Why is Elon Musk the king of disruption?

26

September

2021

5/5 (1)

Since one of the core themes of the ‘Information Strategy’ module is disruption, I thought it’s worthwhile to write an article about the king of disruption – Mr. Elon Musk.

 You might think that naming Musk THE King of disruption is a bold assumption, but you will be convinced when you see the amount of industries he has shaken.

Financial industry

Back in 1999, Elon founded the company X.com. He envisioned the company as a digital banking and investment services site that offered everything from checking accounts to insurance, mortgage and bonds (Constanty, 2021). X.com was one of the very first online banking services. The company later became PayPal, one of the most successful FinTech businesses.  Nowadays the FinTech industry has been growing exponentially, and it is projected to reach 324 billion by 2026 (Zinchenko, 2021). Thus, Elon Musk significantly contributed to the current state of online banking services.

Automotive industry

In 2003, Elon founded Tesla. The tesla cars weren’t the first electric vehicles nor the first capable of autonomous driving. However, they are the best in the market for both energy and production efficiency. Additionally, Tesla’s chips are regarded as being 6 years ahead of Toyota and VW, and at least 3 years ahead of the most advanced Nvidia Orin chip (Park, 2020). Tesla cars are not only a leader in the technology behind the car, but also in their positioning and branding strategy. The company was able to surpass Mercedes as a leading luxury car brand in the USA.

Aerospace industry

In 2002, Elon founded SpaceX, with an ambitious objective to make humanity multiplanetary. Again, his technology is not the first, but rather the most efficient. SpaceX’s Falcon rockets are reusable, unlike traditional rockets in the industry. As such, SpaceX is providing up to 5x decrease in costs of getting a spacecraft into the sky in comparison to established aerospace companies (CBinsights, 2021).

 Telecommunications industry

Starlink is yet another company founded by Musk. It aims to provide satellite internet to the hardest-to-reach consumers, which the traditional telecommunication companies have failed to satisfy (CBinsights, 2021). Yet gain, Elon’s idea is offering better performance in terms of cost, speed and latency.

Are you convinced now that Elon Musk is indeed the king of disruption? If no – there are even more industries that will be impacted by this genius. If I dwell into everything, this blog post will be the length of a thesis. If you are interested, look up – ‘Hyperloop’ (transport disruptor), ‘The boring company’ (tunneling, infrastructure disruptor), Neuralink (healthcare disruptor) and Solarcity (energy disruptor).

Maybe he is an alien, maybe he is just a genius mastering the art of disruption.

References

CBinsights. (2021, April 24). From Energy To Transport To Healthcare, Here Are 8 Industries Being Disrupted By Elon Musk And His Companies. Retrieved from CBinsights: https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/elon-musk-companies-disruption/

Constanty, B. (2021, Feb 25). The Elon Musk Effect: The Timeless Power Of Disruption And Brand Authority. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2021/02/25/the-elon-musk-effect-the-timeless-power-of-disruption-and-brand-authority/?sh=152eb2cd7ee5

Park, T. (2020, Oct 12). Why Tesla Will Dominate Autonomous Driving. Retrieved from Simplify: https://www.simplify.us/blog/why-tesla-will-dominate-autonomous-driving

Zinchenko, P. (2021). Why is FinTech Growing: 3 Trends that Will Shape the Industry in 2021 and Beyond. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.mindk.com/blog/why-is-fintech-growing/

Featured image source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/369870

Please rate this

Can artificial intelligence be creative?

21

September

2021

5/5 (1)

 Over the ages the human race has been presented as a superior to all other living creatures. One of the arguments for such bold assumption was that there are attributes unique to humans, such as the ability to use tools, language and form complex social structures. This belief has been long dismissed with scientific evidence, as numerous creatures in the animal kingdom have the same attributes, just expressed in a different way (Bok, 2019). In the era of rapid technological innovations a new philosophical question about the uniqueness of humans has been baffling the minds of people – Are we superior to artificial intelligence?

 History tends to repeat itself. So, naturally, in order to answer the question of whether we are superior to AI, humans started to look for ‘unique’ human attributes that will differentiate us from the AI. One trait seems to dominate the discussions as inherently unique – our creativity. The definition of creativity is ‘the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas’ (Cambridge, n.d.). It has many forms –  form painting to writing novels and creating music.

The argument against the ability of AI to be creative is the fact that an algorithm can only preform what it’s programmed to do, thus it cannot achieve anything novel. Consequently, any achievement of the AI is a demonstration of the programmer’s ability, not the machine’s. However, this argument can also be used against human creativity (Vandegrift, 2016). Maybe you believe in God, Allah, Brahma or just Darwin, and if that’s the case, then our creativity can also be considered as a byproduct of someone or something. If we are the divine creators of AI, why shouldn’t we gift it the ability to be creative?

If we go back to the definition of creativity, it states: .. to produce OR use original and unusual ideas. Then if we think about it, AI is indeed using ideas ( given by the programmer) to create original and unusual products. In fact, various algorithms have already been showing creativity in many fields. The painting below is created by an AI that generates it based on a text input (Purtill, 2021).

Currently, there are so many examples of machine creativity that it even has it’s own field! If you are interested, check computational creativity. Below you can also find a very cool example of how humans and machines can work together and create some amazing art!

What do you think can AI be creative? Is it possible or is it indeed a trait unique to humans?  Let me know below 😊

References

Bok, V. (2019, September 7). What Distinguishes Us from AI? Retrieved from TowardsDataScience: https://towardsdatascience.com/what-distinguishes-us-from-ai-dc98f71de9a3

Cambridge. (n.d.). Creativity . Retrieved from Cambridge Dictionary : https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/creativity

Purtill, J. (2021, Jul 14). We asked a new kind of AI art tool to make ‘paintings’ of Australia. Retrieved from ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-07-15/ai-art-tool-makes-paintings-of-australia/100288386

Vandegrift, D. (2016, 10 Jun). Can Artificial Intelligence Be Creative? Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/@DavidVandegrift/can-artificial-intelligence-be-creative-40e7eac56e71

Featured Image source: https://artist.com/art-recognition-and-education/art-and-the-singularity-how-will-artificial-intelligence-creative-robots-change-art/

Please rate this