Tesla’s Optimus robot is developing at a pace that might even startle some robotics fans. He runs faster and even has a factory job. Maybe it will be the next one and, if you believe Tesla CEO Elon Musk, even babysitting your kids.
Wait a second. What?!
During a long-time and sometimes wandering Tesla shareholders During the meeting on June 20, 2024, Musk discussed the market potential of his humanoid Optimus robot.
Musk believes his Optimus robot could help Tesla’s bottom line by selling for $20,000 each. billions. How he came up with that number is a bit unclear, but he started with how the car market sells about 100 million vehicles a year and extrapolated from there.
We built @Tesla_Optimus from the ground up – and it’s already being tested in our factories pic.twitter.com/TDWZXeM74WJune 13, 2024
If there’s a robot for every person, maybe he’s right, and you can’t blame Musk for any irrational exuberance. As Musk noted, “Granted, I’m a little optimistic sometimes. You know, I don’t have a complete lack of self-awareness. But if I wasn’t optimistic, this wouldn’t exist, this factory wouldn’t exist.” to exist.”
And then Musk crossed the red line. He explained that Optimus is designed to do just about anything you want it to do. Optimus “can be your companion, it can be in your home, it can kind of babysit your kids. It can teach them…,” Musk told shareholders.
You caught that, right? Okay, he says “kind of,” but you’ve seen Optimus (and other similarly designed humanoid robots); I doubt you want them near your babies.
Musk’s comments come a week after Tela released an update video showing Optimus walking around Tesla’s offices less hesitantly than previous models (it still can’t trot or parkour). It even shows Optimus at work in its first Tesla factory job, where it looks to be deployed in the packaging industry. In the video, small containers are placed in a box.
At some point the robot loses a pot and then carefully realigns it. All his movements are slow, deliberate and passionless.
It’s not that I think Optimus will drop or hurt your baby (I have no idea), but a cold, metal and plastic dispenser shouldn’t hold, cuddle and burp your baby. Maybe Musk wants his robot to take care of one of his eleven children. Admittedly, he has his hands full and could use help. However, robots are not the answer.
More pragmatically, it is this kind of rhetoric that could deter potentially willing humanoid robot customers. Yes, as Musk noted, we want C-3PO and R2-D2. There are many boring, heavy and even dangerous jobs in and around the house. I wouldn’t mind if a robot could handle all those spam calls. No one I know wants a robot to take over our most human tasks.
I’m not a fan of adults handing small children their phones or tablets to “babysit” them, but at least no one expects these devices to monitor and care for small children. Usually their only responsibility is distraction so that the parents can have some peace and quiet.
Don’t expect Optimus to arrive at your local daycare anytime soon. Musk predicted possible limited production in 2025, and even then Tesla could only produce 1,000 robots per year.
“We’re going to make sure these robots are nice to us. That’s very important,” Musk said, and that’s a worthy goal. Also, keep your damn dirty robot hands off my babies.