More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity

In this biting study, science journalist Becker (What Is Real?) surveys the dubious ethics and questionable science underlying tech entrepreneurs’ visions for the future. Pushing back against Elon Musk’s aspiration to “save humanity” by colonizing Mars, Becker argues that the many technological challenges involved (overcoming the extreme cold, long-term effects of low gravity, and lack of oxygen and water) mean that fixing Earth is always going to be the better option. Talk of colonization, he suggests, primarily serves to obscure the need to lower carbon emissions. Becker posits that “longtermism”—an outlook espoused by crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, among others—lends an unearned moral veneer to lucrative tech ventures by suggesting that funding, say, a space propulsion think tank is a better use of money than donating to philanthropic ventures because that technology will allegedly improve more lives among future populations than there exist people today. Other technological moonshots are downright fanciful, Becker contends, discussing how computer scientist Ray Kurzweil’s prediction that human consciousness will be recreated digitally by 2045 relies on a specious understanding of exponential progress and his own boundless faith in scientific progress. The penetrating critiques expose the self-serving narratives that prop up tech billionaires’ quest for ever more wealth. It’s a searing takedown of the Silicon Valley set. Photos. (Apr.)