Elon Musk’s new robot has some concerned
Elon Musk has revealed a new walking, talking robot … and not everyone is convinced.
Tesla’s “We, Robot”, event, held at Warner Brothers studios in Los Angeles on Thursday, saw the launch of two new autonomous vehicles – the Robovan and Cyber taxi
But it was the new robot Optimus which caused the most surprise.
“Kill it with fire,” said one reply to a post of the humanoid robot as footage of it interacting with event attendees emerged.
Others compared to Sonny in 1996 Will Smith I, Robot where robots turn on mankind.
Optimus will ‘be your friend’
Mr Musk has posted videos of the robot before. However, up to now, they hadn’t been able to mingle with the public.
“One of the things we wanted to show tonight was that Optimus is not a canned video, it’s not walled off,” Mr Musk said as a troupe of the Optimus bots appeared on stage with him.“The Optimus robots will walk among you. Please be nice to the Optimus robots,” he added.
Mr Musk suggests Optimus could “do anything you want” including babysitting, serving drinks, act a as a teacher and even “be your friend”.
On screens at the event. Optimus was dubbed “Autonamoius assistant, humanoid friend”.
‘Impressive’
Each will cost between $30,000 and $45,000 each. But Mr Musk didn’t give a timescale for when Optimus could be ready.
“It will take us a minute,” he said at the presentation.
Videos from the event showed the white clad bots handing out gift bags and chatting with people with its distinct Californian accent.
Optimus’ language appears natural with one asking an attendee where they live and upon finding out asking if the hiking is good in that area.
“First impressions are impressive: natural and mind-blowing,” said one.
“I think this will be the biggest product ever, of any kind,” Mr Musk said of Optimus, modestly.
“Of the eight billion people on earth I think everyone will want their Optimus buddy, maybe two”.
The robots would usher in an “age of abundance,” he added.
The robots could point, interact and do basic tasks, one report said, and several danced around.
However, some are sceptical of Optimus’ talents, suggesting it was more of a gimmick. It’s claimed that the majority of the robots’ actions at the event – and perhaps its chat mode too – were due to human controllers.
Others saw Optimus as a scary vision of the future which, at best, would make swathes of jobs redundant. And, at worse, take an active dislike to its creators.
The look of the robots seemed uncannily like the bots in I, Robot. Even the event’s name We, Robot, evoked the movie where the robots try and subjugate humans.
“I, Robot was not a movie after all. Let’s see how soon they take over,” said one commenter.
“I have seen this film. It does not end well for us”.
“I was creeped out,” said another.
The event also saw the launch of two new vehicles from Tesla.
The Cybercab has a unique futuristic design, which features butterfly doors, and no steering wheel or pedals.
Mr Musk claimed that the cost of a bus is around $US1 per mile but the Cybercab will be 20 US cents per mile and “yes you will be able to buy one”.
“We have millions of cars that are driving and training,” said Mr Musk.
“With that amount of training data, it will be much better than what a human can be, because you can’t live a million lives, it can see in all directions simultaneously, it doesn’t get tired, or text, it will be ten or twenty times safer than a human”.
Mr Musk also introduced the Robovan, designed to transport up to 20 passengers and solve “high-density” and reduce “the cost of travel”.
“Can you imagine going down the street and you see this coming towards you?
“That will be sick,” he said.
Autonomous ride hailing has long been a part of Mr Musk’s plans.
He said at the event that “he wants to change the look of the roads”.
“The future should look like the future,” he told the audience.
Any launch of the technology in Australia would require changes to road rules.
Tesla is not the only company working on autonomous vehicles.
Rival concerns including Google’s Waymo are well underway with limited trials on public streets in the US.
