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Tesla’s Optimus: Humanoid robots before autonomous cars? 

  • ajitjaokar 
Screenshot-2022-10-02-22.28.32

At first impression, humanoid robots do not have much in common with autonomous cars.

But both are autonomous devices.

Hence, lessons learned in creating autonomous cars could be applied to developing autonomous robots.

That is the hypothesis behind the Tesla Optimus autonomous humanoid robot demonstrated by Tesla this week at the Tesla AI day.

Some background

  • Tesla’s AI Day 2022 is mainly pitched as a recruiting event.
  • Tesla showed early prototypes of a humanoid robot. Tesla is developing batteries and actuators for them.
  • Optimus humanoid robots are expected to be available in 3 to 5 years.
  • The robot walked around without mechanical support. 
  • The audience was shown a video of Optimus performing simple tasks, such as watering plants, carrying boxes, and lifting metal bars.
  • The cost is expected to be lower than $20,000.
  • There is an emphasis on AGI. 
  • Musk believes that Tesla is an excellent entity to do this from a governance standpoint because Tesla is a publicly-traded company with one class of stock – and in that sense, the public controls Tesla. 
  • The bot is designed to do basic tasks kike going to the supermarket and buying groceries.
  • But the long-term vision is that the bots would work in Tesla factories.
  • Tesla has a dedication to the human form, i.e., you could, in theory, make non-humanoid robots. But Tesla is explicitly dedicated to humanoid robots.
  • The process of autonomous AI is improved by techniques such as auto-labeling technology. 
  • IEEE Spectrum provides a more detailed analysis of the technology behind the Optimus bot

In my view, the most important observation with the Optimus development is that automation’s building blocks are transferable across platforms, i.e., from autonomous vehicles to autonomous bots.

That helps both autonomous systems and also AGI. 

But one impact of humanoid AI is Anthropomorphism.

To conclude, I see this as a good development for AI overall through the development of autonomous systems. 

Source: Tesla video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suv8ex8xlZA

Image source: Tesla

Humanoid robots before autonomous cars? Optimus – Tesla humanoid robot prototype 

At first impression, humanoid robots do not have much in common with autonomous cars.

But both are autonomous devices.

Hence, lessons learned in creating autonomous cars could be applied to developing autonomous robots.

That is the hypothesis behind the Tesla Optimus autonomous humanoid robot demonstrated by Tesla this week at the Tesla AI day.

Some background

  • Tesla’s AI Day 2022 is mainly pitched as a recruiting event.
  • Tesla showed early prototypes of a humanoid robot. Tesla is developing batteries and actuators for them.
  • Optimus humanoid robots are expected to be available in 3 to 5 years.
  • The robot walked around without mechanical support. 
  • The audience was shown a video of Optimus performing simple tasks, such as watering plants, carrying boxes, and lifting metal bars.
  • The cost is expected to be lower than $20,000.
  • There is an emphasis on AGI. 
  • Musk believes that Tesla is an excellent entity to do this from a governance standpoint because Tesla is a publicly-traded company with one class of stock – and in that sense, the public controls Tesla. 
  • The bot is designed to do basic tasks kike going to the supermarket and buying groceries.
  • But the long-term vision is that the bots would work in Tesla factories.
  • Tesla has a dedication to the human form, i.e., you could, in theory, make non-humanoid robots. But Tesla is explicitly dedicated to humanoid robots.
  • The process of autonomous AI is improved by techniques such as auto-labeling technology. 
  • IEEE Spectrum provides a more detailed analysis of the technology behind the Optimus bot

In my view, the most important observation with the Optimus development is that automation’s building blocks are transferable across platforms, i.e., from autonomous vehicles to autonomous bots.

That helps both autonomous systems and also AGI. 

But one impact of humanoid AI is Anthropomorphism.

To conclude, I see this as a good development for AI overall through the development of autonomous systems. 

Source: Tesla video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suv8ex8xlZA

Image source: Tesla