Musk Widely Expected To Unveil Humanoid Robot Optimus at Tesla's AI Day Later Today (wsj.com) 104
Elon Musk is widely expected to show off a new humanoid robot Friday at a Tesla artificial intelligence event. From a report: Mr. Musk first laid out the vision for the robot, called Optimus, little more than a year ago at Tesla's first-ever AI day. At the time, a dancer in a costume appeared onstage. This time, Mr. Musk has said he wants a prototype to be at the gathering that is scheduled to unfold from 5 p.m. local time in Palo Alto, Calif. Mr. Musk has painted a vision of Optimus as helping Tesla make cars more efficiently. He has also suggested the robot could serve broader functions and potentially alleviate labor shortages. "My guess is Optimus will be more valuable than the car long term," Mr. Musk said Aug. 4 at Tesla's annual shareholder meeting. "It will, I think, turn the whole notion of what's an economy on its head, at the point at which you have no shortage of labor," he added. When he first unveiled the Optimus concept, Mr. Musk said such a robot could have such an impact on the labor market it could make it necessary to provide a universal basic income, or a stipend to people without strings attached.
Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
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You mean these ones?
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1) They're on a flatbed
2) They were supposed to be delivered in 2019
Re:Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
COVID provides a convenient excuse here, so this one doesn't sound as good as the usual "Musk is a bullshit artist, WAKE UP SHEEPLE, Musk failed, AGAIN!". Sure he overpromises and underdelivers (the pricing shaenigans on Tesla website are bordering on scam sometimes). But who gives a shit, when whatever gets underdelivered is way ahead of the competition anyway. As a marketing strategy, it's certainly working well for him.
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It really does [yhoo.it]. If I were to criticize something market wise, it's this new brand of insider trading one can do with a single tweet. For instance, saying that your own stock is massively overvalued (which it is, by all reasonable market measures).
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The consumer should give a shit. These premature announcements have the effect of freezing out the potential competitors in the market. And that's why he does it. Consider an independent startup like Rivian. Coming out of nowhere, they had a steep hill to climb developing the product technologies, the
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Not only are they on flatbeds, they are stated as going to be used.. by Tesla themselves. They aren't shipping to paying customers still yet.
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> All windows occluded so a driver can't see where they're going: check.
And those trash bags taped on the windows make me wonder if what they're hiding is, maybe not what's there, but what isn't in there.
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You mean those semis that are NOT code-named "Optimus" despite that code-name quite obviously being more suited for a semi truck versus a mere android?
Optimus [Re:Sure] (Score:5, Funny)
You mean those semis that are NOT code-named "Optimus" despite that code-name quite obviously being more suited for a semi truck versus a mere android?
Given the name Optimus, it could be both a semi AND a humanoid robot!.
The first ones will be sent to customers of Amazon Prime, of course. This batch will be known as ...
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> Given the name Optimus, it could be both a semi
> AND a humanoid robot!.
Only if the humanoid robot is 30 feet tall. ;-P
For an human-sized 'bot, it would be more appropriately code-named "Data" or "Valentine" or "Kusanagi". :)
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Marvin maybe?
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This is why telling kids "you can't be a cosmonaut" is a bad idea.
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"This is why telling kids "you can't be a cosmonaut" is a bad idea."
Because the kids only speak Russian?
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>Because the kids only speak Russian?
That's the least of it. For US kids, war and sanctions are in the way, obviously.
Re: Sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah, I just have mixed feelings because I do give credit for some of what he has accomplished but also his shitty business practices with Tesla, shitty politics and misinformation spreading and him doubling down on on things that won't work.
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he, as in, himself, hasn't done jack shit. he hires smart people.
Look at that, you only wrote one line and yet managed to contradict yourself. Hiring smart people is the number one most effective way to get large amounts of stuff done. Far more effective than trying to do it all yourself. It's also something that an amazingly large percentage of people are awful at.
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Then claims credit for their work. Do Musk fanboys seriously think a guy with an undergraduate degree in economics and physics is actually designing rockets or cars or robots?
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> doubling down on on things that won't work.
Nonsense like hyperloop are more about personal brand building. The whole "say something ridiculous to rouse crowds of terminally online people who feel the need to correct the record" is twitter marketing 101 - just poke useful idiots to give you the spotlight, free of charge. Unfortunately leaking even into Slashdot and HN discussions.
