Tech billionaire Elon Musk has released the newest prototype of his humanoid robot developed by his Tesla electric car company.
Tech titan Elon Musk has presented the latest prototype of a humanoid robot developed by his Tesla automobile company.
Tesla revealed its humanoid robot at the company’s artificial intelligence presentation on Friday (September 30) – to a mixed welcome.
The bot, dubbed Optimus, moved slowly and clumsily onto stage, before waving to the crowd and performing a hands-in-the-air dance. Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, said that this robot was created in February. He then made a U-turn and left the stage.
The robot was then hauled onto the stage and waved at the audience once more. Musk claimed that this more sophisticated version is closer to the robot that he expects to mass build and sell over the next three to five years.
In a few weeks, according to Musk, this version will be able to walk.
It’s not the first time a vehicle company has experimented with creating humanoid robots.
Musk hopes to be able to manufacture millions of these robots and sell them for less than $20,000 (€20,470) each, which makes Optimus unique.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done to refine Optimus and prove it,” he told the audience, adding later, “I think Optimus is going to be incredible in five or 10 years, like mind-blowing.”
The crowd at Tesla’s Palo Alto office was treated to a video showing the robot hauling boxes and picking up a metal bar at a business plant, but the robots on stage could only show off their ability to wave.
Optimus humanoid robot “missing a brain”
With the introduction of the Tesla Show, Tesla pooled together with other players in the humanoid robotics industry. Hyundai is the recipient of a series of humanoid and animal-like robots thanks to its 2021 acquisition of robotics company Boston Dynamics. Ford has partnered with Oregon start-up Agility Robotics, which makes broken robots with two legs and two arms that right out of the box can easily walk around and complete tasks.
But it was Honda’s 22-year-old humanoid Asimo that took center stage online. Unveiled by Japanese car company in 2000, and rolled out on tour at scheduled intervals ever since, Asimo finished running and jumping, and was best known for pouring tea at one particular demonstration.
Elon Musk postulated that the problem with artificial intelligence was not in the fact that there wasn’t a mind in the machine, but in the machines’ lack of the ability to learn. Tesla says that its automobiles make use of artificial intelligence that is being tried in its automobiles, where Full Self-Driving is being tested. Tesla claims that the same principle will be used to teach robots to do certain tasks.
During Tesla’s presentation, Elon stated that the robot could do more than they showed at the time, and that. “we just didn’t want it to fall on its face”.
ELON showcase off humanoid robot https://youtu.be/7yhQiy4phjc
0 percent demonstrated improvement of actual autonomy.
Tesla’s demonstration, however, did not show that Optimus was any more intelligent than previous robots created by other businesses and researchers.
Many professionals and skeptics who watched the presentation weren’t persuaded.
“Optimus has shown no real progress toward autonomy. Cynthia Yeung, head of product at Plus One Robotics, which develops software for logistics robots, described the situation as “very telling.”
She insisted that “none of this is cutting edge” in a tweet and advised Tesla to “employ some PhDs and go to some robotics conferences.”
One robotics specialist questioned the initial necessity of the humanoid form.
“A humanoid kind of shape and scale is not necessarily the greatest option when you’re trying to design a robot that is both economical and useful,” said Tom Ryden , Executive Director of the nonprofit startup incubator Mass Robotics.
Are humanoid robots simply a marketing gimmick?
Robots powered by driverless controls from the likes of Toyota and Honda have the potential of being able to walk, climb, and go over obstacles. But impressive demonstrations of past systems have not led to an across-the-board deployment of robots that live up to the hype.
“There’s a lot of learning that they’re getting from understanding the way humanoids function,” said by him. “But in terms of directly having a humanoid as a product, I’m not sure that that’s going to be coming out anytime soon”.
path of Terminator
Investors and financial analysts have voiced skepticism about Tesla’s decision to pursue robots, urging it to concentrate on initiatives more closely related to its core competency of electric automobiles.
But Mr. Musk claimed that he wished to address one of the most challenging issues in artificial intelligence: how to create a system that can take the place of a person. Tesla wants to ensure that the transition to a society in which machines did the labor and people got the benefits was a safe one, according to the entrepreneur who once warned that artificial intelligence might be a threat to civilization.
He warned against going down the “Terminator route,” alluding to the popular movie about a homicidal cyborg.
Other reviews and opinion about the Optimus humanoid Robot
- Musk, who has spoken before about the risks of artificial intelligence, said the mass rollout of robots had the potential to “transform civilization” and create “a future of abundance, a future of no poverty.” But he said he believed it was important that Tesla shareholders had a role in vetting the company’s efforts.
- “If I go crazy, you can fire me,” Musk said. “This is important.”
- Henri Ben Amor, a robotics professor at Arizona State University, said Musk’s price target of $20,000 was a “good proposition,” since current costs are about $100,000 for humanoid robots.
- Aaron Johnson, a mechanical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, also said the robot’s need was debatable.
- Tesla also discussed its long-delayed self-driving technology at the event. Engineers working on the auto self-driving software described how they trained software to choose actions, such as when to merge into traffic, and how they sped up the computer decision-making process.
- Musk said on Friday beta testing of Tesla’s full self-driving capability will be “technically” ready for global rollout by the end of 2022, but regulations represent hurdles.
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