Elon Musk presented Tesla's new project: a humanoid robot

Elon Musk presented Tesla's new project

Elon Musk presented Tesla Bot, a humanoid automaton able to move with agility in the world to perform repetitive, boring or dangerous tasks

(Photo: Tesla) The new project that will engage Tesla in the coming years will be able to move with agility and awareness in the world, recognizing obstacles and communicating with human beings. It will not be a new electric car, but a surprising humanoid automaton called the Tesla Bot. And he will have a very specific goal: to make himself available to complete dangerous, repetitive or boring tasks. In short, doing the so-called dirty work.

The characteristics of Tesla Bot

It was an enthusiastic Elon Musk who told the project, directly from the stage of the special event organized by the electric car company and dedicated to artificial intelligence. Accompanying the Tesla CEO is also a non-working mockup of the robot, similar to a sort of black and white mannequin, about 175 centimeters tall and weighing 56 kilos.

The feeling is that they have chosen each other. reassuring dimensions, avoiding the disturbing Terminator effect that would have aroused a giant and mighty robot, preferring instead a more graceful shape. But despite the gentle appearance, Musk stated that Tesla Robot will be able to carry a load of 20 kilos without problems and lift weights up to 68 kilos, while the maximum walking speed will be 8 kilometers per hour.

Here is the full video of the event. Tesla Bot five and a half minutes after the start of the second hour of presentation. In perfect Musk style, after a first serious video teaser there was also a witty moment with a dancer disguised as an automaton, before removing the veils from the real static prototype and going into the details.

The head of the humanoid will be a large screen that will show clearly legible information, while the body will be moved by 40 motors with 12 in the arms, 12 in the legs, 12 in the hands (which will have a precision of human movement ), 2 in the neck and 2 in the torso. The cameras will be mounted inside the head, while the motherboard in the chest, just like a sort of Tesla Bot's brain and heart. There will be sensors for balance, to detect objects, obstacles, people, animals or vehicles and other components, for example to detect force. To make it intelligent, we will rely on the Dojo supercomputer that already trains cars today.

Tesla enters the robot business

Elon Musk stressed that Tesla is already in effect a company which produces semi-sentient robots since it has put smart electric cars on the road that can move on their own and interact with humans. The next step is precisely to exploit the knowledge accumulated so far in an application as useful as that of robots serving the community, which can operate alongside humans. The robot will be developed so that it can understand natural language, becoming as autonomous as possible without having to be given too many instructions each time. For example, he will be able to perform the task when he is told: “Can you take that bolt and screw it to the machine using that wrench? ".

(Photo: Tesla) According to Musk's thinking, Tesla Bot will have to move with caution in the world, be friendly and make himself available for a series of unattractive jobs because they are to be carried out in dangerous environments or because they are extremely repetitive and boring. There are many examples: industrial environments with toxic elements, high productivity assembly lines, intensive agricultural tasks and so on. However, it is not utopia to imagine that Tesla Bot can assist humans in rescue operations and emergencies in the event of environmental disasters or building collapses. A series of scenarios so far read in books or seen in science fiction films, with related problems concerning an artificial intelligence that deviates from its own course. All that remains is to wait for a working version of Tesla Bot, to be able to compare it to the automata already shown in recent years such as the forefather Honda Asimo or the versatile and agile model of Boston Dynamics.






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Artificial intelligence Robot Tesla globalData.fldTopic = "Artificial intelligence, Robot, Tesla"

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