 | |
| Manufacturer | Tesla, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Year of creation | 2022 |
| Type | Humanoid |
| Purpose | General-purpose |
Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, is a general-purpose robotic humanoid under development by Tesla, Inc. [1] It was announced at the company's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Day event on August 19, 2021, [1] and a prototype was shown in 2022. CEO Elon Musk stated in 2022 that he thinks Optimus "has the potential to be more significant than [Tesla's] vehicle business over time." [2] [3]
On April 7, 2022, a display for the product was featured at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing facility during the Cyber Rodeo event. Musk said that he hoped to have the robot production ready by 2023 and claimed Optimus will eventually be able to do "anything that humans don’t want to do." [2]
In June 2022, Musk announced the first prototype that Tesla hoped to unveil later in 2022 at the second AI Day event and stated on Twitter that it would not look anything like the model displayed at the Cyber Rodeo event. [4]
In September 2022, semi-functional prototypes of Optimus were displayed at Tesla's second AI Day. [5] [6] One prototype was able to walk about the stage and another, sleeker version could move its arms. [7] [8]
In September 2023, Tesla released a video of Optimus demonstrating how it could perform new activities including sorting colored blocks by color, locate its limbs in space, and had increased flexibility as it could maintain a yoga pose. [9]
On December 13, 2023, Musk's X page released a video titled "Optimus" in which it shows Optimus Generation 2 walking and showing new features, such as dancing and poaching an egg. [10] [11] The Optimus Generation 2 features a slimmer figure with improved hands and movements. [12]
Tesla Bot is planned to measure 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) tall and weigh 125 lb (57 kg). According to the presentation made during the first AI Day event, a Tesla Bot will be "controlled by the same AI system Tesla is developing for the advanced driver-assistance system used in its cars" and have a carrying capacity of 45 lb (20 kg). [13] Proposed tasks for the product are ones that are "dangerous, repetitive and boring", such as providing manufacturing assistance. [14]
Soon after the first AI Day event, many publications reacted with skepticism about the proposed product. Bloomberg News claimed that such a product constituted "mission creep" and stood outside "the company’s clean-energy initiatives." [15] The Washington Post argued that "Tesla has a history of exaggerating timelines and overpromising at its product unveilings and investor presentations." [1] The Verge similarly noted that "Tesla’s history is littered with fanciful ideas that never panned out... it’s anyone’s guess as to whether a working Tesla Bot will ever see the light of day" [16] and, in an editorial, described the Tesla Bot reveal as a "bizarre and brilliant bit of tomfoolery". [17]
The progress made with the prototypes shown at the second AI Day was praised by some commentators. [18] Other commentators stipulated that all that was shown in these latest presentations had already been accomplished by other robotics programs, [19] and that there appears to be little to suggest Tesla could "outpace other companies working on similar things." [20]
Reactions across the robotics community to Optimus and its prototypes have been "diverse", with some experts commending the venture while describing early demonstrations as less than impressive. [21]
Carl Berry, a lecturer of robotics engineering, described the 2021 AI Day presentation as "the usual overblown hype." [17] Following the Tesla Bot display at the Cyber Rodeo event, researcher Gary Marcus stated he would "bet that no robot will be able to do all human tasks by the end of 2023." [2]
Regarding the second AI Day presentation, Deutsche Welle cited experts – AI researcher Filip Piekniewski, robotics expert Cynthia Yeung, and executive director of Mass Robotics Tom Ryden – calling the project a "complete and utter scam", questioning how advanced it really was, and criticizing the choice of a humanoid form. [22]
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$190 billion as of March 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $195 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas, which designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles, stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.
Gary Gensler is an American government official and former Goldman Sachs investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
George Francis Hotz, alias geohot, is an American security hacker, entrepreneur, and software engineer. He is known for developing iOS jailbreaks, reverse engineering the PlayStation 3, and for the subsequent lawsuit brought against him by Sony. From September 2015 onwards, he has been working on his vehicle automation machine learning company comma.ai. Since November 2022, Hotz has been working on tinygrad, a deep learning framework.
Tesla Energy Operations, Inc. is the clean energy division of Tesla, Inc. that develops, manufactures, sells and installs photovoltaic solar energy generation systems, battery energy storage products and other related products and services to residential, commercial and industrial customers.
OpenAI is a U.S.-based artificial intelligence (AI) research organization founded in December 2015, researching artificial intelligence with the goal of developing "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence, which it defines as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work". As one of the leading organizations of the AI spring, it has developed several large language models, advanced image generation models, and previously, released open-source models. Its release of ChatGPT has been credited with starting the AI spring.
The Tesla Semi is a battery electric Class 8 semi-truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2022. The truck is powered by three motors, and is claimed by Tesla to have approximately three times the power of a typical diesel semi truck, a range of 500 miles (800 km), and operate at an energy use of less than 2 kWh/mi (1.2 kW⋅h/km).
Gigafactory New York is factory leased by Tesla, Inc. in the Riverbend section of Buffalo, New York. The factory, owned by the State of New York, was built on brownfield land remediated from a former steel mill. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It produces the Tesla Solar Roof and Tesla Superchargers. Additionally, Tesla employs data analysts for its Autopilot software at the site.
Neuralink Corp. is an American neurotechnology company that is developing implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), based in Fremont, California, as of 2024. Founded by Elon Musk and a team of seven scientists and engineers, Neuralink was launched in 2016 and was first publicly reported in March 2017.
Sophia is a social humanoid robot developed by the Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. Sophia was activated on February 14, 2016, and made its first public appearance in mid-March 2016 at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, United States. Sophia is marketed as a "social robot" that can mimic social behavior and induce feelings of love in humans.
The Tesla Roadster is an upcoming battery electric four-seater sports car to be built by Tesla, Inc. The company has said that it will be capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds. The Roadster is the successor to Tesla's first production car, the 2008 Roadster.
Andrej Karpathy is a Slovak-Canadian computer scientist who served as the director of artificial intelligence and Autopilot Vision at Tesla. He co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI, where he specialized in deep learning and computer vision.
The Tesla Cybertruck is a battery electric medium duty full-size pickup truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2023. Introduced as a concept vehicle in November 2019, it features a triangular body design with flat sheet metal panels made of stainless steel.
The Tesla Cyberquad is an electric quad bike all-terrain vehicle (ATV) concept presented by Tesla, Inc., at the Tesla Cybertruck's November 2019 unveiling. Concluding the presentation at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, California, CEO Elon Musk announced "one more thing", at which point the ATV was shown being loaded onto the back of the Cybertruck. Observers have pointed to elements seen at the unveiling indicating that the Cyberquad prototype had been built by swapping the powerplant and plastics on a Yamaha Raptor. Certain images from the rear suggest the vehicle also appears to have a powertrain borrowed from Zero Motorcycles.
Gigafactory Texas is an automotive manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas built by Tesla, Inc. Construction began in July 2020, limited production of Model Y began before the end of 2021, and initial deliveries of vehicles built at the factory took place at an opening party called “Cyber Rodeo” on April 7, 2022.
Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.
Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.
Tesla Dojo is a supercomputer designed and built by Tesla for computer vision video processing and recognition. It will be used for training Tesla's machine learning models to improve its Full Self-Driving (FSD) advanced driver-assistance system. According to Tesla, it went into production in July 2023.
Elon Musk made $175.8 million when PayPal was sold to eBay in October 2002. He was first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, with a net worth of $2 billion. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$232 billion as of December 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $182.6 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
