Elon Musk unveiled his next project on Thursday night: a sleek white and glossy humanoid robot, around the size of a man, designed to undertake "dangerous, repetitive, boring" work in the future. The Tesla Bot, as Musk calls it, will be ready for unveiling in prototype form early next year — but if it isn't, it wouldn't be the first time a Musk idea went nowhere.
Musk's mock-up robots onstage at a Tesla corporate event on Thursday night weren't even vaporware. One model was a statue-like figure who did nothing but a standstill. The other was a person dressed in a costume and wearing a mask who did a bizarre dance.
After the dancer ended, Musk remarked, "Obviously, that wasn't real." “There will be a Tesla Bot.”
Musk displayed a PowerPoint that detailed the robot's specifications. It will stand 5-foot-8 and weigh 125 pounds, with a peak speed of 5 mph, according to the presentation.
“Of course, it's meant to be friendly,” he explained.
The robot was revealed at the end of a live-streamed presentation that included technical details regarding Tesla's artificial intelligence initiatives.
Musk didn't say if he was kidding about the robot. He discussed the importance of providing a universal income to individuals who lose their employment as a result of robots taking over. “Physical work will be a choice in the future,” he said.
Musk has an adolescent fascination with science fiction jokes, which he incorporates into many of his public appearances and interviews, but he has also spoken seriously about the threat posed by advanced artificial intelligence and co-founded OpenAI, a company dedicated to keeping AI safe for humanity. Around the beginning of 2018, he cut connections with OpenAI.
Another of his businesses, Neuralink, is developing a brain-computer interface, and Musk has stated that upgrading human brains with processing capacity would enable humans to compete with future AI. He claims that Neuralink will be able to treat blindness, paralysis, deafness, and mental disease. Such assertions have been dubbed "neuroscience theater" by the MIT Technology Review.
Musk has a lengthy history of hyping inventions that don't pan out or come years behind schedule, despite his many achievements at Tesla and SpaceX, his rocket business. He's claimed for years that the firm will introduce a fleet of robotaxis driven by its Autopilot software, with a million of them by the end of 2020. He hasn't used a single one yet.
He predicted an electric semi-truck, a pickup-like Cybertruck, and a rocket-powered roadster years ago, but none of these have come close to becoming reality. While Tesla enables customers to "beta test" what it terms "Full Self-Driving" on public highways, experts say the company is still years away from fully autonomous driving. The Tesla Bot, on the other hand, will employ Autopilot technology, “making use of all of the same tools that we use in the car,” according to Musk.
He went on to say, "Our cars are semi-sentient robots on wheels."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated earlier this week that it is investigating why Tesla's largely robotic Autopilot feature has crashed into police cars, fire engines, and other emergency vehicles stopped by the side of the road at least 11 times. The collisions resulted in 17 individuals being wounded and one person being killed.
