Elon Musk likes to have a theme on which to focus and focus all his energies, and after spaceships, this 2022, it seems that theme could be robots . At a Tesla shareholder meeting a few weeks ago, Musk told investors that his plans to make robots had the potential to be more significant than the electric car business over time.
Change electric cars for humanoid robots
The robot in question, part of a project called Optimus , was presented last year, to the amazement of the attendees and the entire community that followed the event through the network, by a human in a robot suit who danced in stage. Of course, the performance went viral, with thousands of views on the video and tons of memes.
The Tesla Bot, as it was dubbed, would use the same artificial intelligence systems that helped power Tesla vehicles, Musk said at the event last August, but acknowledged no prototype had yet been made. He also said the robot, which is planned to be about 1.75 meters tall, would have a screen on its face and could lift more than 100kg in weight and move at about 5km per hour, the average walking speed of humans. humans.
Serious labor shortage
Just this week, Musk told investors that the first application of the humanoid robot would be developed at a Tesla plant by moving parts around the factory and adapting car-building machinery to robot-building. Going forward, however, Musk sees his robots as the perfect solution to the labor shortage that he says is hitting the electric car industry (of his own at least).
At the end of last January, Musk tweeted that Tesla’s artificial intelligence could play an important role in AGI (artificial general intelligence), since it is developed and tested in the real world, and therefore can be applied to its Optimus robots. AGI refers to a machine’s ability to learn or understand tasks currently performed by humans. Musk previously warned that AI is at risk of wiping out human civilization. And in the same Twitter thread, he added that decentralized control of robots will be critical to the development and evolution of humans.
developed intelligence
Some robotics and artificial intelligence experts say that adjusting the AGI is an exceptionally difficult problem. The idea that AGI can be cracked because a driverless car has been created is ludicrous, say those most critical of Musk’s plans.
Google and Facebook have hired the best AI researchers in the world and the idea that Musk can go in and solve the problem first time is extremely arrogant.
