Towards an Optimal Design: What Can We Recommend to Elon Musk?

Authors

Martine Ceberio, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Hung T. Nguyen, New Mexico State UniversityFollow

Publication Date

4-1-2024

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-24-22

Abstract

Elon Musk's successful "move fast and break things" strategy is based on the fact that in many cases, we do not need to satisfy all usual constraints to be successful. By sequentially trying smaller number of constraints, he finds the smallest number of constraints that are still needed to succeed -- and using this smaller number of constrains leads to a much cheaper (and thus, more practical) design. In this strategy, Musk relies on his intuition -- which, as all intuitions, sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. To replace this intuition, we propose an algorithm that minimizes the worst-case cost of finding the smallest number of constraints.