Elon Musk is promising to reveal a working prototype of Tesla’s new Optimus AI robot at the company’s AI day event on September 30th, with the founder saying he feels production of the smart robots could begin next year.
Tesla is facing skepticism from experts that it will be able to demonstrate technological advances that could make the use of smart robots feasible in factories, homes, and other settings. However some note optimistically the company already makes extensive use of robots that perform specific assembly processes on its vehicles all throughout its factories. Others point out that humanoid robots such as Musk has promised have been under development for decades now by such big names as Honda and Boston Dynamics, but a commercial product with profitability has proven elusive.
Many have noted robots have difficulty adapting in real time to unpredictable circumstances. The lead of NASA’s Dexterous Robotics Team, Shaun Azimi, said in an interview, “Self-driving cars weren’t really proved to be as easy as anyone thought. And it’s the same way with humanoid robots to some extent. If something unexpected happens, being flexible and robust to those kinds of changes is very difficult.”
Still others note that Musk’s promises have fallen short in the past. Musk previously promised one million self-driving autonomous taxis by the year 2020 at an “Autonomy” event, however he still has yet to produce a single working model.
As a result experts are predicting the prototype that is presented will probably not be able to demonstrate much more than the most basic capabilities at the event.
Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University notes that to truly impress, Musk would need to produce a robot that could perform multiple, unscripted actions at the event. She added, “If he just gets the robot to walk around, or he gets the robots to dance, that’s already been done. That’s not that impressive.”
While Tesla is refusing to comment to media outlets, some have noted that Musk has also surprised people, from the global success of his EV company, to his rocket company SpaceX, even if he is often behind schedule on his projects.
Musk has said he expects the Optimus robot to initially perform dangerous or boring jobs, such as moving items around the factory.
Tesla has been posting job listings, with 20 listed as open at present, for work helping to create its AI robots. Some jobs are simply for designing key robot parts, such as “actuators.” One job posting said, “The code you will write will at term run in millions of humanoid robots across the world, and will therefore be held to high quality standards.”
Analysts, such as Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid, say, “It’s all part of distracting people and giving them the next shiny object to chase after.”
Many also do not see business potential in the endeavor. Gene Munster, managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures said, “Investors are not excited about Optimus. It’s just such a low probability that it works at scale.”
