Billionaire wants ‘disruptive’ training for new colony’s governance AI

~ Scott Harris ~

Elon Musk has unveiled new details about his planned mission to Mars, which he expects to leave Earth around 2030. While the selection process for the participants has not yet begun, the world’s richest man says he will hand-pick a number of individuals, including anarchists, to join the colonisation team.

“We’re gonna need a different bunch of people, like, I love Space Corps but they’re kinda square, y’know? and those dorky scientists haha”, said Musk in an interview for the Third Positionist podcast Smaragdreich. While the US military’s Space Corps is expected to take over the operational aspects of the mission, Musk said the eventual human colony on Mars would not be “strictly military” but “incorporate some kind of citizen’s choice system” into its governance AI. “We also think we need to train it with some kind of disruptive influence, so at least for the first few years we need to have a couple of anarchists on board”.

The Mars flight and colony mission would be the largest space endeavour ever undertaken, requiring a group of only up to 50 people to spend the rest of their lives together. Musk said he has already given thought to the “social dynamics” involved, and speculated on an AI system to govern “maybe the least important” aspects of common living, like food preparation and toilet-cleaning rotas.

“And it’s not just to train the AI”, said Musk, “We have to keep it interesting if this pay-per-view thing is ever gonna take off”. Musk was referring to plans for the entire Mars mission to be filmed and live-streamed to paying viewers, in what has been described as the world’s most anticipated reality TV show, where nothing is true and everything is believable.

Top photo: Everything-Voluntary.com CC BY 4.0