Is Musk still net-positive for humanity?
post by mikbp · 2025-01-10T09:34:42.630Z · LW · GW · 6 commentsThis is a question post.
Contents
Answers 3 Rosencrantz 2 tailcalled 1 artemium None 6 comments
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 [EA · GW]. 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.
Answers
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.
↑ comment by Dave Orr (dave-orr) · 2025-01-10T22:37:20.587Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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.
Replies from: mikbp↑ comment by mikbp · 2025-01-11T10:44:18.731Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
About Tesla, do you think it had any influence on China betting hard for EVs?
About SpaceX, do you think it makes a big difference to be 'space-ready' a couple of decades earlier or later?
Replies from: dave-orr↑ comment by Dave Orr (dave-orr) · 2025-01-11T20:57:46.492Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Are we playing the question game because the thread was started by Rosencranz? Is China doing well in the EV space a bad thing?
Replies from: mikbp↑ comment by mikbp · 2025-01-12T07:45:14.324Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
? I don't know Rosencranz.
I'm asking you because you say "Is it the case that the tech would exist without him? I think that's pretty unclear" and this, in my view, depends a lot on the answers to those questions.
Is China doing well in the EV space a bad thing?
The opposite, it is good. But if Musk did not have any influence on it, this diminishes Musk's positive impact in this field, making his impact less positive.
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.
↑ comment by mikbp · 2025-01-10T21:00:17.312Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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.
Replies from: tailcalled↑ comment by tailcalled · 2025-01-10T21:47:39.121Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
What does it mean to assess it at any point, as distinct from in the long run? And was he really ever good for humanity if assessed through your one-point method? (E.g. climate impacts seems intrinsically a long-run thing...)
Replies from: mikbp↑ comment by mikbp · 2025-01-11T10:34:54.404Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Sure, we don't know exactly how good EVs are for fighting climate change, but the current view is that they are needed in the context in which we are because they seem better mostly than the other alternatives. [Incidentally, since some time I tend to think that he's probably been vastly less net-good in the past than I previously thought. Not really because of him, but because Chinese companies are beating everyone, including Tesla, with their EVs (and I don't think he's had any influence in China betting hard for EVs, though I might be wrong here); so if Tesla would have not existed, the adoption of EVs would just have been only delayed for few years (and mostly only in the west). So his net-positive contribution -for me and now- seems much lower than it seemed before.] But this, of course, is not what I am asking for.
Maybe Hitler, by sheer chance, killed someone who had been much worse than him. But this would not make him be net-positive in the sense of this question (eg. we'd had other ways to deal with that person -even if the odds that we did are very small).
But probably I have not been clear enough, sure.
Replies from: tailcalled↑ comment by tailcalled · 2025-01-13T14:06:28.284Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'm not really suggesting something as convoluted as Hitler killing someone much worse than him. More like, maybe Elon Musk started supporting Republicans because he learned something very bad about Democrats and maybe eventually he's going to realize Republicans have something very bad too and then maybe he does a project that solves both bad things at once.
This seems to require working tightly enough with Republicans for long enough to understand why they are so bad, so it could be compared to Elon Musk working on EVs to understand how to scale up EV production.
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.
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comment by Viliam · 2025-01-20T16:16:43.447Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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.
comment by exmateriae (Sefirosu) · 2025-01-10T11:38:38.466Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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.
Replies from: mikbp↑ comment by mikbp · 2025-01-10T20:56:09.475Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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?
Replies from: Sefirosu↑ comment by exmateriae (Sefirosu) · 2025-01-11T14:01:20.367Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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
Replies from: mikbpcomment by Hzn · 2025-01-10T10:49:58.316Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
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.