ELON MUSK: The power a civilization can harness is the ultimate measure of its progress

“That’s one of the most objective ways any alien species visiting us would measure how much progress we’ve made as a civilization.

Type I is how well a civilization harnesses the power available on its planet. Type II is how much of its star’s power it harnesses, and Type III is how much of the galaxy’s power it harnesses.

Right now, we’re very low on the Kardashev Type I scale. We’re harnessing almost none of our star’s power. We don’t even know how to do Type III, really. AI will figure it out.”