Experts ’ judgment on the important- hyped Tesla Bot Elon Musk speedruns robotics 101/ Roboticists were impressed by how fast Tesla’s masterminds assembled Optimus but said the machine was n’t anything close to a advance
Elon Musk has eventually unveiled a prototype of the important- hyped Optimus robot
— a bipedal machine that the Tesla CEO imagines will one day be vended as a “ general purpose ” bot that’s cheaper than a auto and inversely able of working in manufactories and doing chores at home.
The donation of Optimus at Tesla’s AI Day was laced with the usual Musk intoxicants of hype and misdirection. But it also offered roboticists an admirably detailed look at some of the machine’s factual capabilities. Their judgment? That Tesla’s masterminds have done inconceivable work in such a short space of time but that Optimus is still further hype than reality a exploration robot that will take numerous times to develop into anything meaningful.
Before we dive into the experts ’ opinions, however, let’s recap what we saw on the day.
Two robots were shown. The first, named Bumble C, was a “ rough development robot ” seen walking across the stage and carrying out tasks in prerecorded demonstrations like picking up a watering can and moving boxes. The alternate robot was described by Musk as “ fairly close to what will go into product ” and had an external covering. But it was only used as a mount, wheeled about behind Musk and only shown signaling its hands.
Musk repeated his ambition to produce “ a useful creatural robot as snappily as possible, ” one that can be “ made in veritably high volume, eventually millions of units ” and that will “ bring much lower than a auto — much lower than$,000. ” He latterly claimed that contriving such a machine will allow for “ a future where there's no poverty ” and a “ abecedarian metamorphosis of civilization as we know it. ”
We got some introductory specs for Optimus( but, as with the conception bot, it’s unclear if they ’ll be true coming time we get an update). It weighs 73 kg, has 28 degrees of freedom in its branches, and is powered by a2.3 kWh battery that Tesla claims lasts for a full day of work. The stage- eschewal mechanical point is hand modeled after a human’s, and Tesla showed how it’s been porting over the software used to power itself- driving buses for navigation and control.
In a Q&A at the end of the donation, Musk repeated enterprise that the bot could “ be like a friend ” one day and said guests will be suitable to order one “ within three times, presumably not further than five times ”( though it’s not clear if he meant businesses or individualities).
So, that’s the bare data about what was said and shown on stage. But what did the experts have to say? Then’s some of their responses, from interviews with The Verge and judgments participated on social media.