Elon Musk: “Technology does not automatically improve”

The sustainable energy future, I think is largely inevitable. But being space frame civilization is definitely not inevitable. If you look at the progress in space, in 1969, we were able to send somebody to the moon. 1969, then we had the space shuttle. The space shuttle could only take people to low Earth orbit. Then the space shuttle retired and the United States could take no one to orbit. So that's the trend. The trend is like down to nothing. This is not. People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better. And actually it will, I think, by itself, degrade. Actually, you look at great civilizations like ancient Egypt, and they're able to make the pyramids and they forgot how to do that. And the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.