Elon Musk, the genius behind companies like Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, has become one of America’s go-to futurists and source of arcane, utopian insight for the digital age. Musk has accumulated more than enough technological savvy to develop and manufacture his innovative concepts firsthand. But what truly captivates the public is his commitment to creating sustainable products, utilizing affordable energy, and ensuring the world’s overall safety for future generations. For the most part, he operates with the general public’s best interests at heart, which should make it easy for people to trust him. Yet upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Musk’s fascination with manifesting an ideal future stems not only from altruism, but his own long-held astronomical dreams and superhuman fantasies.
Because his projections and promises are often too good to be true, Musk lost some credibility over time and disappointed his companies’ shareholders. Although he has extensive scientific aptitude, Musk’s ego tends to get in the way and damage his reputation. Firstly, he repeatedly gets involved in national—and sometimes global—situations that he has no business interfering with. He also takes any negative criticism extremely personally and struggles to contain his angst while tweeting—up to 400 times per month. Because Musk airs his dirty laundry on social media for all the world to see, his innermost character defects (impulsivity, obsessiveness, all or nothing mentality, stubbornness, irrationality, and defensiveness) inevitably come to the forefront. Even though Musk has one of society’s most brilliant minds, he struggles to make a lasting impact in the public square by biting off more than he can chew or failing to live up to expectations.
From a psychological standpoint, Musk deeply yearns to play the archetypal role of the hero figure. And generally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with that—trying to save the day and help others is a noble act. But Musk isn’t merely rescuing a cat from a tree; he’s interfering in complex dilemmas that either involve millions of people or are urgent matters of life and death. At times, the scale is so enormous that a small glitch could result in disastrous consequences. And Musk jumps into many grave situations, even though he’s not the right person for the job, as if he views himself as a superior contender compared to anyone else involved. In order to be an efficacious public intellectual, it’s important that Musk recognizes he doesn’t reside in some specialized, upper-echelon division of society. Being a famous CEO doesn’t automatically give Musk the green light to uproot entire cities, sell flame-throwers and dive head first into every new passion project of the week.
I’m not saying that he should hold himself back, but what ever happened to humility? As Steven Mack powerfully emphasizes in “Are Public Intellectuals a Thing of the Past?”, “all participants in self-government are duty-bound to prod, poke, and pester the powerful institutions that would shape our lives.” The key word here is all. Because for a democracy to function successfully, everyone deserves an opportunity to contribute. So when Musk tries to singlehandedly override everyone who’s been deeply involved in resolving a pressing conflict—especially if it’s outside his realm of technical expertise—he’s basically hijacking a pre-existing team dynamic. Time and again, Musk prematurely makes executive decisions on his own accord.
For example, just last year in Thailand, twelve children were trapped in an underwater cave. Luckily, professional divers who knew the terrain and had ample experience in rescue missions were already in the process of saving the kids. Meanwhile, back in America, Musk felt inclined to construct and promptly send a miniature submarine to assist in their mission. The fact that he had hardly any experience with deep sea diving and lacked inside information about the mission’s status must not have crossed his mind. Unfortunately, his unrequited mini-sub was of no use to the divers and “had no chance of working.”
One can only assume that Musk truly believed he could do a better job at rescuing the children than the Thai divers, which reveals his arrogance. The media also interpreted his behavior as bigheaded and ignorant, but maybe he lacks an accurate understanding of his limitations. Even worse, the divers resented Musk’s involvement and felt that he should have stayed in his own lane, so to speak. When British spelunker Vern Unsworth commented that Musk should “stick his submarine where it hurts,” the surly entrepreneur called him a “pedo guy” and “child rapist” on Twitter. In response, Unsworth promptly sued Musk for defamation. This entire exchange could have been avoided and serves only to illuminate Musk’s immaturity and lack of insight—both qualities that render a public intellectual foolish.
In the words of Professor Steven Mack, every citizen has the potential to exert influence and galvanize cultural trends in some respect. But what happens if the crux of one’s conversation takes place in a far distant future? It’s difficult to know for sure if Musk’s arguments are grounded in hard facts because the main event he speaks of—the singularity—hasn’t yet occurred. For this reason, he’s a total wildcard. Moreover, the subject of Artificial Intelligence is still considered new and quite esoteric. Yet Musk has been urging the government to enact regulations before it’s too late and AI androids are used as weapons of mass destructions. According to the recent documentary Do You Trust This Computer? robots are becoming so advanced that they soon could replace humans as the dominant species. Throughout the film, Musk takes a preventative stance as if responsible for educating and warning the public of impending doom. In this sense, (and because the possibility of surviving an upcoming robotic-apocalyptic situation is inherently compelling) Musk’s point of view is extremely relevant. In one sequence, he emphasizes that we humans can either neurologically merge with AI or accept imminent extinction. For his plan B, Musk’s goal is to colonize Mars to relocate the whole population if AI turns against humanity.
While absorbing this unsettling information, viewers are left to figure out who they trust as a leader moving forward. Even though there are few options, Musk appears levelheaded and extremely well-versed in the overlapping fields of business, technology and communications. So it comes as a relief to learn he’s already made progress with Neuralink and SpaceX. At the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk stated that in around four to five years you’ll be able to “flash data from your brain, wirelessly, to your digital devices or to virtually unlimited computing power in the cloud.” Is this a scary proposition? Yes. But even Musk himself is “haunted” by what could go wrong if cyborgs “destroy mankind.” So maybe it’s a good thing after all that he continues troubleshooting our future; after all, one zany solution is better than no solution at all. But whether or not Musk is adequately prepared to tackle the aforementioned nightmare scenario is still up in the air.
