In January 2018, the city of San Francisco became the first in the american west to pass a measure outlawing the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies.
In 2014, Tesla CEO Elon Musk blamed overreliance on industrial robots for sending the electric carmaker to “production hell,” saying humans were better at certain jobs.
How times have changed.
Tesla is reportedly planning to use humanoid robots, known as Optimus, known as Tesla Bot or Tesla, and increasing them around the world, according to job postings on Texas. Tesla is having more internal meetings on robots, a person familiar with the matter has said.
Musk said at a TED Talk that robots could be used in homes, making dinner, mowing the lawn, and caring for the elderly in the future, and even become a “buddy” or “catgirl” sex partner.
Musk, however, hopes to go further than simply making self-driving electric vehicles with the company, which he now says might one day be worth more than Tesla’s car business.
Musk said at Tesla’s “AI Day” on September 30 that an Optimus-like prototype from his project will be unveiled next year, indicating that it would be powerful and benevolent. Production could begin next year, he said.
Tesla is being questioned about whether it has made technological advances that would justify the expense of “general purpose” robots in factories, homes, and other places, according to technology experts, investors, and analysts interviewed by Reuters.
Tesla already employs hundreds of robots to perform specific tasks during production of its cars.
Honda and Hyundai Boston Dynamics have been working on human-like robots for decades. Even though the robots have the ability to react to unforeseen circumstances, they can’t.
In regard to self-driving cars, NASA’s Dexterous Robotics Team lead Shaun Azimi says, “They weren’t really proved to be as easy as anyone thought. And the same thing occurs with humanoid robots to some extent.”
“It’s difficult to be flexible and robust to unexpected changes if something happens.”
Musk made the promise of one million robotaxis by 2020 at an “Autonomy” event in 2019, but has yet to deliver one.
Experts think that Musk’s robots will be able to demonstrate basic capabilities at the event, but it will be difficult for them to exceed popular expectations of robots that are as smart as humans.
Tesla will need to demonstrate multiple, unscripted actions handled by robots to succeed, says Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University. This could help Tesla stock, which has fallen 25% from its 2021 peak.
She said, “It’s already been done if he just gets the robot to walk around or he gets the robots to dance. That’s not that impressive.”
Despite some delays, Musk proved naysayers wrong by kick-starting the electric car market and building a rocket company, SpaceX, in the past. Tesla did not respond to Reuters’ request for comments, but Musk has in the past proved critics wrong by catapulting the electric car marketplace and developing a rocket firm, SpaceX.
OUR OWN EXPERIENCE.
According to Musk, at first, Optimus will have to perform boring or dangerous tasks, such as moving parts around its factories.
As humanoid robots don’t have enough intelligence to navigate the real world without being explicitly instructed, Musk acknowledged this.
He said Tesla can use its expertise in artificial intelligence and key components to develop and produce smart, yet cheaper, humanoid robots at scale.
Tesla is seeking to hire about 20 people to work on bi-pedal humanoid robots in addition to the current 20 “Tesla Bot” job postings, which include roles for designing key robot parts.
A code you will write will at time run in millions of humanoid robots across the world, and therefore will be held to high quality standards, one of the job postings said.
Tesla has over 2 million vehicles in circulation.
Jonathan Hurst, the chief technology officer of Agility Robotics, a humanoid robot firm founded in 2015, said technology is now starting to turn the corner.
Tesla’s humanoid robot efforts, he said, are an important measure of success.
Would human help be helpful?
Sam Abuelsamid of Guidehouse Insights sees more pageant than product. “It’s all part of distracting people and giving them the next shiny object to chase after,” he said.
“Loup Ventures isn’t particularly excited about Optimus,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures. “It’s just such a low probability that it works at scale,” he said, explaining that “it’s infinitely more difficult than autonomous vehicles.”
Musk has had firsthand experience with robots in the factory.
Musk identified the ‘fluff bot’ as one of the problems of the 2018 production hell period. It was unable to perform straightforward tasks that human hands could accomplish – such as picking up fluff and placing it on batteries.
It cost way more to hire someone to do the assembly than it did to hire technicians to maintain the complicated robot.
“The fluff bot is a good example of the point being made, as it shows that autonomy doesn’t always extend to all aspects of a process, and so handling soft, fluffy material that is not as predictable as a rigid part was causing a big problem,” said mechanical engineering professor Aaron Johnson of Carnegie Mellon University.
Musk said, “Human hands are way better at doing that.”
