But if you haven’t heard how Musk envisions the workplace with Optimus robots,
you should go to the 1:17:21 mark of this interview.

Musk has used Tesla to engineer the ai computer that will control the Optimus. Tesla is at ai4 and expects to release ai5 at the end of this year or next year.

Musk is often criticized for being optimistic in his timeframe of bringing products to market, but the ai4 in Tesla cars is amazing at this point. So the control hardware is close to making robots functional.

He makes the point that the US is lagging behind China in both manpower and energy production which gives them a significant advantage in manufacturing capacity. He views Optimus as leveling that advantage.

0:00:00 – Orbital data centers
0:36:46 – Grok and alignment
0:59:56 – xAI’s business plan
1:17:21 – Optimus and humanoid manufacturing
1:30:22 – Does China win by default?
1:44:16 – Lessons from running SpaceX
2:20:08 – DOGE
2:38:28 – TeraFab

Elon Musk – “In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXbuik3dgA&t=3265s

If no one can afford to buy anything, then the sellers are broke too. As long as human wants and needs exist people will be employed. Even at the worst of the Great Depression the employment rate was 75%, and it wasn’t caused by a huge increase in productivity. I think all we can say is that things would be look very different, if a great deal of jobs were eliminated but productivity stayed the same. There’s no production without consumption, and billionaires can only consume so much no matter how high they live.

For some of us, our work lives and careers were an important part of our self image, and
if/when you got in “the zone” on a project or assignment, that was also a great feeling. Some of the socialization and team work aspects were also enjoyable and personally valuable. Of course that situation does not apply for all workers.

But creating wealth that too few people have the income to buy (when they are unemployed and /or unemployable) is not a viable situation and makes no sense long term. Perhaps, just as the development of software has become easier with the creation of higher level languages, eventually the AI assisted life will provide the capability for almost anyone to access those benefits. But no telling what kind of job descriptions will tumble out of that future.

Concerning AI once AI and robotics merge….? Millions of people with no future and no hope is not good. Since there doesn’t seem to be any moral component to this merger what’s guiding it? The controlling sentiment of more money for me? Shareholder value? Man is always trying to replace God and failing.

I knew a woman back in the 80s who regularly traveled to DC. She said the big topic of conversation was gossip about George Will’s divorce. His (ex)wife piling his belongings on the curb, things like that. That is my main memory, I haven’t read him in years.

— Chuck

I have a collection of his columns from the 1970s. He was a different writer then, and back then his columns were genuinely conservative, in the proper sense of the word, and insightful. I can reread those columns now and still find valuable insights and thoughts in them.

As time passed, he changed. He became more and more libertarian/corporatist, for whatever reason, more and more just a voice of ‘Conservative Inc.’ as it is sometimes called.

I don’t know what drove the change, though I suspect that plain old class pride was part of it.

From my quick look on-line to learn what Geworfenheit really meant, I gather it means something about being “thrown” by birth (being born) into a given point in history, geographical dispersion or location, technology level, and culture, over which we had no choice, and even in the fullness of adulthood we will have little opportunity to make a significant change in our specific condition – or that of our progeny [Obama style transformation hopefuls to no avail?!].

This triggered the thought that this is essentially a mix of physical/genetic and cultural evolution, such that some groups and societies may advance or prosper compared to others, as each sorts out solutions for their particular life predicament. Some end up better at maximizing the survival of their next generation. In our modern case, the liberties and prosperity that we enjoy in our Western civilization are now facing cultural forces that seem to be reducing the desire among young adults to have children and accept the responsibility of building the next generation.

Other societies with a less scientific and rational/reason based outlook may end up coming out “on top”, even if that “top” is really a bottom or degradation from our current perspective.

I really want to remain optimistic that at least the US constitutional solution for a political republic will eventually sort out a path back to greater sanity, etc., perhaps even without another hot civil war. But I blow hot and cold on that optimism, or naivety.

https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/02/full-video-pam-bondi-testifies-at-doj.html