In his previous societal interventions, most of which were unwarranted, Musk didn’t fully consider the opinions of those whom his actions would directly affect. Blinded by optimism and an unyielding drive for high ideals, Musk will tout unrealistic plans to fix what ever he finds unacceptable—like LA traffic or fake news. Take the latter, for example. In May of last year, Musk tweeted about moving forward in forming an online database called Pravda, where “the public can rate the core truth of any article and track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor and publication.” But what spurred this notion? Well, turns out that Musk was badly ego-wounded by negative press. So the ulterior motive behind Musk’s seemingly generous act of justice was to stop journalists from circulating pejorative articles chronicling his companies’ mishaps.
To his chagrin, the public wasn’t so fond of Pravda. Many claimed that crowdsourcing the truth on the web was a delusional suggestion because ultimately, reality is “manipulated, degraded and propagated in online spaces.” Furthermore, as a supposed authentic voice of scientific reason, Musk shouldn’t have prioritized his wishes above everyone else’s. Simply put, genuine intellectual thought-leaders can’t be selfish nor overtly biased whilst raising awareness about a given issue because that would render their input utterly defunct.
Another one of Musk’s questionable endeavors was his “Boring Company,” which aimed to mitigate interstate traffic by digging tunnels underneath city highways. Analysts remarked that instead of reducing the amount of vehicles on the road, this renovation would merely spur people to purchase more cars instead of opting for public transportation. Wait…what was Musk’s lucrative company called again? Oh right, Tesla—an electric car manufacturer. Yet again, Musk’s self-interest may very well be the motor propelling his ideas forward. I don’t want to believe he uses his fame in attempt to boost sales under the guise of selfless humanitarianism, but it sure looks that way. Regardless, manipulative tactics are fueled in part by greed, which I believe is the underlying culprit as to why there’s a dearth of responsible, astute public intellectuals in this day and age. However, I forgive Musk for his momentary lapse in judgement because he has consistently emphasized that his lifelong motivation behind his work has nothing to do with amassing wealth nor attaining prestige. Instead, Musk resolutely wants his visionary companies to not only outlive him but to significantly improve people’s quality of life.
If Musk’s companies somehow manage to eventually link our brains with iCloud or lead us to other planets, his impact upon society would be legendary. And if his myriad of creative ventures come to fruition, Musk’s legacy will forever change the course of history. But in 2017, Musk told The Rolling Stone that we only have a 10% chance of surviving AI. Unlike many other futurists who insist they’re always right or espouse outright lies, at least Musk admits when he isn’t sure about something. “I don't have all the answers,” he explained to the magazine. “I’m trying to figure out the set of actions I can take that are more likely to result in a good future. If you have suggestions in that regard, please tell me what they are.” Now this is the Elon Musk I was initially interested in writing about before delving into the nitty gritty of his less admirable exploits. This is Elon Musk at his best—vulnerable, pragmatic and a valuable team player for the sake of humanity, and all with no semblance of greed nor egotism in sight.
Today, he’s become a vital link between powerful corporations and the masses who utilize them, providing a steady supply of output readily available for purchase around the globe. However, only a fraction of the world can afford Musk’s products, meaning his sphere of consumer influence is somewhat limited to the middle and upper class. In regards to his interplanetary aspirations and neural lace, most families don’t have time to ponder the likelihood of a potential robot takeover. The parents struggling to afford rent and feed their children on minimum wage are likely focused on what they can do now to improve their situation here, on earth—not what they’d do 50 years from now on Mars or some other distant nebula! In this sense, Musk’s hypothetical plans and cryptic theories to one day save the species are currently of little use.
In conclusion, Musk functions as America’s essential canary in the coal mine by alerting us of what's yet to come. He's taken the initiative to safeguard a benevolent future for all beings in the face of potential AI threats. This reveals he’s a lot more than an entrepreneur; in Elon's own words, he has “a duty to maintain the light of consciousness, to make sure it continues into the future.” At the end of the day, Musk influences society by posing crucial, loaded questions we’ve all been avoiding as well as providing solutions that he plans to relentlessly pursue attaining, ad infinitum.
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Great article! The development of AI has the potential to truly transform the society as we know it. But more intriguingly, I think people should pay more attention to singularity and what that means for human civilization. If and when we have created an AI that is drastically smarter than us, what is going to happen to human? How will the super AI treat us? These questions deeply trouble me and I think it would be interesting to hear some more public intellectuals' opinion on this particular issue!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting article. Do you believe that he is a humanitarian in a pure sense or is it a mere cover to increase his public image? In most cases, businesses in capitalistic societies care about the bottom line only- not to say that companies don't give back but at the end of the day they exist to make a profit. I'm wondering, as a CEO, if his attempts to "save the human race" are overshadowed by his companies needing to turn a profit and himself answering to shareholders- if the two are ever at odds what will he do?
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting to hear about Elon Musk, and how his public image can sometimes negatively overshadow his more noble humanistic ambitions. However, should his persona and his mishaps undercut his intellect as a professional? And what makes him a public intellectual - his accolades in science or his status as a billionaire/success entrepreneur?
ReplyDeleteThis was a great read. At first I was disenchanted by your skepticism of Elon Musk’s work, but the more I read into it the more I found myself agreeing with you. He is a brilliant engineer and an all around entertaining figure in the realm of science, but it is like he is trying to be a real life Tony Stark. There is nothing wrong with his supposed efforts to help people, but he instantly undoes his trusted savior image when he returns cheap shots to critics.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps his insane drive and quarks are what make him so great. He is not a comic book character, he is a real man. In that there are limitations. Yet he strives to push his own limits, in things like Tesla. Where his entire salary as CEO is based on his ability to reach a number of absurd monetary goals. In the past he has talked about equipping the world with free wifi, this is the lane I would like to see Elon stay in.