Elon Musk AMA

#article#hack club#ai#my take#education#ama

Elon Musk AMA

2020-05-04 · 5 min readMy highlights from being on an AMA with Elon musk, and some amazing points that I took from it!

Once I got off the AMA with Elon, I started to think about the biggest and most interesting points that I heard, and compiled a few different points

The Maker Movement - 24:56

The maker movement is a movement where people realize that they can actually make and create the things that they use. With all the amazing technologies we have from 3d printers, to computers, we can build and prototype anything that we see. When asked about the maker movement, Elon responded by saying that people don't realize that they can create things, and talked that people should not only focus digitally, but actually take a look at optimizing and innovation. This is because people focus a lot of effort on cranking out products with more resources etc, when you solve the base problems of production, then you can increase the output without needing more resources. The main gist of everything he said is that people shouldn't be disconnected from everyday products, but be interested in the supply chain etc, because that's where innovation is needed.TLDR; People need to think about where products come from and look into optimizing supply chains and production.

Capitalism and the Government - 28:22

As a debater, I've seen people debate that capitalism is inherently flawed etc, but what Elon said really strikes home. Basically what he said was that capitalism in a sense, is not flawed, because it completely depends on the rules governing it. For example, to solve climate change we would need to stop consuming plastics, but currently plastic and oil are profitable, and therefore will not be fixed. Also gas cars are cheaper and easier to ride, so people choose them. For capitalism to work, you need to set the rules right, which is why he supports a carbon tax. This way, you can set the system to favor people who actually care about the environment, and penalize those who don't. This will slowly but surely shift the tide, because in capitalism, people have an aversion to loss and hurting the environment will no longer be the easier way.Another interesting point that he made about the government is that the government is nothing other than a large monopoly. What this basically means, is that it has a monopoly over all the money and people. The reasons for the comparison is that a company isn't a monopoly and is small (Confederate US), the feedback loop that companies have (demand of customers => what the company does), was strong, in that if the people didn't want taxes, wanted the right to form a militia, etc. the government conformed. But now that the US is large and is basically a monopoly of power and hegemony (I semi-believe this, because China, Russia, and other superpowers are there), the country doesn't have to conform to the wills of the people. This is why he said it's especially important that people work for change in the country, and to fully not reply on the goverment. Extending in this from my point of view, I think that Locke's Social Contract can be seen here, where in simplest terms, it has 2 parts. First, people give up rights and freedoms (like how people need to follow laws), to a government to maintain safe and protect our other rights. The second part, is that if people at any point become dissatisfied by the government, they have the right to overthrow and re-establish a new government. Here, we can see that if at any point, there becomes a true monopoly of a government, people need to take it upon themselves to overthrow the monopoly and establish a new government that truly serves the rights of the people.TLDR; Capitalism depends on the rules of money flow, and the government can be considered a monopoly, which decreases its responsiveness to people. This should be solved by people taking things into their own hands, and to not rely on the government.

Teamwork and Communication Ideas - 56:30

Another question that he received, was how to convince people of your ideas. The response he gave was amazing, which was that you shouldn't base any thoughts or judge ideas from the person it comes from. Whether or not someone is a Nobel Prize Winner, or just another student, you should evaluate ideas from the basis of knowledge. The best way to convince someone, is to rely on physics, and explain that it would truly work and is possible. During his response, he also talked about how when you start thinking of an idea, you need to strip it down to its bones. This is so that there are no wrong preconceived notions, and then you build up from there. That way you can truly figure out a solution to an idea, when you think of it from the basics or science, and then can you only find solutions to those problems.TLDR; Ideas should be based on the feasibility from the laws of physics, and to find solutions to problems, you need to strip it down to its basics then build up.

Brain Computer Interfaces - 33:00

Though I won't spend too much time on it, I love the way Elon put this. The fact that brain's themselves can be thought as extremely complex AI, and that they are simply very complicated circuits. From that viewpoint, he talked about inputs, and how technology and the internet are a large amount of input, and getting it from your eyes, and interacting with your muscles, is like trying to access an ocean from a straw. The idea is that, like an AI that can accept many inputs and can be trained, if a human received an input like the internet from the brain in a electrical signal, once our brains figure out how to decode it, we would be able to access information at unimaginable rates that couldn't be thought before. With this mindset, it wouldn't be impossible to integrate with AI, or other inputs.TLDR; The mindset that your mind is a complex AI, and can interpret any number of inputs that it receives, means we can wire inputs directly into our brain.I would like to thank Elon Musk and Hack Club for giving me this amazing opportunity to learn and grow!

Thanks for reading! Liked the story? Click the heart

Created with ☕ by @neelr