Elon Musk unveils the Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot trained to eliminate ‘boring’

Tesla will build a humanoid robot called Tesla Bot that runs on the same AI used by Tesla’s fleet of autonomous vehicles, CEO Elon Musk has said.

The Tesla Bot would stand at 5’8” tall, weighing in at 125lbs, and able to move around at up to 8kmph. It would also have a screen where a human face would be to provide “useful information”, Musk said.

The bot is designed to be “friendly” and be adept at completing mundane or boring tasks for humans, as well as doing stuff that might be a bit risky for biological bipeds.

Background

The news of the of the robot was announced during Tesla’s inaugural AI Day, which was streamed on the company’s website Thursday night.

Musk, the company’s CEO, said that the goal is to have a prototype of the robot ready to go next year.

“Basically, if you think about what we’re doing right now with cars, Tesla is arguably the world’s biggest robotics company because our cars are like semi-sentient robots on wheels,” Musk said.

“With the Full Self-Driving computer, which will keep evolving, and Dojo and all the neural nets recognizing the world, understanding how to navigate through the world, it kind of makes sense to put that onto a humanoid form.”

He also said that the Bots would eliminate “dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks,” for example “go to the store and get … the following groceries” “Pick up that bolt”.

He added: “Essentially, in the future, physical work will be a choice. If you want to do it, you can, but you won’t need to do it.

The robot would have “profound” implications for the economy, Musk said, adding that it was important to make the machine not “super-expensive”.

Tesla Bot’s specifications

According to Tesla, the robot will stand 5′ 8″ tall and weigh 125 pounds. In addition, it will be able to carry up to 45 pounds (10 pounds with its arms extended) and deadlift 125 pounds. Finally, Tesla Bot will be capable of running at up to 5 mph.

Tesla Bot has 40 electromechanical actuators, including 12 in the arms, 2 in the neck, 2 in the torso, 12 in its hands, and 12 within its legs. In addition, its feet operate on 2-axises and provide force feedback sensing. Its body is made of unspecified lightweight materials, while its “face” will feature a display screen for “useful information.”