It's even in the name itself. The brand of tesla 100 years ago too was a lot of stuff *way* ahead of competition. And also a
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Nonsense like hyperloop are more about personal brand building
It's not even brand building, he admitted he did it to sabotage the high speed rail project in California.
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Never mind his own goals. I judge him and Tesla by the promises he makes to the public (ie. his potential future and repeat customers) versus whether he bothers to actually KEEP those promises. And based on that metric, I've pretty much soured Tesla at this point. I'll most likely go with an Ioniq 5 for my next car. Every lie told by a person or a company erodes their trustworthiness just a bit more. I don't remember the exact point when Musk/Tesla threw away their last bit of credibility with me. Bu
Anatomically correct? (Score:3)
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Yes, fully functional.
It's going to be a dude in a suit.
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But is it programmed in multiple techniques?
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"But is it programmed in multiple techniques?"
Amazon has fucking machines aplenty.
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"Well, sure, but they don't cuddle with you afterwards... or even sit on your lap and purr."
You want a 70 kilo machine sit on your lap and purr, while a cat can do the same thing all say long?
Is he going to hit it with a baseball bat? (Score:5, Funny)
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heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Guarantee it's either (a) a guy in a suit again, or (b) a REALLY unimpressive humanoid robot that doesn't really do much. Musk is famous for overpromising and underdelivering.
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(b) a REALLY unimpressive humanoid robot that doesn't really do much.
If it's capable of bipedal locomotion, even janky locomotion, even on a flat stage, it'd be a triumph. Anything beyond that would be icing on the cake. Other companies have spent upwards of a decade to achieve bipedal locomotion over complex terrain. To get as far as walking across a stage in barely a year would be amazing work.
Having said that, I don't think I'm willing to bet that Optimus will be able to achieve even janky bipedal locomotion. Given how long it took for ATLAS to get any good at it, and
Re: heh (Score:3)
Have you just stepped out of the 2000s? Boston Dynamics have had 2 legged robots *running* for years, never mind walking on a flat stage. I suggest you go check out their youtube channel.
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Have you just stepped out of the 2000s? Boston Dynamics have had 2 legged robots *running* for years, never mind walking on a flat stage. I suggest you go check out their youtube channel.
Have you forgotten history? Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992. It took them two decades to get to the point of having the running robots you're referring to. Not one year. I heard that for many long years they were refusing to use any sort of neural net processing, which undoubtedly contributed to why it took them so long, but the point remains, it took a human generation to get where they are. Achieving bipedal locomotion in 1/20th of the time was a feat on the part of Tesla.
Either that or Boston Dy
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(b) a REALLY unimpressive humanoid robot that doesn't really do much.
If it's capable of bipedal locomotion, even janky locomotion, even on a flat stage, it'd be a triumph. Anything beyond that would be icing on the cake. Other companies have spent upwards of a decade to achieve bipedal locomotion over complex terrain. To get as far as walking across a stage in barely a year would be amazing work.
In other words, you would consider it a triumph if his robot had a small fraction of the capability of what many other robots can already deliver?
Remember, he had the benefit of all their previous R&D going into this project. With all the hype and resources of Tesla he better have something that moves things forward.
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In other words, you would consider it a triumph if his robot had a small fraction of the capability of what many other robots can already deliver?
Precisely. They've had a year to work on it. That's all.
Remember, he had the benefit of all their previous R&D going into this project.
Sure. Into wheeled vehicles. Bipedal locomotion is dramatically different, and they had zero R&D into that when they announced Optimus.
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In other words, you would consider it a triumph if his robot had a small fraction of the capability of what many other robots can already deliver?
Precisely. They've had a year to work on it. That's all.
All that proves is they funded a few robotics engineers. Musk is talking about a major breakthrough in robotics, he hasn't even shown the capability of making a minor one.
Remember, he had the benefit of all their previous R&D going into this project.
Sure. Into wheeled vehicles. Bipedal locomotion is dramatically different, and they had zero R&D into that when they announced Optimus.
Wrong subject, "their previous R&D" didn't refer to Tesla's R&D, it referred to all the companies and Universities who have been doing this already. Some of that work is hidden, but a lot is out there for anyone to use.
