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Elon Musk: “Technology does not automatically improve”

January 06, 2025

“People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better. And actually it will I think—by itself—degrade.”

Elon continues:

“If you look at the progress in space, in 1969 we were able to send somebody to the moon. Then we had the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle could only take people to low-earth orbit. Then the Space Shuttle retired and the United States could take no one to orbit.”

This is why he believe SpacEx’s mission of making humans a space-faring civilization is so important. It’s not inevitable, and it will require a lot of talented people working really hard to make it happen.

“You look at great civilizations like ancient Egypt, and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that. And the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.”