The future is automated. Elon Musk, who has always been known for his radical ideas, like staring his own EVM company, sending a car to space and trying to manipulate cryptocurrency markets, is perhaps on the pathway to create what could perhaps turn into a ‘The Terminator’ movie scenario. CEO Musk on Thursday said the electric automaker will probably launch a “Tesla Bot" humanoid robot prototype next year, designed for dangerous, repetitive, or boring work that people don’t like to do. Speaking at Tesla’s AI Day event, the billionaire entrepreneur said the robot, which stands around five foot eight inches tall, would be able to handle jobs from attaching bolts to cars with a wrench, or picking up groceries at stores. The robot would have “profound implications for the economy," Musk said, addressing a labour shortage. He said it was important to make the machine not “super-expensive."
On Thursday some questioned whether Musk, who has frequently touted technology advances at showpiece events only to scale plans down later on, would be able to come good on his aims for the robot.
“Is the ‘Tesla Bot’ the next dream shot to pump up the hype machine?" said Raj Rajkumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “I can safely say that it will be much longer than 10 years before a humanoid bot from any company on the planet can go to the store and get groceries for you."
The news of the Tesla Bot wasn’t missed on Twitter - in fact it was met with speculation and like always, memes.
When I surprise my girlfriend at home and find Tesla Bot’s shoes outside pic.twitter.com/RYUgvZhjlJ— Bazinga (@BBingBBoom7) August 20, 2021
When my Tesla Bot connects automatically to my girlfriends wifi pic.twitter.com/loNthCqkVN— Bazinga (@BBingBBoom7) August 20, 2021
My Tesla bot going to 7/11 to grab me a slurpee pic.twitter.com/Oc6ym0bDn2— ⚡️StarBoy⚡️ (@jacintotoobeast) August 20, 2021
Me trying to figure out how to teach my Tesla Bot to twerk pic.twitter.com/1zMTwa3gQs— Bazinga (@BBingBBoom7) August 20, 2021
Where have I seen Elon musks Tesla Bot before…. pic.twitter.com/JHNmetEwPa— CaptainMB (@capnyuji) August 20, 2021
Me running into a Tesla Bot at the Mall Food Court for the first time be like: pic.twitter.com/0aNOBeHVFV— Danny Armstrong (@DArmstrong44) August 20, 2021
Me seeing the first Tesla Bot in public #TeslaAIDay pic.twitter.com/OVUaUMKFfW— JOΞL (TheTVA.eth) (@AgeOfJoeltron) August 20, 2021
Elon Musk trying to comfort that one Tesla Bot that gets assigned to work in Detroit pic.twitter.com/gFFMf1hnaE— Bazinga (@BBingBBoom7) August 20, 2021
why they make the tesla bot petite and submissive pic.twitter.com/7h52JdUJSB— bryce (@pollen196) August 20, 2021
My Tesla Bot after I forget to say “Please” and “Thank You” to Siri pic.twitter.com/mnGKjBrPoP— Bazinga (@BBingBBoom7) August 20, 2021
when the Tesla bot is recharging so there’s no one to kill the bug in my apartment pic.twitter.com/0NgGyK1abG— Knyck Sutherland (@KnyckSutherland) August 20, 2021
But some really saw the announcement as what it was: a leap in technology, the start of perhaps ground-breaking things to come.
August 19, 2021.This day goes down in history as when @elonmusk announced Tesla Bot at Tesla AI Day.
We'll look back in 10 years and understand how significant today really was. pic.twitter.com/ky0gZNYFEO
— Dave Lee (@heydave7) August 20, 2021
Tesla and Elon Musk announced tonight that they are working on a Tesla Bot.Many fail to realize the car company is really a technology business. pic.twitter.com/z59RWUTYBi
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) August 20, 2021
The AI Day event came amid growing scrutiny over the safety and capability of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving" advanced driver assistant system. Musk didn’t comment on that scrutiny over the safety of Tesla technology but said that he was confident of achieving full self-driving with higher safety than humans using current in-car cameras and computers.
U.S. safety regulators earlier this week opened an investigation into Tesla’s driver assistant system because of accidents where Tesla cars crashed into stationary police cars and fire trucks. At the event on Thursday Tesla also unveiled chips it designed in-house for its high-speed computer, Dojo, to help develop its automated driving system. Musk said Dojo would be operational next year.
He said Tesla will also introduce new hardware for its self-driving computer for its Cybertruck electric pick-up truck in “about a year or so."
Tesla in July pushed back the launch of its much-anticipated Cybertruck from this year, without giving a timeframe for its arrival on the market.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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