Besides, you're assuming they've only had a year to work on it. For all we know this was a secret R&D project
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"If it's capable of bipedal locomotion, even janky locomotion, even on a flat stage, it'd be a triumph."
Why? Other developers developed bipedal locomotion-capable robots more than 10 years ago. You don't just start from scratch -- they have the benefit of years of work.
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Why? Other developers developed bipedal locomotion-capable robots more than 10 years ago. You don't just start from scratch -- they have the benefit of years of work.
Because every other bipedal robot is the proprietary result of some other company's work. Asimo is not open source and it's owned by a literal Tesla competitor. Tesla had only the results of academic publishing about such work, not the work itself, and if you aren't aware, there's a vast gulf between the academic publication describing a thing and the thing itself. Tesla may have benefited by poaching engineers who had previously worked on the problem elsewhere, or of hiring engineers who had worked on t
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Aw man, this thing starts at 17:00 PT which is midnight UTC. I want to be heckling the live stream from the peanut gallery, but can I be bothered to stay up for it? I *do* love watching Musk make a fool of himself...
Worth remembering that previous Tesla "days" have shown off apparently amazing video of self driving cars, only for Musk to admit years later that the feature is still many years away from roll out. If it's not a guy in spandex then the demo will be under carefully controlled conditions.
Re: heh (Score:2)
HAHA I was right. Pathetic!
Re:UBI? (Score:5, Informative)
FTA:
>The answer is that he borrows money from Tesla without taking a salary from his own company. Through stock options, Musk takes out loans against his company’s shares to fund his Tesla projects, which he does not owe income taxes for, and also deducts some of the interest on those loans on his taxes.
Oh so he pays taxes when he owes them. Got it.
And in 2021 he paid $15B in taxes due to a massive stock selloff. https://twitter.com/i/events/1... [twitter.com] Why didn't you mention that? $15B in 1 year is more than most of the population will pay in their lifetimes, combined.
5.6 percent [Re:UBI?] (Score:4, Informative)
And in 2021 he paid $15B in taxes due to a massive stock selloff. https://twitter.com/i/events/1... [twitter.com] Why didn't you mention that? $15B in 1 year is more than most of the population will pay in their lifetimes, combined.
Note that Elon Musk's net worth is $263 billion. $15B, or 5.7 percent of his net worth, is not a large tax burden, considering that he made 200 Billion Dollars [ibtimes.com] during the two years of the COVID epidemic.
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>Note that Elon Musk's net worth is $263 billion. $15B, or 5.7 percent of his net worth, is not a large tax burden, considering that he made 200 Billion Dollars [ibtimes.com] during the two years of the COVID epidemic.
Why the hell would anyone pay taxes based on shares they have in companies? Owning something isn't a taxable event. Selling shares is a taxable event, and that applies to everyone in the country equally--and it's the entire basis for how every working person saves up and retires.
Re:5.6 percent [Re:UBI?] (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the hell would anyone pay taxes based on shares they have in companies? Owning something isn't a taxable event. Selling shares is a taxable event, and that applies to everyone in the country equally--and it's the entire basis for how every working person saves up and retires.
You're right, owning something isn't a taxable event but that's not what Musk, along with other uber wealthy folks, is doing.
Instead of selling stock he takes a loan on it's value while using that same stock as collateral. This allows him to utilize the liquidity of the asset without having to pay taxes on the borrowed amount since it's accrued loan debt and not income. Except, unlike most loans, he has zero intention of paying it back and the bank knows this but they're okay with it since the collateral asset is often more valuable than the amount borrowed. When he eventually defaults on the loan he isn't considered to have sold it, it's actually considered a loss of collateral used to satisfy his debt obligations.
To anyone with even the barest common sense this is obviously a sale of shares from Musk to the bank, but because it's structured as a loan instead of a sale he "technically" doesn't actualize any income and thus avoids paying taxes. Meanwhile there is a part of you, at least subconsciously, which knows you'd end up in a 9'x9' concrete box for tax evasion if you attempted to structure your own assets this way.
TLDR: Borrowing against your assets then defaulting is essentially selling them to the bank, you should be paying Capital Gains Tax instead of writing it off as a loss when you do it.
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Note that Elon Musk's net worth is $263 billion. $15B, or 5.7 percent of his net worth, is not a large tax burden, considering that he made 200 Billion Dollars [ibtimes.com] during the two years of the COVID epidemic.
