Learn From Elon Musk | Merdeka Festival Campus G20 Indonesia 2022
Learn from Elon Musk during an interview at Merdeka Festival Campus
The Tri Hita Karana Forum organized by Kampus Merdeka RI presented two tremendous and inspiring figures, Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla Motors) and Nadiem Makarim (Indonesia’s Minister of Education Culture Research and Technology).
The forum was held on November 14, 2022, lasted approximately 30 minutes, and can be watched on the Kampus Merdeka YouTube channel. The theme presented at the dialog forum was “Envisioning Education for Future Science and Technology”.
Here are some discussion points that we can learn from the forum.
How does Elon Musk manage to do so much?
Elon Musk does quite a lot and works all the time, and it’s rare for him to take time off, even on Sundays. However, he doesn’t recommend this method to everyone. Also, he added about how he understands the principles that he does, which is to think of it like a physics framework that is very helpful for understanding the world where we try to understand the most fundamental truth in a given situation, and from there we test the conclusions of what we have believed. So, in physics, there would be a test to see if we violate the conservation of energy or conservation of momentum or something like that.
Then, to be able to do things continuously, we have to try to be less wrong and sort of assume that we’re being wrong to a certain degree, and we want to reduce that to be less wrong. It’s a little bit hard on us, but it’s good for us.
How can we overcome people who say they think it’s impossible to achieve what we want to achieve?
Again, He answers this question by drawing on the concept of physics. According to him, something that is absolutely impossible to do is something that violates the laws of physics.
“Many people have broken the law, but no one has ever broken the laws of physics, and anything within the laws of physics is possible.” — Elon Musk
As long as we do not violate the laws of physics, there is still a possibility to do so. He emphasized that don’t care about the opinions of others or anyone else because physics is a law and everything else. We can challenge the laws of physics, but those who have been challenged by the laws of physics well enough have been found to be resilient.
Was there a moment when he was young and even as a child that made Elon Musk who he is today?
When he was young, Elon Musk read a lot of books and even watched sci-fi and fantasy movies. Lord of the Rings was one of his favorite books. However, Isaac Asimov is someone who had a huge effect on Elon Musk. Also, Robert A. Heinlein is one of the people who inspired him in terms of finding the truth and coming to the conclusion that physics is the best way to explore the veracity of things.
What is Elon Musk’s view on what an ideal education should look like today?
Elon Musk asserts that when we are trying to learn something, a very important thing to do is to establish the relevance of why we should learn that thing. This is because our minds will constantly try to forget the irrelevant and decide on the relevant. Once we establish the relevance of what we think we should learn, we will naturally want to remember it.
He also thinks there are two fundamentally different ways of approaching education, such as trying to teach about a tool and trying to teach about problem-solving and what tools are needed to solve the problem. By learning about problem-solving, we will understand more about the process and why a tool can be relevant to solving a problem. So, the important thing in education is about problem-solving and finding the relevance of why we should learn about something.
Which job sectors will be the most interesting and in-demand in the future?
Elon Musk emphasized that there are three major sectors that he recommends studying: sustainable energy, artificial intelligence (AI), and synthetic biology. These will be very significant in the future. Sustainable energy could be like lithium-ion batteries for stationary storage, AI could be like self-driving cars or self-driving ships and even planes, and synthetic biology like mRNA synthesis might revolutionize medicine. He also asserted that synthetic RNA is like medicine going digital, and that is a much more profound revolution than I think most people realize.
What technology is the scariest in terms of risks?
Elon Musk thinks that we should be a little worried about AI. This is because artificial intelligence is known to cause damage to humanity. Furthermore, synthetic biology also has the potential to be very dangerous, as it is possible to create viruses that are far more destructive.
“The more powerful the technology, the more careful we need to be and how we use it” — Elon Musk
How to make a country (i.e. Indonesia) become a global economic power in 2045?
The obvious thing to make a country a global economic powerhouse is extensive education. However, Elon Musk explains that having high-speed internet connectivity throughout Indonesia will be very important. When we have access to the internet at a low cost, we can learn anything, such as lectures provided by MIT and even many free courses available on YouTube.
In this era we can be whatever we want to be, all learning resources are available and many are free, we just need internet access to access it all. With this, we can already learn practically anything we need. Wide and high-speed internet access can also make us feel comfortable learning whatever we want.
Summary
We need to spend more time doing the things we should be doing. Physics concepts are critical in understanding the truth of what we do. Ideal education is about problem-solving and thinking about the relevance of why we learn. There are three sectors that are predicted to be very profitable in the future: sustainable energy, AI, and synthetic biology. The more powerful the technology, the more careful we need to be and how we use it. Finally, Internet access is very important in a country because it has a huge impact on education.
