Elon Musk reveals ‘self-replicating’ Optimus robot that clones itself – and says they’ll one day outnumber humans
TESLA’s new humanoid robot isn’t just coming for our jobs, it could outnumber us altogether, warns Elon Musk.
Musk has made an ominous prediction: the ratio of AI-powered humanoid robots to human beings “might be greater than one to one.”
At Tesla’s first-ever Investor Relations Day on Wednesday, at the carmaker’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, Musk updated investors on the latest developments to the “Optimus” robot prototype.
In his characteristically monotone style, Musk presented a video of the human-shaped robots.
They’re seen slowly walking around a lab, carrying robotic limbs and tools, as they carefully build one of their own – another Optimus robot.
Musk has wired Optimus to be self-replicating, sharing an eerie similarity to humanity’s capacity to reproduce.
“When we did AI Day [in 2021] this version of Optimus didn’t walk at all so the rate of improvement here I think is quite significant,” Musk said in the presentation.
“It’s obviously not doing parkour, but it is walking around and we have multiple copies I suppose of Optimus,” he continued.
Tesla has not yet revealed a timeline for when the robot will be publicly available.
Musk first revealed his plans for humanoid at Tesla’s AI Day event in 2021.
However, the initial debut was considered underwhelming by AI experts and investors, as it turned out to be a human in a robot suit rather than an actual prototype.
What will Optimus be used for?
“You could sort of see a home use for robots, certainly industrial uses for robots, humanoid robots,” Musk said in the presentation.
Musk also boasted about Tesla’s unique ability to build AI that actually exists in the world: “I don’t think there’s anyone even close to Tesla on solving real-world AI.”
Despite Musk’s determination to lead on AI and robotics, he indicated that he’s grappling with the economic and moral implications of creating technology.
That’s because the tech could not only outnumber humans but outpace them too, he said.
“It’s quite dangerous technology. I fear I may have done some things to accelerate it,” he said on Wednesday and admits the rate the technology is developing “stresses” him out.
If robots do outnumber humans, he lamented: “It’s not even clear what an economy is at that point.”
Tesla’s website states the bot can perform “unsafe, repetitive, or boring tasks,” hinting at its potential to replace low-skilled labor.
Robots have already been deployed in factories, particularly in light of labor shortages,
One estimate predicts that bots like Optimus could replace 40 percent of jobs within the next 15 years, including both white-collar and blue-collar work, Kai-Fu Lee, an A.I. venture capitalist, said in 2019.