He didn't "make" that money. Net worth is theory, not reality. That valuation of his stock rose, which is decided by other people. He has even stated that he thinks the stock is overvalued. Until he sells stock and realizes a gain, he doesn't make money. He's explained this over and over again, but many people just don't seem to understand the difference.
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So he made that money convincing people that something was worth something more now, than it was in the past.
My point is he didn't make that money at all. :)
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Somebody did something somewhere and needs to be taxed/arrested for doing whatever it is that they are doing.
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My net worth is infinite. I wrote some software and someone paid me for a copy, one of an unlimited supply. I paid about $50 in income tax on that.
Re:UBI? (Score:4, Insightful)
FTA:
>The answer is that he borrows money from Tesla without taking a salary from his own company. Through stock options, Musk takes out loans against his company’s shares to fund his Tesla projects, which he does not owe income taxes for, and also deducts some of the interest on those loans on his taxes.
Oh so he pays taxes when he owes them. Got it.
And in 2021 he paid $15B in taxes due to a massive stock selloff. https://twitter.com/i/events/1... [twitter.com] Why didn't you mention that? $15B in 1 year is more than most of the population will pay in their lifetimes, combined.
The difference is that when you're an ordinary worker, you get your salary, get taxed on that salary, invest the left over money, and then get taxed again when you sell.
When you own a substantial part of a company you principal basically grows tax free and you only get taxed when you sell.
There's good reasons why you don't tax company ownership (can't really value non-public companies) but maybe they can do something about the game where they simulate a high tax free income by borrowing against shares.
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This year, (Score:3)
The reason billionaires generally don't pay a lot of income tax is that their wealth is usually in the form of shares of their company. Shares they haven't sold yet, so they are unrealized capital gains, in tax terms. The tax gets paid only when the shares are sold.
Unless you want to be taxed on stock you hold that has gone up but you haven't sold yet, it's pretty clueless to criticize the lack of taxation of unsold shares owned by billionaires. And what happens when the (unrealized) value of th
Re:This year, (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you want to be taxed on stock you hold that has gone up but you haven't sold yet, it's pretty clueless to criticize the lack of taxation of unsold shares owned by billionaires. And what happens when the (unrealized) value of the unsold shares drops. Mark Zuckerberg's (unrealized share) wealth has dropped by $71 billion this year. Does that mean he should get a big tax refund?
No, if you didn't sell your stuff you shouldn't pay on it - but that's not what typically happens with the ultra wealthy.
They get around Capital Gains by borrowing against the value of their assets, allowing them to take on "debt" and use the tax shelters having debt provides while also allowing them to make use of the "income" provided by the loan. Then when they default on the loan, allowing the bank to keep the collateral assets, they get to write off the loss of potential asset income against their accrued debt effectively cancelling them out.
It's effectively a "sale" of assets to the bank structured as a loan default to avoid paying Capital Gains and that is what Zuck should be paying taxes on. Because let us face facts, you know as well as I do that if we structured our finances the way Zuckerberg and other wealthy individuals like him have we'd end up in a 9'x9' concrete box for tax evasion.
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The other stuff, if true, does warrant tax investigation and prosecution, and probably legislating to get rid of loopholes.
I would be surprised if these very high net worth individuals didn't have high-priced tax expert lawyers and accountants paid to ensure that they stay within the letter of the existing laws. So the real problem is with the laws.
Highest income=highest taxes [Re:UBI?] (Score:5, Interesting)
If you did your research you'd find that Musk last year paid the highest tax payment that any human has ever made, in history.
If you did your research you'd find that Musk last year made the highest amount of income that any human has ever made, in history. He made $158 billion dollars in 2021. That "highest tax payment in history" came out to 9.4% of the amount he made.
Yes, I am aware that this is because of the way that the US tax code is written, that his gains came in the form of increase in the value of his stock holdings, and the US tax code only taxed the value of the stock he sold. However, even it if did tax the gains, he would pay only 20% tax ("capital gains tax"). If he'd made the same amount by working, he would have paid 37% tax. The tax code is biased against work (and in favor of stock ownership).
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you are right, there shouldn't be any income taxes, divident taxes, capital gains taxes or any taxes related to work or investments and savings. Eventually this will happen again, taxes will be only applied to consumption and not to any form of production. Why are we taxing WORK as opposed to consumption, it is a perversion.
