Elon Musk introduces his new robot
(Picture: Tesla)In the early hours of Saturday (October 1), Tesla is expected to show off a prototype of its Optimus robot: a 5 ft 8 in, 125 lb humanoid bot that CEO Elon Musk says will eliminate “dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks” at a brisk 5mph pace.
While an unveiling hasn’t been formally promised, Musk and the official Tesla social-media accounts have been dropping not-so-subtle hints that the robot will make an appearance at the company’s AI Day, which kicks off today (or in the early hours of tomorrow morning on this side of the Atlantic.)
AI Day tomorrow pic.twitter.com/oVenZDbVMQ
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 30, 2022
Given the only previous demo of the Optimus robot turned out to be someone dancing in a lycra suit, the only way is up. But what exactly would constitute a success in roboticists’ eyes this time around?
What is Elon Musk promising from the Optimus robot?
The Optimus robot was first announced a year ago, and Musk has huge ambitions for it. The robot will be able to carry 45 lb and deadlift up to 150 lb, navigating the world via the same autopilot cameras and software used in Tesla cars.
Although initially intended for factories, the plans don’t end there. “It should be able to, you know, ‘please go to the store and get me the following groceries,’ that kind of thing,” Musk said.
That would be an enormous advance on the only currently available home robot, Amazon’s US-only Astro, which is essentially a glorified Echo Show on wheels, unable to perform tasks requiring manual dexterity or involving climbing stairs.
Are the promises of a shopping, humanoid robot friend plausible? Yes, says Danail Stoyanov, professor of Robot Vision at the University College London (UCL), but it gets a lot easier if our environments are designed for robot interaction.
“Then a lot of the challenge of dealing with unpredictability can be mitigated,” he explained. “Of course, the robot would still have to deal with lifeforms and that will be a major obstacle, in the general sense.”
Owen Nicholson, CEO and founder of Slamcore, which specialises in vision-based spacial intelligence for robots, echoes this, and cautions this utopian vision isn’t likely in the short term.
“The tasks we take for granted, finding our way across a crowded room, selecting a piece of fruit, understanding and reacting to other shoppers, are all hugely challenging for even the most advanced robots today,” he told the Standard.
What would make a roboticist sit up and take notice?
It’s not clear how much of a demo we will actually see but, if there is, what should we look out for?
The teaser from the Tesla Twitter account highlighted above suggests a pretty unprecedented sense of manual dexterity, which could, literally and figuratively, open the door to things that Astro can only dream of, like tidying up, laundry, and dishwashing, without an explosion of smashed crockery.
There are degrees of difficulty, though, just as there are with human hands. A robot-human handshake may make for an arresting picture in the newspaper, but it’s pretty trivial in the greater scheme of things. Something involving a gentle grip, finger placement, and a reaction to an object — opening a jam jar, say — would be far more impressive.
“It’s relatively easy to have a robot navigate around a controlled environment on stage,” says Nicholson. “What would be significant is one that can respond to rapidly changing, cluttered environments like you’d find in a typical home or office. What happens if a chair is moved, or if a shadow changes the look of a room?
“Can it cope with lots of people moving around it? Can it walk backwards as well as forwards? What about a room it has never been in before? Will the robot still be able to understand where it is and successfully move around new obstructions – or will it just stop?”
For Stoyanov, it’s also important to look at the level of autonomy involved, as well as how long the robot can perform tasks for.
What would be a letdown?
In short, if the Tesla Optimus robot delivers less than has already been showcased by rivals. “Probably the best baseline is examples from Boston Dynamics and their Atlas robot,” says Stoyanov. “I think anything less given the Musk/Tesla brand would be underwhelming.”
Nicholson notes that Boston Dynamics’ robots cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. “To be in any way commercially viable, the Tesla robot will have to do all of
this at a price point several orders of magnitude lower.”
Watch out, too, for signs that any demo activity might not be possible in an uncontrolled environment. “Look out for tell-tale black and white stickers around the demo,” says Nicholson. “These are a sure sign that they are cheating with the vision system and are using technology which is decades old.”
When can you have one in your home?
Timeframes are pretty vague at the moment so, hopefully, Tesla will shed some light on that at its AI Day.
In a TED interview in April, Musk said we should have “interesting prototypes sometime this year” (presumably the ones we’ll see in a few hours’ time) and “might have something useful next year” or “quite likely within two years”.
All in, it would be “less than 10 years” until people will be able to buy one to help around the home, like an episode of The Jetsons made real.
Nicholson has a similar, if slightly less optimistic estimate: “With deep pockets and lots of experts, it is possible that Tesla can crack all these [problems] – but I think we are still a decade away from this.”
How to watch the Optimus robot presentation live
Tesla hasn’t released details of how to watch yet, though last year’s event was broadcast on YouTube via the company’s official channel, so it’s worth checking in there closer to go time.
Unfortunately, ‘go time’ isn’t a very sociable hour here in the UK — it’s 5pm in Palo Alto, which is 1am over here. And it may be a while before we get onto the Optimus robots, with Tesla likely to have automotive stuff to show as well.
Unless you’re an expert in the area, you may want to give the whole show a pass anyway. “Note, this event is meant for recruiting AI and robotics engineers, so will be highly technical,” Musk tweeted.
