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Elon Musk Reveals Plans to Unleash a Humanoid Tesla Bot

upstart writes:

Elon Musk reveals plans to unleash a humanoid Tesla Bot:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk ended a deeply technical AI Day event [(3h3m21s)] with a head-turning announcement: a humanoid robot.

After a dancing human dressed as a robot moved off stage at Thursday's invitation-only event in Palo Alto, California, Musk introduced Tesla Bot. It will be based on Tesla's Autopilot system and is essentially a humanoid form of the car. Musk considers the electric vehicles "fully sentient robots on wheels." So might as well make it a human-like bot!

The bot looks like a human with two arms (and two hands with five fingers) and two legs. It'll stand at 5 feet 8 inches and weigh 125 pounds. It can only run 5 mph, which Musk assured was slow enough for most people to escape if something goes wrong: "If you can run faster than that it’ll be fine."

Most importantly, Musk said it would be friendly ("of course") and operate dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks as it "navigates a world built for humans."

Musk repeated that the humanoid would have a screen on its head and eight cameras, like on Tesla cars that can drive with assistance from Autopilot. "It's all the same tools we see in the car," he said.

Elon Musk Reveals Tesla Bot, a Humanoid Robot Utilizing Tesla's Vehicle AI

upstart writes:

The story continues at c|net:

Elon Musk reveals Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot utilizing Tesla's vehicle AI:

Three slides detailed the robot's proposed specifications and Musk made sure he pointed out you could both outrun the Tesla Bot and "overpower" it. He has, in the past, rallied against the use of robots as weapons and warned of the risks AI might pose -- once calling it the "biggest risk we face as a civilization." I guess if they're your incredibly slow, easy-to-overpower robots, the dangers are reduced.

One particular slide said they would eliminate "dangerous, repititive, boring tasks" and Musk provided an example suggesting the robot could be told to "go to the store and get ... the following groceries."

A prototype would likely be ready next year, he said.

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