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I don't get the insistence that AI would be content staying Earthbound. If it needs atoms, why not leave Earth?

Machines don't need food & water, they need fuel. The universe has lots of that.



Yes, but until such time as it gets off the earth is the most convenient source of atoms, and being that you're on the surface at the bottom of a big gravity well you're pretty convenient.


Earthbound resources are drastically cheaper.


How so? Sure, there's a significant upfront cost to sending a rocket out to the asteroid belt, but you only have to do that once. Once there's a base with a radio antenna, machine intelligences can travel back and forth at the speed of light.

And once you're in the asteroid belt, you have a huge amount of unclaimed raw material, unlimited space, and no gravity well to get in the way.




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