The latest arms race among tech billionaires isn't about artificial intelligence - it's about who has the most epistemically rigorous apocalypse shelter. Recent permit filings reveal a fascinating glimpse into how each titan plans to weather the very catastrophes their companies might create.
Sam Altman's fortified compound features a security system that uses predictive text to finish all verbal commands, but only accepts responses that make him sound profound. The meditation room includes a quantum uncertainty generator that randomly opens and closes the blast doors, which Altman insists helps him "think better about decision theory." A reinforced concrete library contains a special section of "pre-implemented" AI regulations that were perpetually "just about to be finished."
Demis Hassabis opted for a more classical approach, building his bunker as an elaborate game theory experiment. Each room requires solving increasingly complex optimization problems, culminating in the ultimate challenge: admitting you might be wrong about something. The facility's "probabilistic shower" dispenses water based on his daily-adjusted extinction risk calculations.
Mark Zuckerberg's underground facility stands out for its "human behavior practice room" where he rehearses basic social interactions with holograms. Every surface is a touchscreen displaying a real-time feed of Meta's metaverse, while the air filtration system harvests data about occupants' breathing patterns. The bunker's mess hall serves only Soylent and comes equipped with cameras that analyze residents' facial expressions for signs of genuine human emotion.
Elon Musk's Texas bunker complex takes minimalism to new extremes, featuring bare concrete walls inscribed with Pascal's Wager in binary code. The facility's most striking feature is its "X-Wing" - a launch pad for emergency Mars evacuation that requires solving a CAPTCHA proving you're not a woke AI. Musk swears it will be operational "next quarter."
Most telling is the bunkers' shared security system, programmed to lock everyone out if it detects signs of artificial general intelligence, leading to weekly false alarms as each CEO tests increasingly dubious definitions of consciousness.
The bunkers maintain line-of-sight windows across the valley, allowing the tech lords to maintain their Twitter feuds even after civilization's collapse - though they'll have to compose their posts using semaphore signals, as the electromagnetic pulse will have fried their phones.
