Solving big challenges, with Elon Musk

[Note: This article was originally published in Portuguese on SXSW Meio & Mensagem on March 12th, 2018.]

A surprise presentation was announced at SXSW 2018 featuring Elon Musk (founder of Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, The Boring Company, and co-founder of PayPal). An impressive list of achievements on its own, but one that demonstrates a constant willingness to tackle major challenges with unusual enthusiasm or impatience.

A Q&A session based on questions submitted by the public was the foundation of this laid-back interview. It started with what everyone was most interested in: Mars. Elon shared a bit of his vision for going to Mars. First, it’s necessary to build a minimum viable infrastructure to reach the planet, as well as create structures for energy, greenhouses - the basics before even thinking about going there.

But space isn’t Elon’s only interest. His initiatives also extend to electric cars and batteries (Tesla), solar energy (SolarCity), The Boring Company, which aims to build tunnels, and more recently, the Starlink initiative, which seeks to create a satellite network to provide internet access from anywhere in the world.

And what attracts Elon to these big challenges? According to him: “Some things that I consider very important don’t seem to work well,” and that motivates him to see if it’s possible to find a better solution.

Business Plan? Not even close! SpaceX and Tesla were extremely high-risk opportunities. In the United States, among automotive companies, only Ford and Tesla never went bankrupt at some point in their history. He calculated the chance of Tesla and SpaceX surviving at less than 10%. Even so, that didn’t discourage him from pursuing solutions to these problems.

SpaceX failed its first three launch attempts. The fourth launch was the last chance. In 2008, Tesla had only days of cash left when it secured a new investment. A new breath to continue the pursuit of solutions for a major challenge.

This optimism that drives Elon to tackle big issues doesn’t apply to every sector. He is known for having a much less optimistic view when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Not because of the potential of the technology itself, but because of the side effects that advances in digital super intelligence could cause.

His view is that there are many benefits to AI. By the end of 2019, Elon believes fully autonomous cars will already be available. Today, existing technology already reduces accident risk by 30% to 40%, and progress should accelerate to a stage where it will be far more efficient and safer than human drivers.

To remain beneficial, Elon sees the need for conscious and controlled long-term development of the technology. “Currently, there are controls for developing nuclear weapons. AI could become more dangerous than nuclear weapons.”

While that day doesn’t arrive, Elon continues working on today’s big challenges, even venturing some ideas about the governance model for a possible Mars colonization: direct democracy with voting on proposals rather than representatives, crowdsourcing, and simplification of legislation through a system where it’s easier to cancel or remove a law than to create a new one.

“When the text of a law is longer than all the volumes of The Lord of the Rings, something isn’t right!” he said. Perhaps this will be Elon Musk’s next big challenge.