Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot that uses the same AI as Tesla’s fleet of self-driving cars. A working version of the robot did not emerge during Musk’s unveiling, but a rather odd dance by a dancer costumed as a Tesla Bot did.
The surprise announcement occurred at the end of Tesla’s AI Day presentation, with Musk offering little information about the rather scary, Slenderman-like robot beyond a few PowerPoint slides. He expects the 5-foot-8-inch robot to weigh 125 pounds and be made of “lightweight materials.”
Its head will be outfitted with the autopilot cameras used by Tesla vehicles to assess their surroundings, as well as a screen to show information. Internally, it will use Tesla’s Full Self-Driving computer.
“It’s designed to be nice and traverse a world made for people,” Musk joked.
The debut of the robot followed a 90-minute presentation showcasing some of the artificial intelligence advancements powering Tesla’s electric vehicles, such as the Dojo supercomputer, which helps train cars to traverse metropolitan streets without human assistance. “It makes logical to put it onto a humanoid body,” Musk explained.
Three slides described the planned specs for the robot, and Musk made care to emphasize that you could both outpace and “overpower” the Tesla Bot. He has previously raged against the use of robots as weapons and warned of the dangers that artificial intelligence (AI) may bring.
One presentation stated that the Tesla Bot would remove “dangerous, repetitive, and monotonous jobs,” and Musk offered an example, implying that the robot might be instructed to “go to the supermarket and acquire… the following goods.” Although such work is not exceptionally hazardous, you may find it monotonous and dull.
It’s difficult to predict how long away such a future is, but there’s a big difference between showing off a few PowerPoint slides and providing a real, functional humanoid robot. It will most likely be a long time before you can acquire your bread and milk from the Tesla Bot, but Musk stated that a prototype would most likely be available next year.
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