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Comment by simmanian | Hacker News Reader

I find it hard to believe too, but at the same time, Demis Hassabis has also said that AI will help us "colonize the galaxy" in as little as five years [1]. Maybe Sam Altman was emboldened by Hassabis' statement.

I would not be opposed to living in a future where I can personally live in space. It would be quite fun.

[1] (paywalled) https://fortune.com/2025/06/06/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-has...

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To extend my previous comparison, I believe Altman and Hassabis are the ones in the smoky room passing a joint around the circle. They’re absolutely emboldened by each other but that doesn’t mean they’re tethered to reality.

(my comparison is incomplete though, it doesn’t factor in that these two also have a huge financial incentive to be hyping this stuff up)

Colonize the… what now? In how long!?

What is that man smoking and can I have some?

Five years wouldn’t be enough time to “colonise” Antarctica, let alone another planet (just one!), and certainly not anything at a larger scale, even if we were visited by aliens tomorrow and they gifted us five hundred spaceships to give us a boost.

We'll get that shortly after he delivers the infinite polygon engine…

https://archive.ph/XlLOK

> “If that all happens, then it should be an era of maximum human flourishing, where we travel to the stars and colonize the galaxy. I think that will begin to happen in 2030.”

You are confusing "era of maximum human flourishing ... begin to happen" with "have colonized galaxy".

Fun? It would be like signing up to live in an inescapable prison.

Seriously. It would be like living on a submarine. But I guess if you don't like sky, mountains, beaches, nature, weather, animals, etc... Like, if you hate the outdoors and spend all your time in windowless rooms with poor air quality? Then OK, maybe space is for you? Also the food is probably going to be extremely monotonous, so that also needs to not matter.

Unless people are envisioning living in magical holodecks all the time, with magical food replicators? But those don't come along automatically with "space", no matter how much Star Trek you've seen...

Well, I didn't say I look forward to living in a tiny capsule in space, just that it would be fun to live in a time where that's possible. I'd imagine most people would not venture into space until they can make it comfortable enough.

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