Elon Musk takes Tesla's creepy Optimus robot for a walk
By Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline
Published: 05:19 EST, 1 February 2024 | Updated: 05:37 EST, 1 February 2024
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Elon Musk has shared amazing footage of his Optimus robot, which he hopes will one day assist people around the home.
Tesla's billionaire owner posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) showing the nearly 6-foot-tall humanoid taking a stroll around the factory floor.
Musk – who routinely posts clips showing the machine's impressive capabilities – said in the post: 'Going for a walk with Optimus.'
Viewers replied by jokingly expressing their concerns about robots taking over the world.
One replied: 'This ain’t gonna go over well', while another said, 'It's awesome until robots start killing humans'.
Optimus, Tesla's almost six-foot-tall humanoid robot, can walk at five miles per hour, deadlift 150 pounds and carry 45 pounds
Musk - who routinely posts clips showing the machine's impressive capabilities - said in the post: 'Going for a walk with Optimus'
Height: 5ft 8
Weight: 125lbs
Carry capacity: 45lbs
Deadlift: 150lbs
Speed: 5mph
Availability: TBC
Cost: $20,000 or less
Others compared it to the 'NS5' robots in the 2004 American science fiction action film 'I, Robot'.
Another user remarked: 'He looks like he has to go to the bathroom.'
Several X users suggested the speed of the machine is similar to US President Joe Biden, now 81 years old.
However, others seemed genuinely impressed, with one saying: 'Love these Optimus updates. Great seeing the improvements.'
Another added: 'Gait is a lot more natural looking than I expected.'
Notable in the video is the absence of a white metal covering the robot's chest, meaning its inner parts are visible.
Optimus was first announced at Tesla's AI Day event in August 2021, but more than two years later there's no official confirmation of when it will be released to the public.
The first prototype of the robot was unveiled a year later, although it couldn't do much more than walk across the stage and wave.
Tesla revealed an updated prototype of the humanoid robot ('Gen 2') in a clip in December 2023, even though the first version never went on sale.
X (Twitter) users replied by jokingly expressing their concerns about robots taking over the world
Several users suggested the speed of the machine is similar to US President Joe Biden, now 81 years old
'Already walks faster than the leader of the free world': But can President Biden deadlift 150 pounds?
Musk posted the video on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption: 'Going for a walk with Optimus'
Several others suggested the speed of the machine is similar to US President Joe Biden, now 81 years old
A video shows Optimus Gen 2 walking, doing squats, and picking up an egg
In the video, Gen 2 is shown picking up and holding an egg without breaking it, thanks to advanced tactile senses in its fingers.
Earlier in the year, another promo video showed Optimus demonstrating its balance as it moved through some basic yoga poses and stood on one leg.
Optimus stands at nearly six foot tall, is able to walk at five miles per hour, and can deadlift 150 pounds according to Tesla.
Optimus includes the Autopilot computer used in the company's electric cars, which allows the humanoid to recognise real-world objects.
Musk has described it as a factory worker but one that could also make an 'incredible buddy like R2D2 or C3PO' for the everyday user in the home.
It's been designed to handle 'dangerous and boring' tasks in a factory and other settings, although it will be 'friendly' and make a 'very good companion', like a pet.
It should be able to handle a range of jobs – from attaching bolts to cars with a wrench, to picking up groceries in shops.
Optimus Gen 2 can pick up an egg without breaking the shell due to its advanced tactile senses in its fingers
Optimus could make an 'incredible buddy like R2D2 or C3PO' from Star Wars (pictured) for the everyday user in the home
Musk noted that, unlike killer robots, the Tesla bot could be physically overpowered by the average human – suggesting it's less of a danger than it looks.
The South African-born entrepreneur has already been highly vocal about his concerns over AI, calling it 'much more dangerous than nukes' and 'more risk than North Korea'.
Customers will be able to buy Optimus between 2025 and 2027, according to Musk, with a retail price of 'probably less than $20,000' (£16,000).
More updates could be given at Tesla's next AI Day event, which wasn't held in 2023 but is expected to return this summer.
Elon Musk is one of the most prominent names and faces in developing technologies.
The billionaire entrepreneur heads up SpaceX, Tesla and the Boring company.
But while he is on the forefront of creating AI technologies, he is also acutely aware of its dangers.
Here is a comprehensive timeline of all Musk's premonitions, thoughts and warnings about AI, so far.
August 2014 - 'We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.'
October 2014 - 'I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence.'
October 2014 - 'With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.'
June 2016 - 'The benign situation with ultra-intelligent AI is that we would be so far below in intelligence we'd be like a pet, or a house cat.'
July 2017 - 'I think AI is something that is risky at the civilisation level, not merely at the individual risk level, and that's why it really demands a lot of safety research.'
July 2017 - 'I have exposure to the very most cutting-edge AI and I think people should be really concerned about it.'
July 2017 - 'I keep sounding the alarm bell but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal.'
August 2017 - 'If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea.'
November 2017 - 'Maybe there's a five to 10 percent chance of success [of making AI safe].'
March 2018 - 'AI is much more dangerous than nukes. So why do we have no regulatory oversight?'
April 2018 - '[AI is] a very important subject. It's going to affect our lives in ways we can't even imagine right now.'
April 2018 - '[We could create] an immortal dictator from which we would never escape.'
November 2018 - 'Maybe AI will make me follow it, laugh like a demon & say who’s the pet now.'
September 2019 - 'If advanced AI (beyond basic bots) hasn’t been applied to manipulate social media, it won’t be long before it is.'
February 2020 - 'At Tesla, using AI to solve self-driving isn’t just icing on the cake, it the cake.'
July 2020 - 'We’re headed toward a situation where AI is vastly smarter than humans and I think that time frame is less than five years from now. But that doesn’t mean that everything goes to hell in five years. It just means that things get unstable or weird.'
April 2021: 'A major part of real-world AI has to be solved to make unsupervised, generalized full self-driving work.'
February 2022: 'We have to solve a huge part of AI just to make cars drive themselves.'
December 2022: 'The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly.'
September 2023: 'The AI era is swiftly becoming real for the general public.'