Musk is net negative. His technology is cool but it would be perfectly fine without him. He has lost his mind in the style of Kanye West and spends his time ceaselessly weighing in on subjects such as British politics without first doing any research. He is a chaos agent whose modus operandi is short sharp aggressive interventions. Fine for a startup CEO where the damage is contained. Immensely worrying now he is a de facto world leader.
Is it the case that the tech would exist without him? I think that's pretty unclear, especially for SpaceX, where despite other startups in the space, nobody else managed to radically reduce the cost per launch in a way that transformed the industry.
Even for Tesla, which seems more pedestrian (heh) now, there were a number of years where they had the only viable car in the market. It was only once they proved it was feasible that everyone else piled in.
It's impossible to know until he is done/defeated, because the things he experiences due to his actions now could cause huge swings in his impacts on the future.
Sure, but one can assess it at any point. I'm not asking about whether he will end up being net-positive or net-negative overall in the long run.
The answer surely depends mostly on what his impact will be on AI developments, both through his influence on the policy of the new administration and what he does with xAI. While I understand that his political actions might be mind-killing (to say the least) to many of his former fans, I would much prefer a scenario where Elon has infuriating politics but a positive impact on solving alignment over one with the opposite outcome.
I'd agree. But he certainly does not seem to even be trying anymore to have positive impact on solving alignment, no?
However, he's behaviour and actions turned much more disruptive in the recent years
If the question is also for people who are not amateur Musk biographers, specific examples would be nice, both of the previous and the more recent behaviors.
while, at the same time, the reach of his actions and opinions have also maximized
I disagree. Companies will become complacent and stagnant very fast if leadership is not going hard against it. I'm not sure I'd like to work for him but my impression is that he really pushes his teams to go for more faster and results have shown up. I'm not sure "dumb"(at first look) ideas like Mechazilla would exist without him being willing to try cool things.
I'm on the fence for X, there have been good changes and the site feels a bit less like an echo chamber but there have also been negatives and I'm concerned by his recent implications in politics because I don't think he can bring much value, especially compared to his companies.
Neuralink could also be very important.
Overall, he would benefit from talking less but you can't have everything. I still think very much net positive.
Hi, thanks.
I don't see how what you say contradicts that the reach of his actions and opinions have increased. Did you maybe quote the wrong sentence?
I thought you said he was very close to the maximum he could do? English is a second language so maybe I misunderstood something. Also, only my first paragraph is really related to the quote, the rest is more of a free flow of what I think
Oh, it is probably my mistake XD I'm also not native. I meant increase, not that it is the maximum it could be, sorry.
Net negative & net positive are hard to say.
Some one seemingly good might be a net negative by displacing some one better.
And some one seemingly bad might be a net positive by displacing some one worse.
And things like this are not particularly farfetched.
Musk's behaviour has always been controversial and he's always been kind of a dick, but I don't think it is controversial at all to say that until some years ago he has been extremely net positive for society and humanity in general. However, he's behaviour and actions turned much more disruptive in the recent years while, at the same time, the reach of his actions and opinions have also maximized.
So, do you think Musk is still net-positive for humanity or he already turned to be net-negative in your view? I'd be interested to read your arguments below (also if you think that he's never been net-positive, for example).
I crossposted this question in the EA Forum. I think having a flavour on how these communities feel about Musk is important because EA and the rationalist community have had kind of a "close" relationship with Musk -partly having helped shape his ideas and with adjacent organizations having received donations from him.