Is Elon Musk just an AI set on 'eccentric billionaire' mode?
Commentary: Cryptocandy, flamethrowers, nuking Mars... Elon Musk's code is starting to glitch out.
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Elon Musk outputs plans to colonise Mars.
Here's a theory for you. If you programmed a machine to perfectly simulate an eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire, it would be virtually indistinguishable from Elon Musk .
Change my mind.
If you were going to create a bot, Weird Science style, to be the perfect tech billionaire you'd set your code to Musk. He's moon-money-rich, shoots cars into space and dates rich and famous celebrities. Throw in a hexagonal house and you're playing Silicon Valley Sims with all the cheat codes unlocked.
But 3L0N MU3K has been getting kind of glitchy lately.
I don't mean turning up at the Met Gala with singer Grimes. If anything, a dream-pop/witch-house/synth/electronica artist like her is exactly the kind of badass lady every piece of code would want to date.
I'm talking more about the Twitter chat, and the out-there inventions and business ventures that are becoming a little too strange to be real.
This man bloops out random tweet phrases like "rococo basilisk" as though he's a machine learning program that's been fed nothing but Taschen coffee table books and Harry Potter fan fic. Who else would get 56,000 likes (and counting) by tweeting the single word "cryptocandy" -- unless it was a VC parody bot programmed to generate Bitcoin Bro pool-party themes.
And then there are the inventions that are so clearly designed to orchestrate the rise of the machines and the inevitable downfall of the human race.
He digs tunnels under LA and we fall over ourselves to buy the dirt. He sells flamethrowers and we throw our fragile human suits in harm's way with cries of, "Where do I buy?!" He builds cyborg dragons. He wants to nuke Mars.
Can't destroy humans with fire? Start a candy company instead! Well played, Musk. What quicker way to wipe out the human race than with Type 2 Diabetes?
Then there's possibly the smartest ruse of all: creating an AI so smart that it genuinely believes artificial intelligence is terrifying. Musk is a vocal critic of the dangers of AI… at least that's what he wants you to think.
So buy his flamethrowers. Eat Musk Candy and fly in your SpaceX rocket to a freshly-nuked Mars. But know what you're in for. It won't be long before your new overlord will be putting you to work in his underground Martian sugar caves.
Don't say I didn't warn you...
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