Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, recently expressed his lack of enthusiasm for humans living on Mars. During a meeting at the University of London, Altman said that he had no desire to live on Mars and that it sounded horrible. He suggested sending robots in first to fix up the planet before considering human habitation.
Altman’s views stand in contrast to those of other tech luminaries such as Elon Musk, who has been a vocal proponent of colonizing Mars. Musk has even set a goal to send humans to Mars by 2050 and is building a spacecraft called Starship that could make this possible.
Altman and Musk started OpenAI together in 2015 but had a falling out when Musk tried to take control of the startup in 2018. Although Musk resigned from the company’s board due to conflicts with his work at Tesla, he criticized OpenAI later for becoming a for-profit organization and handing over complete access to its code base to Microsoft.
While Altman may not be excited about humans living on Mars, there are many ongoing projects around the world working towards this goal. However, given Altman’s expertise in AI and robotics, his suggestion of sending robots ahead could prove beneficial in preparing the planet for human habitation.
Ultimately, whether or not humans will live on Mars remains uncertain. But with ongoing developments in space technology and exploration, it is clear that there are people like Elon Musk who are determined to make it happen.
It is apparently, Altman believes that Earth is really wonderful and sees no reason why we should abandon it just yet. And while he may not want to live on Mars himself, he remains open-minded about sending robots there as part of humanity’s ongoing exploration of space.
