Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled his next big project: a humanoid robot called the Tesla Bot that runs on the same AI used by Tesla’s fleet of autonomous vehicles, called Autopilot, the most-talked-about AI-based system.
Though a functioning version of the robot didn’t appear during Musk’s reveal, a slightly bizarre dance by a performer dressed like a Tesla Bot did at the end of Tesla’s AI Day presentation. The electric automaker will launch the Tesla Bot humanoid robot prototype next year, designed for dangerous, repetitive, or dull work that people don’t like to do.
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The billionaire entrepreneur said the robot, which stands around five foot eight inches tall, would handle jobs from attaching bolts to cars with a wrench or picking up groceries at stores. The robot would have “profound implications for the economy,” Musk said, addressing a labour shortage. He said it was important to make the machine not “super-expensive.”
“It’s intended to be friendly,” Musk said, “and navigate through a world built for humans.”
In the past, Musk rallied against using robots as weapons and warned of the risks AI might pose — once calling it the “biggest risk we face as a civilisation”. During a Q&A session after the presentation, Musk said, “We should be worried about AI…what we’re trying to do here at Tesla is make useful AI that people love and is… unequivocally good.”
Musk said he hopes the robot is not perceived as something “dystopian” and that it could even “be your friend.”
In the past, Tesla’s fanciful ideas like a solar-powered Supercharger network, battery swapping, or robotic snake-style chargers never panned out. So it’s probably going to be a long while before the Tesla Bot does your grocery run.
