After dominating the electric vehicle industry and tossing his hat into the billionaire space race, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled his newest frontier: humanoid robots named Tesla Bots.
The entrepreneur stated on Thursday, per CNBC, that an early prototype of an androgynous "Tesla Bot" will be ready shortly.
Musk said the robot, which will be based on the same technology as Tesla's semi-autonomous vehicles, would execute simple repetitive chores, removing the need for people to make risky or boring labor.
Elon Musk Reveals the Tesla Bot
The Tesla Bot is a strange-looking robot because of its humanoid form. It takes on the shape of a human person rather than a face or picture. However, it was built in that manner because Tesla and its CEO want to replace people in their daily tasks.
According to the vaguest of briefing slides obtained by The Verge, the Tesla Bot will stand five feet, 1.7 meters (eight inches) tall and weigh 56 kilos, as the dubstep and clapping subsided (125 pounds).
The Tesla Bot offers a methodical approach to robotics that has never been seen previously in other scientific endeavors. Furthermore, Tesla would create artificial intelligence (AI) to power the robot and control its every task and function while learning.
According to Reuters, Musk announced the debut in 2022 during the "AI Day" event, which was live-streamed to learn more about the new business.
Tesla Bot to Revolutionize Robotics
Tesla's Tesla Bot may have been a top-secret project for years. This is due to its primary concentration on its electric car endeavor, complete self-driving, neural network AI, and other Tesla features.
Bot is not directly on the path of accelerating a sustainable energy future, but it aspirationally improves the probability that the future is good
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2021
Musk responded to several queries regarding the Tesla Bot on August 21, stating that it does not necessarily match Tesla's aim of a sustainable future. What it does imply, though, is that "the future is good," implying that the Tesla Bot will be more of what it appears to be.
Musk also believes that it will be utilized for future Mars expeditions to serve as labor without jeopardizing human lives.
Hopefully
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2021
Robot Is Just a Tesla Without Wheels, Says Elon Musk
Musk claimed that constructing a human-replacement robot - something no other business has come close to doing - was a natural progression from Tesla's work on self-driving vehicles.
Tesla, he added, is likely the world's largest robotics firm since vehicles are semi-sentient robots on wheels, according to NBC News. He went on to say that putting that into a humanoid shape makes logical.
Lmao this is how he made his announcement? pic.twitter.com/6Ktybjyeav
— Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) August 20, 2021
It was a weird and clever act of tomfoolery, even by Musk's standards:
- A multifunctional sideshow that mocked Tesla doubters;
- Fed the fans;
- Inflated the stock price; and
- Generated some eye-catching headlines.
The latter is especially significant given that most of Tesla headlines this week. The Verge said the US government opens a probe into Tesla Autopilot that crashed with parked emergency vehicles.
Check out more news and information on Elon Musk in Science Times.