaper, or faster, or whatever.

In fact, the US has a number of those and is designing more (and hads built into fighters being produced capabilities to work with both existing and future drones).  Monomaniac Musk doesn't understand that there are options between "none" and "all."

[Syt]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/elon-musk-says-too-many-game-studios-are-owned-by-giant-corporations-so-his-giant-corporation-is-going-to-start-a-studio-to-make-games-great-again/

Elon Musk says too many game studios are owned by giant corporations so his giant corporation is going to start a studio to 'make games great again'

Musk says he's going to launch an "AI game studio" at his xAI startup.

X owner Elon Musk has taken a brief break from posting racism, transphobia, and conspiracy theory nonsense to say that gaming has become too "woke" because the industry is dominated by massive corporations, and so he is going to use his own massive corporation to start a new game studio powered by AI "to make games great again!"

Musk's latest outburst came in response to Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus, who said he doesn't understand how game developers and journalists have become "so ideologically captured," particularly given that gamers—real gamers, one must assume—"have always rejected dumb manipulative BS, and can tell when someone is an outsider poser."

"Too many game studios that are owned by massive corporations," said Musk, the owner of X, SpaceX, and Tesla, whose personal net worth is somewhere north of $322 billion. "xAI is going to start an AI game studio to make games great again!"

Lest there be any doubt about his motivations, Musk wrote in another post, "Can't they just make good games and skip the woke lecture?"

This is all deeply, despairingly stupid, starting from the very premise that a giant corporation is going to save videogames from, uh, giant corporations. xAI is a "startup" but currently has at least 100,000 Nvidia GPUs at its disposal, meaning it's already a multi-billion-dollar operation. Musk's concept of an "AI game studio" goes entirely unexplored, but is presumably some sort of holodeck-inspired nonsense that, much like the promise of near-future offworld colonization, lives entirely in the realm of fantasy.

Despite the obvious ridiculousness of the whole thing, Musk's tweet is getting traction from predictable corners of the platform, who are thrilled with the prospect of game ownership being returned to the people (which is to say the wealthiest man in the world). At least one actual game designer doesn't appear to be buying it, though.

Say what you will about Battlecruiser 3000 AD, but he's not wrong.

The likelihood of this going anywhere beyond a stupid idea expressed in a stupid tweet is very slim, but I do harbor some small hope that Musk will talk himself into it, much like he talked himself into having to buy Twitter. If that happens, I would also expect similar results. Amazon and Google, both virtual bottomless money buckets themselves, discovered the hard way that making and releasing videogames is actually really difficult.

I've reached out to X for comment on Musk's latest idea, and will update if I receive a reply.

Speaking of Musk and AI - remember his "anti-woke" AI Grok?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-ai-turns-him-163201403.html?guccounter=1

Elon Musk might be in charge of the business of Grok, but the artificial intelligence has seemingly gone into business for itself, labeling Musk as one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading misinformation online.

User Gary Koepnick asked the AI which person spreads the most misinformation on Twitter/X—and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.

"Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform," it wrote, later adding "Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception."

The AI also pointed out that because of Musk's large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers.

This, it said, "can have real-world consequences, especially during significant events like elections."

Grok did note that the definition of misinformation is somewhat subjective and often depends on the ideological stance of the reader. And it added, late in its answer, that there are many actors, bots and more that spread misinformation.

The smackdown from his own AI system, ironically, came soon after Musk touted the system to his followers in a tweet reading "Use Grok for answers that are based on up-to-date info!"

Grok itself, it's worth noting, was accused of spreading misinformation about state ballots in August, prompting the company to make changes to its algorithm.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

[Tamas]

I am starting to feel like I'd rather have Trump in charge than Musk. Incredibly, he is less obnoxious, and perhaps even incredible-er he is less driven by his own insecurities.