(San Francisco) Elon Musk on Friday unveiled two prototypes of the humanoid robot Optimus, which his company Tesla hopes will one day “transform civilization” by “millions” and build a “future of abundance” where poverty disappears.
Posted on September 30th
“Bumble C,” an early version of the robot, carefully made its way onto the stage in California, where the company’s annual “Tesla AI Day” conference was held to discuss its progress in artificial intelligence.
The robot drew a hand salute and the video showed it bringing a package to an employee and watering the plants.
Employees took the wheel in a more advanced prototype Optimus, with fewer exposed cables, but still unable to walk on its own.
Elon Musk acknowledged that other companies have built more advanced robots, but “they don’t have a brain and they don’t have the intelligence to move on their own.” […] And they are very expensive,” he said.
Tesla’s boss is aiming for a robot that will eventually cost “probably less than $20,000” and be designed to be replicated in “millions of units.”
The conference was to be used to recruit more engineers to achieve this goal, thereby “fundamentally transforming civilization”.
The multi-billionaire submitted this project in 2021 for a robot that could perform repetitive tasks instead of humans.
“This means a future of abundance, a future without poverty, where people can have what they want in terms of products and services,” the boss of SpaceX (rockets) and Neuralink (brain implants) explained in detail the promises.
According to him, it is “urgent” that the company building this robot be listed on the stock exchange, “because if people don’t like what Tesla is doing, people can buy shares and vote differently”.
“It’s important that I can’t do what I want,” he added with a laugh, a comment that echoes a conflict between him and Twitter that will lead to a trial in mid-October.
Elon Musk signed a deal to take over the social network in the spring before reconsidering his decision in July. The platform is suing him to force him to honor his commitment.
Elon Musk has said he wants to make Twitter a private company (not listed on the stock exchange) so it can escape external control.
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