Musk was interviewed at the G20 Summit in Indonesia: on Education, Learning, and first-principles thinking

中文视频：马斯克接受印尼G20峰会访谈：关于教育，学习，第一性原理思维

Nojima Karim 00:03
I think hello.

Nojima Karim 00:17
Hello Elena how are you?

Elon Musk 00:22
Not good how are.

Nojima Karim 00:22
You I’m very, very good I allow allow me to just introduce myself right now my name is Nojima Karim. I am currently the Minister of Education Culture research and technology. But before this, I was a technology entrepreneur created a founded one of the largest on-demand services in Indonesia payment ride hailing food. A few of the other services so I just wanted to let you know that I am a big fan of yours. You bring inspiration to me and many of my peers and colleagues for for many, many years, so you could you could classify me as a fanboy here? An I have the privilege and honor of being able to ask you a few questions if that’s OK is that alright.

Elon Musk 01:10
Absolutely you most welcome.

Nojima Karim 01:11
Thank you. I think the first question and you know, we have a lot of youth here. A lot of young people. I think one of the things that confuses a lot of us is how are you able to do so much? It’s a very simple question. But I think we, we would love to hear. What are your tools for productivity or principles? We just can’t believe the amount that you do? Can you tell us a little bit about how you do the amount that you do?

Elon Musk 01:40
Well, I did put in a lot of hours. I’m not sure I would necessarily recommend what what I do to others in the sense that I pretty much work all the time so. You know it’s quite rare for me to take even a Sunday off. So I’m not sure that’s necessarily you know what I’m not. I’m not recommending that to many people with regard to tools for understanding the world, I think.

Elon Musk 02:10
The physics framework is extremely helpful. It’s you know in physics, they called thinking from first principle standpoint where you try to understand the most fundamental truths in a particular situation and then your reason up from there. And then you test your conclusions against the what you believe to be the fundamental truths, so in physics would be like testing to see if you were violating conservation of energy or conservation of momentum or something like that. And then constantly you know trying to be less wrong. So you should always like assume that you’re to some degree wrong and you want to be less wrong. This is I think very important as a little tougher on the go, but it’s. It’s great for getting to the truth of things is aspired to be less wrong.

Nojima Karim 02:56
That’s amazing, the iterative process constantly having that healthy dose of skepticism and of course, the sheer amount of hours that you put in. You know, Elon women when I started implementing I came from the private sector. So imagine the challenges. I had to face when I was entering the government and one of the things that I’ve noticed is that? When you are trying to change things, the amount of resistance to change is extremely high and extremely painful and you have an entire group of people who are I would. Categorise them as naysayers who are constantly trying to say that what you’re trying to achieve is impossible. So my question to you. One is how do you deal with the naysayers? How do you deal with the people who say no you are shooting too far ahead you are trying to do something that’s impossible don’t bother doing it or are resistant to change. How do you manage those that resistance the naysayers out there and continue on?

Elon Musk 04:02
Well, I would go back to physics in that the only things that are truly impossible. Breaking laws of physics, so as long as you’re not breaking laws of physics. It’s possible it doesn’t matter what. Everyone’s opinion is. Physics is the law and everything else is a recommendation. I’ve seen plenty of people break the law but I’ve never seen anyone break physics.

Nojima Karim 04:28
Please give a round of applause mean anything within the laws of physics as possible.

Elon Musk 04:35
Yeah, I mean, and you can certainly challenge laws of physics, but they’ve been challenged quite well and have found to be resilient.

Nojima Karim 04:43
That’s incredibly simple and powerful response there. We you know given that we have a lot of University students here. We wanted to go a little bit into your younger days ill and I’m very curious to know. Are there? Several milestone events that happened, either in your childhood or in your early youth that you think had the most profound impact to who. You are today if so can you share a little bit about? Those moments.

Elon Musk 05:18
Well, I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books. So I mean, it’s not going to surprise anyone that I you know sort of like Star Trek Star Wars and that kind of thing. In fact, Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater so. You can imagine if you’re seeing incredible movie like that. It’s the first time you ever even been in a movie theater. I think I was 6 years old. It’s going to have a really big effect on you. So. So reading and watching a lot of sci-fi and fantasy.

Elon Musk 05:53
Lord of the rings, probably my favorite book. But I say I zic asthma, had had huge effect on me the foundation series. Robert Hyndland, the moon is a harsh mistress. And then. And trying to find the truth of things I explored many avenues and ultimately found that physics was the best way to explore the truth of things. So. You know at the risk of being a broken record on physics front. I strongly recommend setting it.

