Electric cars, solar panels, tunnels, flamethrowers, amphibious trucks… Why not make robots too? On Friday night Elon Musk unveiled the first working prototype of his humanoid robot Optimus to demonstrate Tesla’s advances in Artificial Intelligence. The company’s experience in developing self-driving vehicles has made this possible. The robot, like cars, uses radars and cameras to detect signals from the environment and interpret them.
The robot, with stature and corpulence similar to that of a human, is capable of picking up and transporting boxes or watering plants, as was shown in the videos of the presentation. But when he came on stage, he could barely walk without falling to the ground. “It’s the first time he’s walked without being attached to a wire,” Musk acknowledged.
The robot’s capabilities are not revolutionary, and are even far from demonstrations carried out years ago by organizations such as Boston Dynamics. However, Tesla has wanted to show it to attract talent because unlike other apparently more sophisticated robots, this is going to be the first of many millions, according to the millionaire’s vision. Optimus is designed from the ground up to consume little power, cost less than $20,000, and can be taught to perform a multitude of tasks based on the needs of the consumer.
For Musk, the development of large-scale robots is an opportunity to multiply the productivity of nations and eradicate poverty. He believes that thanks to these battery-powered humanoids, the efficiency of manual labor would be increased in such a way that no one would have to go hungry. It’s been the dream of writers since they invented the concept of robots: heartless slaves who help us do the tasks that nobody wants to do. But there are those who fear that these “intelligent” humanoids end up posing a danger to humanity, a concern shared by Musk, who stresses the importance of Tesla being a public company that can scrutinize the development of these robots.
The robot features a 2.3 kWh battery, a Tesla-made processor, and Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity. It has the basic joints to perform numerous movements typical of humans such as wrists, knees and elbows. In order to use them and to be able to carry out daily or specialized activities, Tesla has managed to equip it with actuators that study the strength, orientation and rhythm of each joint to carry out tasks efficiently and precisely.
His hands are inspired by ours, and have five fingers unlike the prototypes of other companies that tend to prefer hook-shaped grips, more suitable for routine precision tasks. The human body has many muscles that aren’t really necessary for a robot, since a robot doesn’t need to scratch its back, cut its toenails or do a cartwheel, so Optimus doesn’t perfectly replicate our ranges of motion , but the strength of our muscles: more powerful in certain movements.
If the ambitious vision of the entrepreneur is carried out, robots could help people who cannot fend for themselves, build buildings or manage warehouses. They could even be used as sexual partners, he joked. The truth is that at the moment no company specialized in the development of robots is even close to being able to put on sale an autonomous robot that replaces humans in more than one task, no matter how simple they may be.
However, the project has its virtues as it was designed from the beginning in learning: its autonomy – the robot is much more efficient than a human at rest, Musk promised -, its low cost, and its design to be mass produced. , something that no other company has been able to seriously consider.
Some promises of Elon Musk are fulfilled, many others are not. And being able to have a robot that waters our plants or sleeps with us (for those who are interested) is, without a doubt, the most incredible of all.