If you have followed the world’s most wealthy Human over the last few years, One of Elon Musk’s most significant fears is the future of AI and in his words, “the potential it has to end civilization”. So his recent obsession with The Optimus Tesla bot is somewhat contradictory in nature – or is it?. He has pushed forward with the development of a robot that will take on a very human form and will be powered with the same AI systems being developed for Tesla autonomous driving systems.
Elon says that “physical work will be a choice” in the future, and “Tesla is arguably the world’s largest robotics company. Our cars are basically semi-sentient robots on wheels”. This statement takes me back a little as I actually own a Tesla and I’ve been fortunate enough to be selected into the FSD beta program. The latest software stack being used in Tesla’s is called Full Self Driving Beta. This is a feature-complete beta version of car’s software that will ultimately become fully autonomous (self-driving) vehicles. It is an eerie feeling to have the car drive you from point A to point B without any need for interaction by you. While the release of this is very limited, it is a fantastic look into the near future of AI.
Tesla is certainly not the only company working on humanoid AI robots, however, with the resources they can muster, I’m sure the results will be mesmerizing. He’s been on an intense hiring spree lately gathering up talented engineers. It’s interesting to hear Elon say that the robots will be “friendly”. He never does anything without a purpose, so maybe his push to develop “humanoid form AI” is a direct result of his fear of AI being hijacked for nefarious reasons – possibly to get ahead of this to control it?
The first-generation robots will be about the same size and weight of an average human, about 5’8 and 125 Lbs. Optimus will be built to handle mundane repeatable tasks needed to be completed around the Tesla factories such as moving various parts from point A to point B (like FSD Beta), simple assembly of subsystems, and maybe even running errands outside of the plants.
The introduction of the Optimus prototype will be unveiled at AI Day2, on Sept 30th, 2022. I can’t wait to see what is to come. Interesting Video, take a few minutes to watch.