Nojima Karim 06:32
Amazing an if we can. Just look into. You You You have made a lot of innovations within your organisations you’ve also been quite explicit about. Certain ways that education should actually change one of the things we did. One of the things we did in Indonesia recently is we’ve almost completely unbundled higher education. Elon we have made every single company nonprofit all the external institutions outside of University into an accredited University for one semester, so now. Higher education is are. Leah collaborative effort of all institutions, including technology companies.

Nojima Karim 07:24
I wanted to know your thoughts about education an in your ideal world? What would education look like? Either lower education or higher education if you have some thoughts on that. Please enlighten us on what your ideal education in today’s world would look like?

Elon Musk 07:44
Sure will. I think when you’re trying to learn something it is extremely important to establish relevance to say why. You trying to learn this because our minds are constantly trying to forget things so that our minds are at a subconscious level trying to decide what is relevant? And what is not relevant and so most of the things that you see in here your mind does not want to remember ’cause. There’s no point in remembering it so you have to establish relevance This is why. You want to say like why This is why you should learn this, the subject or that subject. And once you establish relevance the. The mind will naturally want to remember it.

Elon Musk 08:28
And like so. There’s like there’s like I think 2 fundamentally different ways to approach education. One is by teaching to the tools and the other is by teaching to. Where you want to solve a problem and trying to understand? What tools do you need to solve the problem so for example, it would be quite boring to have a series of lectures about wrenches and Screwdrivers and. And winches and Whatnot, but without establishing relevance.

Elon Musk 08:57
But if you say, Well, let’s take apart. An engine now? How do we take this engine apart and put it back together. We’re going to need screwdrivers are going to Drench is going to need a winch. Will need maybe some Allen Keys and will you have to take it apart and put it back together and then you’ll understand in the process of doing that? Why those tools are relevant and you will remember them.

Elon Musk 09:19
This is a very simple but important principle, which is. Explain the tools in the process of solving a problem. And then the tools will make sense. Otherwise, they will seem irrelevant and people will not remember them and motivation will be difficult.

Nojima Karim 09:37
And and do you think to make those tools within a contextual situation therefore increasing relevance is that happening right now in educational systems around the world? What do you think needs to change from maybe a teacher perspective or a curriculum perspective?

Elon Musk 09:59
Yeah, like I said, I think. There is generally a. Or as there’s often things are backwards without they’ll teach the tools. Instead of teach teach you how to solve a problem and then establish the relevance of the tools. So you know you might take a course on calculus for example, but but you don’t know why you’re taking a course in calculus. It just seems like a mental obstacle course that doesn’t have any point. Actually, for a lot of people I’d say it probably is a mental obstacle course that has no point because unless you expect to use in the future. There’s no point in learning calculus. At least at a detailed level. I think the principles of calculus are are interesting to learn but not the. Sort of nuanced solving of equations. So I’d really like what? What is it that somebody wants to do? And then. Teached. You know, I’ve been trying to solve that problem and as you saw the problem. I said, Well, you need this tool. You need that to you and you know, I think.

Elon Musk 11:08
Frankly, a lot of education that happens is kind of pointless. And in that people are taught a bunch of things, but there is they don’t actually ever use. Those things in the future. So, like why go to the trouble of teaching people things that they will not use in the future.

Elon Musk 11:23
I think that’s so quite frankly I think a lot of Education is pointless. And less one simply wants to go through mental obstacle course and test people’s ability to go through mental obstacle course. I think it’s uh. Debatable as to whether this should be. You know, we should we should force people to go through these mental obstacle courses. But if I can make it like a strong recommendation for what should be taught early in education is critical critical thinking critical thinking is incredibly important because it creates mental firewall too. Allow children to reject concepts that are not cogent, meaning the where. So it’s sort of like having an antivirus my auntie mind virus defense system. Quite critical thinking. If Twitter to young age creates a mental firewall that prevents false concepts from. Establishing themselves in people’s minds. So I would strongly recommend the principles of critical thinking be taught at a young age.

Nojima Karim 12:34
Completely agree with you, we have just removed subject based testing or content based testing from our national assessment system and replace it purely on logic problem solving and critical thinking. Computational logic as foundational skills so I’m very, very happy to hear you say that because that’s really the core not. It’s not what you know it’s actually do you know what to do? With information that you are given or content that you understand. Yes.

Elon Musk 13:09
How do you defend yourself against mental mental trickery you know like he will you know just try various policies and trapping with policies and so having different defense against policies would be. You know a great course.

Nojima Karim 13:26
Absolutely and in the digital age. That ability to discern and that healthy dose of skepticism to the information that you receive is almost survival. I think for the next generation and I completely agree with you on that.

Nojima Karim 13:41
Ellen. Let’s talk a little bit about. The future of these young people over here can you tell us? What do you think are going to be? If they were to ask you about career advice. What sectors do you think are going to be most exciting most in demand and what sectors may not be in the future will diminish. In value if you could share a little bit about what you think on this matter.

