Elon Musk’s Tesla said it is using technology tested out on self-driving cars to build a humanoid robot designed to assist humans in day-to-day work.
Prototype is set to be unveiled next year.
The news was announced on Tesla’s AI Day; which was streamed on the company’s website Thursday night.
The presentation began with a person in a robot suit performing a variety of dances on stage.
Musk quickly stepped in to assure everyone that “that was not real.”
He then said that the prototype of a humanoid robot with a similar design, called ‘Tesla Bot’, will be ready sometime next year.
The robot will stand at 5’8, have eight cameras and help owners eliminate “dangerous; repetitive; and boring tasks,” Musk said; also adding that the bot will be friendly and harmless to humans.
“At a mechanical level, at a psychical level, you can run away from it and most likely overpower it. Hopefully, that doesn’t ever happen, but you never know;” the businessman quipped, prompting laugher from the audience. “Essentially, the future of physical work will be a choice.”
Musk said Tesla has enough resources and experience in building self-driving cars to unveil a robot; one that can also theoretically be taught to do things like picking up groceries.
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.
The prospect of owning a Tesla Bot was enthusiastically met online; with some predictably bringing up famous AIs from films; such as the ‘Terminator’ saga and ‘I, Robot’.
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