Elon Musk has said his artificial intelligence-powered Tesla robots will carry out people’s ‘boring’ and ‘repetitive’ jobs... and in even better news, they won't be powerful or fast enough to overthrow humanity.
The Bots stand at 173 cm (5ft 8in) tall, weigh 57 kg (125lb) and are powered by the same AI system Tesla is developing for its driverless cars.
On its ‘head’ there will be a screen to carry ‘useful information’ with a carrying capacity of 20 kg (45lbs) and it can lift a maximum of 68kg (150lbs)
Musk says the Bots will be able to carry out mundane tasks, and in the future could even act as sort of robot butlers in ‘millions of households’. You can see him talking about the Tesla Bots here:
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Musk unveiled his Tesla Bots last year, but shared more details about his plans for the robots in a recent article he wrote for China Cyberspace magazine.
He said: “Tesla Bots are initially positioned to replace people in repetitive, boring, and dangerous tasks. But the vision is for them to serve millions of households, such as cooking, mowing lawns, and caring for the elderly.”
Speaking in a presentation last year, Musk joked that humans would be able to ‘run away from’ and ‘overpower’ the Bots.
He said: “It's intended to be friendly, of course, and navigate through a world built for humans. Eliminates dangers, repetitive and boring tasks.
“On a mechanical level, at a physical level, you can run away from it, and most likely, you can overpower it, hopefully that doesn’t ever happen, but you never know. It’ll be a light… five miles per hour, if you can run faster than that, you’ll be fine.”
Musk went on to say that using the same chips and sensors as his Tesla vehicles, the robot will be able to follow simple instructions such as going to the store and buying a specific item.
Giving an update on when the robots may be released, Musk said: “We plan to launch the first prototype of a humanoid robot this year and focus on improving the intelligence of that robot and solving the problem of large-scale production.
“Thereafter, humanoid robots’ usefulness will increase yearly as production scales up and costs fall. In the future, a home robot may be cheaper than a car. Perhaps in less than a decade, people will be able to buy a robot for their parents as a birthday gift.
“It is foreseeable that with the power of robots, we will create an era of extreme abundance of goods and services, where everyone can live a life of abundance. Perhaps the only scarcity that will exist in the future is for us to create ourselves as humans.”
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Topics: Elon Musk, Technology, Tesla
Claire Reid