Elon Musk 14:17
I sure well, I think some of it’s going to sound pretty obvious, but anything to do with this sustainable energy is going to be pretty significant in the future so if it’s to do with the lithium ion batteries. For stationary storage or 4 cars aircraft, boats that’s going to be very significant artificial intelligence will obviously be very significant. In all fields. You know self driving cars, so flying airplanes so. You know, highlighting boats. And you know, so I’d probably recommend that learning those and these are these are very technical subjects. Of course, there are many other worthy pursuits, but as a technologist that’s what I would recommend AI and sustainable.

Elon Musk 15:03
The technology. I think there’s a lot about a lot of opportunity in synthetic biology with the synthetic. Messenger RNA stuff that’s. That’s going to be a revolution in medicine, I think compatible too. Or they’re going from analog to digital. Synthetic RNA is. It is like medicine is going digital. It’s it’s much more profound revolution than I think most people realize.

Elon Musk 15:47
Maybe it’s my best, but I’m I’m technologist, so there’s plenty of good things to do that don’t involve technology. Our technology standpoint, I would say Sustainable Energy AI Synthetic Biology are really the 3 big areas. Are.

Nojima Karim 16:04
What? What technologies scare you the most? In terms of its risk or are there any technologies that scare you I don’t know.

Elon Musk 16:16
Well, I think we should be a little concerned about AI because we don’t want digital superintelligence that goes wrong and causes damage to your humanity. So I think we do need to be cautious with artificial intelligence. You know on the synthetic biology front. That’s also that it has the potential to be dangerous because it is possible to create a far more damaging virus than than would occur in nature, so you know, these these technology tools are definitely. Double edged swords. The more powerful the technology the more careful. We need to be and how we use it.

Nojima Karim 16:57
Absolutely my one last question from myself and then I’m going to open it up to the audience Elon. What do you think Indonesia needs to do to become a global economic power by 2045?

Elon Musk 17:17
Well, I think it’s it’s definitely you know. We are widespread education, obviously makes sense. I think having high speed Internet connectivity throughout. Indonesia is going to be extremely important. I mean think about the Internet. If you’ve got even with low cost device and low cost. Access the Internet you can learn anything MIT for example, has like I believe the lectures are available for free on YouTube so. You can learn practically anything you want for free on the Internet provided you have Internet access and at least some level of Education to allow you to learn more from the Internet so I think. Widespread Internet access is essential for that because it just allows people to learn whatever they want to learn at whatever pace they’re comfortable learning.

Nojima Karim 18:09
Thank you very much I’d like to open it up now to the audience if the organizer can, please hand over to. The first question for. New line.

Nojima Karim 18:32
Can you raise your hat? I cannot see where the microphone is being. The moderator will choose the question. I will not be choosing apparently the organizer will be doing that so. No. Is anybody going? Hi yes, we have the first student. Task question please introduce yourself and please, ask the question to Mr. Master.

说话人 3 19:05
Hello. My name is Bryce Ella Simmons Anne I’m from. I have a question for Mr. Ellon Musk, so as a global in feature and words number one businessman. Of course, we have heard about your success stories and it greatly inspired us. But what about your failures or your mistakes. I want to ask. What were your biggest obstacles or mistakes? That you have faced and how did you overcome it and maybe you can also give us the students here a piece of advice and that will be very amazing. Thank you.

Elon Musk 19:53
Well to be Frank I’ve made so many mistakes that it would take far too long for me to list them all. So I don’t want to both people with the extremely long list of mistakes that I’ve made in the past. But I think that the the higher principle here is that it is always to aspire to be less wrong overtime. So to acknowledge that you always be to some degree wrong, but that you wish to be less wrong.

Elon Musk 20:19
Overtime and and. And if you can be a little less wrong every day. I think you’re doing great. It’s hard to be less wrong. Every day, but frankly even if you could do that strong most days that’s a pretty big victory.

Elon Musk 20:35
You know a number of things that I’ve said before publicly so. I think it’s important to replace wait upon both the heart and the mind, not simply the mind. Some of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made in terms of hiring people have been when they were strong of mind, but not apart. And. Both matter a great deal.

Elon Musk 21:10
Yes, I think the really the hybrid hard principle is just assume you’re wrong and you want to be strong and just try to be less wrong every day. See critical feedback, especially from friends. Often, your friends will know what you’re what you’re saying is wrong, but they don’t want to hurt your feelings so they won’t tell you but if you ask them to tell you and say that won’t hurt your feelings then they will tell you. So I think getting critical feedback from friends is very helpful.

