AI revenue can make rocket development economically rational

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 48:43

   One of the really interesting things that I'm thinking through in this conversation is you mentioned that there's effectively or there's effectively going to be zero limit on the amount of intelligence, I believe, that people want to use, which means that if people, you know, SpaceX can put satellites up in orbit that generate intelligence, it creates this amazing demand pull forward where it's like effectively what is the maximum scaling rate?

2. 49:13

   that you can build these starships, that is the thing that you should do. Or fly the starships. Yeah, fly the starships, build the starships, whatever. Build the launch pads, all the stuff. Yeah. Whatever that maximum possible rate is, we should, you know, march down that rate. Yeah. Because there's always going to be demand. Yeah. And this is, like, not a guarantee with anything other than just GPUs and space.

3. 49:34

   Yeah. And so, ironically, it's, like, both bad short-term because, you know, there's so much demand for it and great long-term because... How is that bad? but bad short term because you aren't able to use it right like they're not building for the customers they're just because it creates this like selfish dynamic where you don't want to be cooperative then long term they have such a ridiculous amount of starships built because of this intelligence explosion and ability to fly them and they've got like a million tests on one starship yeah it's actually it's actually like um so i actually like wasn't um uh i mean i'm like clearly ai pilled but i i wasn't i didn't enter like the space industry for obviously for that reason i mean and i didn't have that foresight um but the thing that excites me

4. 50:24

   probably the second most with super intelligence the thing that excites me the most is like what it will do for humans obviously like okay like if you maybe work will become optional which i know like socialists think is horrible but like it's very easy to solve like just add ubi um so you can do work if you want like that i think is amazing okay like maybe art will have a resurgence maybe like renaissance 2 or something not that like that sounds particularly interesting to me but um i think it's like incredible but the thing that excites me the second most actually about the space industry excuse me about the super intelligence is that that was what you just said which is that it is becoming and it will become like the ultimate driver for scaling space technology, like cargo and passenger transport was the ultimate driver for scaling

5. 51:15

   passenger and cargo air transport technology, with the caveat that scaling passenger and cargo air transport technology came with barely any benefits, right? It was just like, we have passenger transport, we have cargo transport, and we have like, i don't know general aviation where you can like screw around in an airplane as a result so like the side benefits of united airlines scaling their business are small and the main benefits which is that they have passenger transport you know are big but in the case of superintelligence the side benefits of scaling a rocket are in my opinion immense because like for so many years you know nerds like me i mean i'm pretty young but like there are older nerds right for a lot for like decades It's nerds have been saying, you know, why don't we build base on the moon? Why don't we build base on Mars? And the answer is like basically some combination of like, we can't afford the CapEx to develop the core piece of technology, which is the rocket. Okay, undeniable that the rocket is the main piece of technology. And on top of that, you know, like, even if we did, it would take too long. But with superintelligence, it's super different because the motivation to put the CapEx into the rocket is completely different.

6. 52:30

   completely legitimate economically. Like it's totally a rational decision because it's like, I spent $5 billion developing a new rocket. I earned $5 billion in, you know, in Anthropik's case in two fucking weeks. Like literally, like literally people for decades were like, why don't we make a rocket and go to Mars? And now it's like the value of a rocket is two weeks of Anthropik's annualized revenue run rate. And so like they can quote unquote pay for a rocket in two weeks now obviously you can't design and like you can't design a rocket that works in two weeks you can't spend the money that fast but it's totally rational decision and then the the side benefits are now immense which is that you have like this sort of like base infrastructure base technology layer you've like unlocked this level in the tech tree that enables all these other

7. 53:17

   lower cost levels of the tech tree with respect to the moon and mars and so like super intelligence lets you have working rockets a huge amount of revenue associated with them so they're basically free in the context of other industries that obviously are not free in absolute and then those other possible industries that could form tourism on the moon mass driver on the moon city on mars heck god knows what on mars are now now basically have like a free rocket that all