Great thread. Even the ludicrous Dyson swarm at Mercury's orbit that others have proposed (and that I critique in my book) is far more reasonable than this. That would "only" require disassembling Mercury. There is a whole other level of blatant ignorance at work with Altman.
I'm so suspicious that this is just a very Trumpy con, but at the same time this is something a delusional person would say. Maybe it's both!
Either: (1) He believes what he's saying, in which case the delusions and stupidity are pretty ordinary, it's just the willingness of people to *believe him* that's remarkable. (2) He's lying for a calculated purpose, making him (arguably) the most successful con man alive. I think it's (1).
Yep, he’s got enough money that he doesn’t have to listen when people tell him he’s full of shit.
Also, no matter how vast or powerful the data center was you’d still be limited by the speed of light. Even the closest locales to Earth would have annoying lag. If your machine god exists on a server in the Oort Cloud then you’re gonna have to wait a year or two to get an answer to your prayers.
@garymarcus.bsky.social
Based on your research, how much of what Altman says in a particular interview is something he actually believes when he says it, vs he's selling a product called 'the future'?