Elon Musk 21:48
Yeah, hopefully that is useful.

Nojima Karim 21:51
Thank you Elon. So you can never be always right 100% of the time we get it wrong. All the time you just have to make sure what’s wrong every day.

Elon Musk 22:04
Yeah, what I’m saying is that we are always wrong. You should always just assume that you’re wrong. In fact, you could because we are. You want to take the Aspire to be less wrong approach. Versus your right and let’s prove that you’re right rather take the position of your wrong and and wish to be aspirationally slightly restaurant.

Nojima Karim 22:28
That’s incredible and find friends that are willing to disagree with you the next question.

说话人 4 22:38
Hi I, like I’m a big fan of yours. My name is Sarah Joanne to an I’m the founder of do it happy where Fintech companies that does less mild payments to the unbanked through the hundreds of millions of unbanked Indonesians. As you said being a founder is extremely difficult. It’s like eating glass while staring into the abyss.

说话人 4 22:59
I know exactly what you mean yeah, yeah. And so we’ve actually now been able to do that on a smaller scale. But we need to be able to grow at scale and that is where were are paying point. At the moment how do we scale? We’ve proven it at a smaller scale. We’ve distributed last Mail payments about like 50,000,000 unbanked Indonesians and the most remote places, but how do we bring that to something that is greater? To millions of people not just in Indonesia, but in the world. It’s not easy, so would appreciate any input you could give thank you.

Elon Musk 23:44
Well, I guess I would go back to widespread Internet is going to make a big difference. The minimizing the cost per useful you know bite of information is very important. And like overtime, you know, I think there will be let me know so many devices being made of you know. Pc’s and iPhones and Android devices.

Elon Musk 24:14
I mean, they will soon be far more devices, made in there are humans that exist in the world. So at least at least if the device is like. You know second hand it’s going to be extremely cheap.

Elon Musk 24:31
And I think we all seemed somewhat something over plateau in. In in device capability. You know where it’s like it’s increasingly difficult to add incremental useful functionality to a phone or laptop at this point so. Which means that they will just become lower and lower costs more affordable? But really the key is being online and having a portable device. And then I think I think the trends are very much in that direction, so that’s a lot of reasonably optimistic about the future.

说话人 4 25:08
Ok, thank you.

Nojima Karim 25:09
Thank you and the next last questionnaire. Yes.

说话人 5 25:17
Hi my name is Sarah I’m from media Mandela Surabaya Cattle University. My question from for Elon Musk is I’m wondering what is your day-to-day habitat? Turned you into a person that you are now.

Elon Musk 25:33
Thank you. Well, in terms of day-to-day habit. Think being curious. Incurious, but the world how the world works and curious about technology and we’re curious about everything really. I think Curiosity is a very important thing to have. And then to be somewhat obsessive about the curiosity. I saw it probably obsessive Curiosity is. Probably the number one thing. And I think having a sort of a sense of adventure is also good.

Elon Musk 26:15
I think sometimes people are afraid of things. When they shouldn’t be afraid of things like you want to make sure that your fear is proportionate to the actual danger. And I think sometimes our instinctive fear is not proportionate to the actual danger. So you want to try to rethink things like just try to say OK is that fear. Justified like will it actually something that actually happened and if you know you sort of have to? Sometimes look at your instinctive fear and question it and decide whether that is. You know really valid fear or not, and often it is not and simply looking at the fear. Will make it go away?

Nojima Karim 27:02
That. That’s amazing. Thank you so much Elon for that response. We’ve run out of time, but I just wanted to highlight. A few things that I think I loved your comment Elon about. Obsessive curiosity. I believe that if we create. Young people who are compulsively and excessively curious. We will be able to 10 X the amount of innovation that entire countries in the world in general will be able to achieve. And I think on your point about fear. I think that is one of the most salient points that we can learn from entrepreneurs like like Elon here is that? All greatness. All change all progress requires risk. An without risk there is no progress. And I think that if the youth of Indonesia can actually start to realize and accept the fact that risk will be a constant if you want to grow if you want to achieve. And to make that as part of your.

Nojima Karim 28:18
Journey and to understand that managing that fear of which 99% of the things you’re scared of generally doesn’t really happen 1%, does happen, but 99% of the fears you have do not happen. Is something that you will need to control and manage in order to progress I cannot.

Nojima Karim 28:36
Thank you enough Elon for providing us. The time today. Thank you for inspiring us. Thank you for refusing to believe in the barriers of what is impossible. It is an honor to have been able to have this discussion with you. Thank you very much. Please another round of applause for Elon.

说话人 6 28:54
And, of course, give a round of applause to our greatest moderate are His Excellency Minister Nadima Carrie. Please stay on the stage as we’re going to continue for the photo station.