The future of robots could soon be here.
You’ve probably watched a robot film already. As we all know, most of those plots show robots as the new servants in the human world. Surprisingly, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is set to make this fantasy into reality. In its latest event of AI Day, the billionaire introduces its own version of ‘Tesla Bot.’
What is Tesla Bot?
On Thursday, Aug. 19, Tesla CEO Musk proudly announced the initial design of its humanoid robot, Tesla Bot.
Introducing ‘Optimus,’ Musk revealed the design of its robot. Not to break the hype, but the humanoid robot featured at the event was not really a robot per se. As explained, the “humanoid robot” is only a man wearing a costume with the supposed real design of the robot.
According to Musk, this was only the teaser for the future projects of his company, other than making electric vehicles. Though it’s only an actor, the billionaire reiterated that “the Tesla Robot will be real.” He said that the prototype could be launched next year– which based on Musk’s past statements may not be as believable as he wants it to be.
Tesla Bot: Features you may be amazed to know
Tech Crunch reported that Tesla Bot, as expected from movies, could do simple tasks like picking up groceries. According to Musk, the robot can do repetitive tasks just like humans today.
However, one thing to take note of, is that the Tesla Bot will not work at first.
Musk said that the bot will weigh 125 pounds and have a walking gait of 5 miles per hour. It will also have a functioning screen in its face which displays its information.
Elon also explained why he did the robot in the first place:
“Basically, if you think about what we’re doing right now with cars, Tesla is arguably the world’s biggest robotics company because our cars are like semi-sentient robots on wheels,” Musk said. “With the Full Self-Driving computer, [ … ] which will keep evolving, and Dojo and all the neural nets recognizing the world, understanding how to navigate through the world, it kind of makes sense to put that on to a humanoid form.”
Will this push through?
CNBC report said that the 2nd richest man in the world already promised a lot of things in the past years. Going back, in October 2016 at Universal Studios, Musk was cited promising a product called Solar Roof. Unfortunately, that project has not shown any progress for the past five years.
Another project was the promise of one million ‘robotaxis’ at the end of 2020. Musk said that the production was expected to start right away, but promises are broken again.
Let’s also take note of Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ feature on its vehicles. For over the past years, Musk had been updating the world in its promise of a fully automated driving feature for Tesla. Now, the US Senate and FTC are looking to investigate the said feature due to its yearly delays.
Musk finished off by inviting engineers to “join our team and help us build this.”
Leave a Reply