Elon Musk calls struggling San Francisco a city of ‘Walking Dead’

San Francisco: As the Silicon Valley looks at a “doom-loop” scenario amid tech layoffs and offices being shut down amid remote work, Elon Musk on Sunday said one could literally film a ‘Walking Dead’ episode unedited in downtown San Francisco.

Musk commented after American business columnist and author Ashlee Vance said that what the city has become is “unconscionable.”

“Had a 20-minute walk down Market Street with a friend who remarked, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ as his head was on a swivel the entire time. I love SF. What the city has become is unconscionable,” Vance posted in a tweet.

“Several pockets of 20 to 30 people all off their heads. A number of them with pants barely on. Zombies. The walking dead. Cops observing the proceedings from 100 feet away,” Vance added.

Musk reacted, saying that this is where “San Francisco politics leads and Twitter was exporting this self-destructive mind virus to the world.”

“With some exceptions, other tech companies are still doing so. Evil in guise of good,” the Twitter CEO added.

A twitter follower asked Musk: “How concerning is it that OpenAI is baking these politics into the foundation of machine intelligence?”

Musk replied: “Extremely concerning, given that it leads to a dystopian future – just walk around downtown SF to see what will happen.”

According to reports, once a bustling town, the city of San Francisco is facing innumerable problems amid the ongoing tech meltdown.

“Workers remain primarily remote; office space sits empty; businesses shutter; mass transit is sharply reduced or even bankrupt, making it even harder for low- and middle-wage workers who enable restaurants and small businesses to operate, causing major budget shortfalls from declining tax revenue that imperil numerous city services, trigger mass layoffs of city workers and shred the social safety net, all of which causes more people to leave,” elaborates a report in San Francisco Chronicle.

The city officials and business groups acknowledge the possibility of a doom-loop scenario.

It is a scenario in which “one negative development causes another negative development, which then makes the first problem worse. A vicious cycle.”
IANS