Will AGI transform humanity into a multiplanetary species? AI is changing Silicon Valley startups; AWS is playing the long game on AI; there's a reason AI model names are weird; AI cheats at chess

Can AI predict the next big IPO? how AI can protect vital infrastructure deep in the ocean; OpenAI seeks new powers to fend off hostile takeovers; Google's AI efforts impacted by internal bureaucracy

This week, full-time marketing executive and part-time government bureaucrat Elon Musk took a short break from responding “Interesting!” and “True” to every Great Replacement conspiracy theory on X to film a hostage video with a few engineers who talked about Grok 3, the new model from xAI. The TL;DR is that Grok 3 is comparable in performance to the state of the art models from OpenAI and Anthropic; you can find out more about it here, if you’re interested.

Like all savvy marketers, Musk embarked on a media tour to hype up Grok 3 ahead of its release, appearing at several events, including Welt’s Economic Forum in Germany where he made this statement:

This was a rare moment of intellectual clarity for Musk, during an otherwise rambling speech in which he again endorsed AfD, the German political party that’s become the darling of the Trump administration.

While I agree with most of the points he made in the clip, I believe he got the order of the last two mixed up - here’s why.

History is generally taught in school as a series of past events on a one-dimensional and somewhat linear timeline. But what if we replaced the one-dimensional timeline with a two-dimensional curve? After all, this is how, for the last 60 years, those of us working in tech have witnessed history in the form of Moore’s Law. And if accept an expanded time axis, can we go beyond 1965 and consider that we might be on a much larger acceleration path that is pushing us to a new frontier—one that isn’t just transforming technology, but might dictate our next evolutionary leap?

So let’s expand the curve of history and map out the major milestones for life on Earth from this perspective.

We begin with the first major moment highlighted by Musk: the birth of life which took place 3.5 billion years ago. The first single-cell organisms emerged in Earth’s ancient oceans, pioneering a fundamental innovation: self-replication. Life at this stage was painfully slow. For nearly three billion years, life remained microscopic and single-celled, but then something revolutionary happened: cells started working together, forming multicellular organisms. This allowed for specialization, creating the foundation for complex life. The leap from single-cell to multicellular life took roughly one-sixth the time of the previous milestone.

Then, 500 million years ago, we saw the great divide between plants and animals. With multicellular organisms came a fundamental evolutionary fork in the road: some became autotrophs, using sunlight to produce energy (plants), while others became heterotrophs, consuming other life for sustenance (animals). This division laid the groundwork for the first true ecosystems of life.

However, during all this time, life was still confined to the oceans. But eventually, some species developed the ability to survive on land. This leap, exemplified by early tetrapods like Tiktaalik, set the stage for terrestrial ecosystems, including the dinosaurs, mammals, and eventually, humans.

This brings us to the rise of mammals which occurred when an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. As a result, mammals, which had been relatively minor players until then, were able to suddenly take center stage. The warm-blooded, adaptable nature of mammals allowed them to diversify rapidly, leading to primates and ultimately, us - the humans.

Once humans emerged, something interesting happened: for 70,000 years, perhaps the most critical shifts in Earth’s history were not biological but cognitive. Homo sapiens developed abstract thinking, language, and culture, enabling the formation of large-scale societies. With collective intelligence, humans began shaping the environment rather than merely adapting to it.

We’ve now reached the present, so the question that arises by looking at this pattern seems almost rhetorical: are we still on an accelerated curve of major transitions? And if so, aren’t we already overdue for the next great leap?

For those who believe in the possibility of an AI system with human-level intelligence, then the emergence of that system—and not multiplanetary life, as Musk claims—will be the next step on this exponential curve. Unlike past milestones, which were biological, this one will be technological and just as transformative. When machines can think, learn, and innovate at human speeds (and eventually, far beyond), they will become primary agents of evolution, guiding life’s trajectory as much as natural selection once did.

Here’s where things get interesting. The very growth of AI will force a number of leaps. True artificial intelligence will require massive computational resources—raw materials, energy, and computing substrates. Earth alone will not suffice. Machines will need to expand into space, extracting resources from asteroids, the Moon, and Mars. But in doing so, some humans may decide to go with them, making our species multiplanetary in the process.

In other words, AI will not just transform human civilization—it will be the reason humanity spreads beyond Earth, fulfilling Musk’s long-predicted dream with SpaceX.

Also, if history follows this exponential pattern, then these two milestones would need to arrive in quick succession, potentially within decades of each other, leading to the need for a fusion of biological and machine intelligence. Enter Neuralink, which would deliver a way to communicate with superintelligent machines in a fully self-sustaining, off-world civilization and perhaps create a post-human form of intelligence entirely.

I know we’re entering the realm of pure sci-fi speculation but, whatever comes next, one thing is clear: life’s exponential curve is not slowing down. A decade ago, many of the accomplishments we take for granted today seemed equally far-fetched. Given the speed of progress in AI, brain-computer interfaces, and space exploration, what’s to stop us from dreaming about AI-enhanced humans taking a stroll on Mars by the end of this century?

And now, here are this week’s news:

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Our top news picks for the week - your essential reading from the world of AI

• Wired: Microsoft Hosted Explicit Videos of This Startup Founder for Years. Here's How She Got Them Taken Down

• New York Times: AI Is Changing How Silicon Valley Builds Start-Ups

• New York Times: AI Is Prompting an Evolution, Not Extinction, for Coders

• Time: Why Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman Is Playing the Long Game on AI

• WSJ: Can AI Predict the Next Big IPO? Crunchbase Thinks So.

• Business Insider: Amazon Robotics chief technologist discusses AI, warehouse jobs, and how human 'common sense' will always be needed

• FT: Grok, o3 and ELMo — there’s a reason AI names are so weird

• WSJ: How AI Can Protect Vital Pipelines and Cables Deep in the Ocean

• FT: OpenAI seeks new powers to fend off hostile takeover from Elon Musk

• The Information: Google’s AI Efforts Marred by Turf Disputes

• Time: When AI Thinks It Will Lose, It Sometimes Cheats, Study Finds