[palata]

> many many experts

One thing that is pretty sure is that Musk is not an expert in the field.

> and more importantly

The beliefs of people you respect are not more important than the beliefs of the others. It doesn't make sense to say "I can't prove it, and I don't know about anyone who can prove it, so I will give you names of people who also believe and it will give it more credit". It won't. They don't know.

[weatherlite]

> The beliefs of people you respect are not more important than the beliefs of the others.

You think the beliefs of Turing and Nobel prize winners like Bengio, Hinton or Hasabis are not more important than yours or mine? I agree that experts are wrong a lot of the time and can be quite bad at predicting, but we do seem to have a very sizable chunk of experts here who think we are close (how close is up for debate..most of them seem to think it will happen in the next 20 yeras).

I concede that Musk is not adding quality to that list, however he IS crazily ambitious and gets things done so I think he will be helpful in driving this forward.

[palata]

> You think the beliefs of Turing and Nobel prize winners like Bengio, Hinton or Hasabis are not more important than yours or mine?

Correct. Beliefs are beliefs. Because a Nobel prize believes in a god does not make that god more likely to exist.

The moment we start having scientific evidence that it will happen, then it stops being a belief. But at that point you don't need to mention those names anymore: you can just show the evidence.

I don't know, you don't know, they don't know. Believe what you want, just realise that it is a belief.

[weatherlite]

Their beliefs seem not to be religious but founded in reality , at least to me. There is of course evidence it is likely happening.

[palata]

> There is of course evidence it is likely happening.

If you have evidence, why don't you show it instead of telling me to believe in Musk?

If you believe they have evidence... that's still a belief. Some believe in God, you believe in Musk. There is no evidence, otherwise it would not be a belief.

[weatherlite]

I believe in Musk, you got me.

[palata]

Well my feeling is that we don't have the same understanding of what a "belief" is. To me a belief is unfounded. When it is founded, it becomes science.

If you believe that something can happen because someone else believes it means that you believe in that someone else (because that's the only reason for the existence of your belief).

Unless you just believe it can happen for some other reason (I don't know, you strongly wish it will happen), and you justify it by listing other people who also believe in it. But I insist: those are all beliefs.

Because Einstein believes in Santa Claus does not mean it is founded. Einstein has a right to believe stuff, too.