Musk: SpaceX and Starlink don’t use artificial intelligence
During an interview at a recent conference Elon Musk admitted that both SpaceX and Starlink have found artificial intelligence (AI) lacking, and don’t use it at all.
The irony was that prior to this admission, Musk had been extolling AI’s potential, predicting it would someday do wonderful things.
Musk, who answered questions during 27th annual Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, spent a sizable portion of his talk extolling the benefits of artificial intelligence. At one point, he said a “truth-seeking” AI could “foster human civilization” when asked about the role the technology would play in human’s everyday lives.
But when asked whether AI could “accelerate” his efforts in space exploration, he seemed less excited about the technology. …”I mean, oddly enough, one of the areas where there’s almost no AI used is space exploration,” Musk replied. “So SpaceX uses basically no AI, Starlink does not use AI. I’m not against using it. We haven’t seen a use for it.”
Musk continued, saying that he’s been testing improved AI language models by asking them questions about space — and the results have been disappointing. “With any given variant of or improvements in AI, I mean, I’ll ask it questions about the Fermi paradox, about rocket engine design, about electrochemistry — and so far, the AI has been terrible at all those questions,” Musk said.
Here we see the visionary meet the practical engineer/businessman. Musk always looks to the future with grand visions, but when it comes time to build those visions, he never allows his vision to interfere with practicality. AI is still essentially garbage-in-garbage-out. The rush by businesses and tech-firms to blindly use has resulted in more than a few disasters.
Musk doesn’t do anything blindly. He tested AI first, found it wanting, and thus put it aside, despite believing it will someday do wonderful things.
If only more companies used this approach. If they had, they might not have blindly pushed DEI and ESG requirements that have done nothing but harm to their companies, their work forces, and their bottom lines.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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During an interview at a recent conference Elon Musk admitted that both SpaceX and Starlink have found artificial intelligence (AI) lacking, and don’t use it at all.
The irony was that prior to this admission, Musk had been extolling AI’s potential, predicting it would someday do wonderful things.
Musk, who answered questions during 27th annual Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, spent a sizable portion of his talk extolling the benefits of artificial intelligence. At one point, he said a “truth-seeking” AI could “foster human civilization” when asked about the role the technology would play in human’s everyday lives.
But when asked whether AI could “accelerate” his efforts in space exploration, he seemed less excited about the technology. …”I mean, oddly enough, one of the areas where there’s almost no AI used is space exploration,” Musk replied. “So SpaceX uses basically no AI, Starlink does not use AI. I’m not against using it. We haven’t seen a use for it.”
Musk continued, saying that he’s been testing improved AI language models by asking them questions about space — and the results have been disappointing. “With any given variant of or improvements in AI, I mean, I’ll ask it questions about the Fermi paradox, about rocket engine design, about electrochemistry — and so far, the AI has been terrible at all those questions,” Musk said.
Here we see the visionary meet the practical engineer/businessman. Musk always looks to the future with grand visions, but when it comes time to build those visions, he never allows his vision to interfere with practicality. AI is still essentially garbage-in-garbage-out. The rush by businesses and tech-firms to blindly use has resulted in more than a few disasters.
Musk doesn’t do anything blindly. He tested AI first, found it wanting, and thus put it aside, despite believing it will someday do wonderful things.
If only more companies used this approach. If they had, they might not have blindly pushed DEI and ESG requirements that have done nothing but harm to their companies, their work forces, and their bottom lines.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
It’s sad how many great American companies have become dysfunctional to the point of irrelevancy or even become dangerous.
I’m betting if a SpaceX manager wrote a paper for a typical MBA class of how SpaceX did things, the professor would fail them.
Lets be blunt about this.
AI is still too stupid to be anything other than a fancy search engine and or a stupid print editor.
Re: pzatcho
“”AI is still too stupid to be anything other than a fancy search engine and or a stupid print editor.””
Very well said! I have been trying to find a good, succinct way to sum up all this drummed-up AI “news.” I often use the tried-and-true Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO). People seem to want to believe an actual SkyNet is just around the bend.
Take Globull Cooling, Globull Warming, Climate Change, Climate Crisis Hoaxers. If a real digital program were to obtain and analyze all of the climate data (real and concocted), it would recognize the Hoax, and confirm that we have short periods of warming in between loooong periods of much colder weather. If and when a sophisticated program could analyze climate data and conclude the obvious Hoax, the Drive-By Media would proclaim that the Climate AI is funded by the oil industry, and cannot be trusted.
SpaceX doesn’t use AI for engineering its rockets and satellites. Likely because most engineering is explicit and transparent while many AI processes are opaque and give fuzzy results. There can also be compliance issues that discourage/outrule its use.
For Musk’s specific use cases those large language models (part of the generative AI trend/hype) don’t provide value for now, but in general he recognizes their power, his company xAI works on them as well. And Tesla is very much an AI company. The (mostly autonomous) cars (e.g., computer vision, path planning) and humanoid robots (e.g., learning, task coordination) use AI a lot both in the products and for product development.
Here is more on Mr. Musk’s role at SpaceX, this time as voiced by NASA Administrator Nelson in an interview by NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1249249941/nasa-bill-nelson-moon-artemis-china-starliner
The lack of understanding / insight of the NPR interviewer is breathtaking, and the most profound question that Mr. Detrow can raise is whether or not former Senator Nelson “trusts” Elon Musk. “Are you,” he asks, “concerned that so much of [the Artemis] plan is in the hands of Elon Musk at this point in time?” (Are we concerned that so much of America’s space program is in the hands of ignorant ideologues who despise this country and its culture?)
Dear God in Heaven, this is about what you might expect from the presstitutes at NPR, but one might have hoped for even the most feeble attempt at a “thank you” to Musk and SpaceX from Administrator Nelson for their help in making America’s journey back into space possible.
Voyager is tough because it is simple–which forced coders to be efficient