AI Datacenters in Space: What the Hell is Going On?

Alright, Google wants to put datacenters in space? Seriously? I swear, every day we get closer to living in some awful cyberpunk novel where corporations own everything, including the freaking sky.

Project Suncatcher: Catching What, Exactly?

So, Project Suncatcher, huh? Sounds like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. Google envisions "compact constellations of solar-powered satellites." Translation: they want to plaster the night sky with even more junk, all in the name of "minimizing impact on terrestrial resources." Oh, give me a break.

They're saying space-based datacenters could be cheaper than earthbound ones by the mid-2030s. Cheaper for them, maybe. What about the astronomical costs to, you know, the environment? Each rocket launch spews hundreds of tons of CO2. I'm no mathematician, but that doesn't exactly scream "eco-friendly" to me.

And what about the astronomers? Already complaining about satellites looking like "bugs on a windshield" when they're trying to study the universe. Now Google wants to add eighty more "bugs" per constellation? Eighty! Do they even care about, like, actual science anymore? According to a recent report, Google plans to put datacentres in space to meet demand for AI in order to meet the growing demand.

This whole thing feels like a solution in search of a problem. Major tech companies are projected to spend $3 trillion on earthbound datacenters, and Google's worried about the carbon emissions? Maybe... just maybe... invest some of that $3 trillion in clean energy for those earthbound datacenters? Just spitballing here.

Young Blood, Old Tricks

And it's not just Google. Elon Musk is apparently getting in on the space datacenter game too. Because of course he is. And Nvidia's launching AI chips into orbit. It's a freaking space race to pollute the cosmos.

The article also mentions that AI startup founders are getting younger. Median age of 29! Fresh-faced PhDs and math Olympiad medalists. Sounds impressive, right? Except, let's be real, they're probably just as susceptible to the siren song of venture capital as the old guard. They're just building the dystopia faster. AI Startup Founders Are Getting Younger, Technical As VCs Shift Focus, with venture capital firms increasingly interested in their work.

Cursor, some AI coding tool, hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in a year. Slack took three years to do that. See? Efficiency! Progress! Except all that "progress" means is more people getting replaced by algorithms. But hey, at least some 26-year-old gets to buy a yacht.

Offcourse, the venture capitalists are loving it. Y Combinator is backing every other AI startup at the pre-seed stage. Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia are moving "aggressively upstream." Translation: they want to get their claws in as early as possible.

You know what else is upstream? The point where we could have maybe, possibly, slowed down this runaway train of AI hype. But nah, gotta go full speed ahead.

Then again, maybe I'm just an old man yelling at clouds. Maybe space datacenters are the future. Maybe AI will save us all. Maybe pigs will fly.

So, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?