Abstract:
Elon Musk recently claimed that his tunnel startup The Boring Company is studying the construction of a "simplified version of the Hyperloop precursor system" connecting Austin and San Antonio, saying that this system can shorten the travel time between the two cities to less than 30 minutes.
The official account of Boring Company later forwarded Musk’s statement and said that the company “is very much looking forward to and very honored to be able to build this large-scale infrastructure project.”
However, Boring Company has announced many projects in the past, including tunnel transportation systems in Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as a tunnel project connecting New York City and Washington, D.C., but none of these plans actually came to fruition.
However, the company does currently operate a transportation system in Las Vegas that combines underground tunnel lines with surface routes. In addition, Boring Company recently completed a round of financing worth US$3 billion, led by the United Arab Emirates.
It is worth noting that Musk’s statement about building an Austin-San Antonio hyperloop was actually made in response to a video generated by artificial intelligence. This video depicts a relatively general sci-fi future scenario, including scenes of humans establishing colonies on other planets.
Musk retweeted the video and wrote: "This is the future we are going to create."
Musk’s critics have long argued that his vision of the future appears to be heavily influenced by popular science fiction novels and comics.
Historian Jill Lepore said in a recent interview that Musk seems to be particularly partial to a certain type of science fiction work that "completely overturns and goes against all of his own political ideas."
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