Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, introduced a new anthropomorphic robot Optimus, transmits Reuters. Tesla AI Day 2022 presentation video published The border. According to Musk, the robot was developed in February 2022.
A test prototype of the robot greeted the audience during the presentation, and Musk showed a video of the robot performing simple tasks like watering plants, transporting boxes, lifting metal bars at a manufacturing station in a California facility. The robot presented, according to Musk, is more advanced and close to the version that Tesla intends to put into production. In a few weeks, Musk said, Optimus will be able to walk. “I think Optimus will be amazing in 5 or 10 years, just mind blowing,” said the head of the company.
The next-generation robot will use components from Tesla, including a 2.3 kWh battery (to be housed in the torso), a chip system and limb actuators. The robot will weigh 73 kg. The price of the model will be $ 20,000.
During the speech, Musk expressed hope that Tesla will be able to begin accepting orders for the production of Optimus in three to five years and described further development efforts ahead of more than a decade to come. According to Musk, existing humanoid robots “lack brains” and the ability to solve problems on their own. Optimus, on the other hand, will be “an extremely capable robot”.
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Tesla’s drive to create a robot for the mass market sets the company apart from other manufacturers who have experimented with humanoid robots, Reuters notes. Musk himself said at the presentation that the Optimus demonstration is part of an attempt to make Tesla a more significant company in the field of artificial intelligence and to get rid of the status of a company that simply produces “cool cars”. Already Elon Musk spokethat the robot business could become even “more significant” than Tesla’s car business.
According to Musk, Tesla’s robotics business “is not directly related to accelerating the transition to sustainable energy,” which is inconsistent with Tesla’s stated mission. However, according to the founder of the company, with the advent of Optimus, the mission “has somewhat expanded” and now goes something like this: “to make the future amazing”.
The presentation was aimed at a technical audience hoping to attract engineers to the company, Reuters writes. Musk noted that the introduction of robots could “transform civilization” and create “a future of abundance, a future without poverty”. But he pointed out that he believes it is important for the company to be controlled by shareholders. “If I go crazy, you can fire me,” Musk said.
From the cost of the robot it follows that it is a very cheap labor: $ 1 per hour for 12 hours of work per day for 4 years. According to Reuters, Twitter’s feedback on Optimus has been mostly positive. Arizona State University robotics professor Henri Ben Amor told the agency that the $ 20,000 price tag is “a good deal,” as similar models currently cost around $ 100,000.
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