TheShadowKnows,

I have very little belief that any of the major tech billionaires were Sci-fi “readers”. All were brought up rich and maintained their wealth by failing upwards in an industry that basically threw money at aristocratic families and their offspring. All the sci-fi from prolific figures specifically target those groups as the reason for societies hardships. Herbert, Asimov, Heinlein, etc. all have major works which denounce the inherent vileness of those classes that rule from privileged positions without merit. If they did read any of those most influential books of the genre they definitely took the wrong messages from them. More likely than not, they probably only paid attention to the hypothetical technology in those universes to copy to theur model for “their” ideas, rather than paying any attention to the moral messages usually described about the use of the technology… Which usually ends up fucking the people who use it. Musk driving for human computer integration chips with reckless abandon tells me he has not read any sci-fi which would help him understand the possible hiccups he’s going to run into. I also doubt his endeavour is anything more than a stunt which conflates the use cases of the technology which is probably just revamped HCI technology that already exists to transmit motor cortex impulses to areas of the body that have been damaged due to injury. (I work in neuromodulation research) Even if they read the best scifi now, they would probably take away the wrong messages from them, the lens that you bring to a reading changes how you view it. As a billionaire, they just lack the ability to ground themselves enough to understand the social cautionary messages.

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