With this robot, the Tesla boss hopes for "a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty"
Elon Musk on Friday showed off two prototypes of the humanoid robot Optimus, which his company Tesla hopes to one day produce in the “millions” to “transform civilization” and build a “future of abundance” where poverty is gone.
“Bumble C,” an early version of the robot, gingerly walked onto the California stage of the electric car maker’s annual “Tesla AI Day” conference on advances in artificial intelligence. The robot waved and was shown in a video delivering a package to an employee and watering plants. Employees also wheeled in a more advanced prototype of Optimus, with fewer exposed cables but still unable to walk on its own.
Performing repetitive tasks instead of humans
Elon Musk acknowledged that other organizations have designed more sophisticated robots, but “they lack a brain and they don’t have the intelligence to move on their own (…) And they’re very expensive,” he said. The Tesla boss aims for a robot that will ultimately cost “probably less than $20,000,” and will be designed to be replicated in “millions of units.” He is betting on first deliveries within three to five years. The conference is intended to recruit more engineers to achieve this goal, and thus “fundamentally transform civilization.”
The multi-billionaire presented this project of a robot that could perform repetitive tasks instead of humans in 2021. "That means a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty, where people will have what they want in terms of products and services," explained the boss of SpaceX (rockets) and Neuralink (brain implants), never stingy with extraordinary predictions. "A lot of people think we're just a cool manufacturer," but Tesla is also "the leader in artificial intelligence," assured Elon Musk.
"Moral obligation"
Since the announcement of the humanoid robot, "Musk has faced skeptics," noted analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities: "The market is focused on improving batteries, on the production capacities of new factories (Berlin, Austin) and on the competition from all sides for electric cars. Not on humanoid robots." The boss also divides opinion on autonomous vehicles, which he has been promising for very soon for years. A California agency filed a complaint in August against Tesla, accusing it of lying about these technologies.
But Elon Musk believes he has the best scores in safety tests. "You have a moral obligation to deploy (an autonomous system) if it reduces the number of accidents and deaths," he said Friday. "Even if you're going to have lawsuits and criticism, because the people whose lives you saved don't know it, whereas when people occasionally die or are injured, the states know if there was a problem with the autopilot," he added.
“Catgirl version”
Elon Musk plans to test Optimus at the company’s California factory to prove its usefulness. He hopes the robot will one day be “friendly” and that talking to it will feel “natural.” He also promised safety features, to avoid a “Terminator scenario.” “Of course there will be a catgirl version of our Optimus robot,” the whimsical entrepreneur tweeted during the conference, along with a photo of a female silhouette from behind, standing in front of a line of metal robots. He also said twice that it was “essential” that the company building the robot be listed on the stock exchange, “because if the public doesn’t like what Tesla is doing, the public can buy shares and vote differently.”
“It’s very important that I can’t just do whatever I want,” he added with a laugh.
This comment will not go unnoticed in the context of the conflict between him and Twitter, which is set to lead to a high-stakes trial in mid-October. The richest man in the world signed a contract in the spring to buy the social network, before reversing his decision in July. The platform is suing him to force him to honor his commitment. Elon Musk had said he wanted to make Twitter a private company (not listed on the stock exchange), which would therefore escape any external control.