Tech Billionaires and Their Science Fiction Dreams
They're mistaking cautionary tales for instruction manuals.The ideology and language surrounding the development of new technologies like AI often sound akin to futuristic utopias (or dystopias). A new article from the Scientific American illustrates why: many tech billionaires were enamored by science fiction as children. Charles Stross, himself a successful sci-fi novelist, writes, Billionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats. Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.” Mark Zuckerberg has blown $10 billion trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. And Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has Read More ›