?? Re:Highest income=highest taxes [Re:UBI?] (Score:2)
Was this post intended to make any sense at all?
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of course, you are complaining that someone is paying a tax rate that may be different from yours, I am saying you shouldn't be paying taxes for doing work at all, nor should anyone else.
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Of course, having your wealth in the form of capital gains and being taxed on those totally gets around that progressivity.
Consumption taxes are not progressive. They have the problem of impacting the poor more than the rich, since a high percentage of the poors' income must be spent on necessities.
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That has what... exactly... to do with AI or robots?
If UBI or whatnot is mentioned anywhere in TFA, it's behind the WSJ paywall. I know this is yypical msmash dipshittery to only include paywalled links... but if you're a WSJ subscriber and posting on that basis, you should quote the appropriate passage from TFA.
Re:UBI? (Score:4, Interesting)
The article describes wealth management of anyone with a net worth of over $100M in assets the bank will accept as a collateral. Indeed this makes it largely impossible to "tax the rich" as individuals. It's why you tax the productive assets instead, ie corporate tax.
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taxing work and investments and productive assets and production is a perversion, if anything should be taxed, it would be consumption (destruction of useful assets).
Obligatory (Score:1, Flamebait)
I hate hate hate Elon Musk but I promise it has nothing to do with his exposure of Twitter as a leftist big tech fraud, it's because $(GENERIC_CRITICISM_THAT_APPLIES_TO_ANYONE)
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Cut out a man's tongue and you don't prove him a liar, only that you're afraid of what he has to say.
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The fuck are you talking about
Tongues [Re:Obligatory] (Score:2)
Cut out a man's tongue and you don't prove him a liar, only that you're afraid of what he has to say.
Not sure what you're thinking here. Elon Musk has 105 million followers on Twitter; he is not in any way having his "tongue cut out".
(that makes him #4 in the world in number of followers, slightly behind Katy Perry.)
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Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
He's smarter at scamming people than I am. That's a skill I never tried developing.
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He had also, very early on, mastered the skill of being born into a rich family. [archive.org]
It is a one-time skill, but it really helps later on when you later sell your start-up to Compaq for millions of dollars.
A start-up that was started up by borrowing money from your dad. [wikipedia.org]
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Posting anonymously because I fear said lawyers
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Haha get real, slashdot tech bros and leftist tech bros have detested Musk for years because he's a con artist.
It's not clear they'll demo the whole robot (Score:3)
Musk said this event is targeted at recruiting AI staff, rather than being a whizbang demo designed to impress the general public and financial media.
So it will probably impress detail-oriented people, who paid attention to the expectation setting, and disappoint everyone else.
Consequently, a little worried about the short term stock price impact, but it will probably be good for stock price in the long run.
AI sex bot (Score:3)
CherryBot will autonomously drive the car to work while simultaneously fucking you in the back seat. CherryBot will make sure the car is accelerating hard and the music is bumping when she gets you off. Thanks CherryBot, today is going to be a good day.
However it's unfortunately stuck (Score:2)
UBI again? (Score:3, Interesting)
UBI shouldn't be a stipend, it needs to be a dividend paid to shareholders who are part-owners of the means of production, free to spend that money as they see fit. I'm a big believer in free market capitalism, as long as those markets function properly. But if the majority of people are no longer able to freely sell their time and effort to prospective employers, the market is going to break down in a big way.
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>money should go to the owners of the means of production
i have some good news for you, i guess
Meh (Score:1)
Who care about humanoid robots. Those have been around for a while.
Musk need to be back into new tech.
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"Who care about humanoid robots. "
People of Solaria.
The Dog and Pony Show (Score:3)
"Preorders for $100", he'll groan out, before he's carried away on a stretcher and loaded into the back of a Tesla Cybertruck.
The tires on the Cybertruck will be flat, and it will be towed off stage.
It better transform into a semi. (Score:2)
In 2017 He Predicted Level 5 Autonomy (Score:3)
Musk has a history of overblown promises in AI. In April of 2017, he said that a Tesla would be able to drive from "a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York, no controls touched at any point during the entire journey" (https://electrek.co/2017/04/29/elon-musk-tesla-plan-level-5-full-autonomous-driving/).
Spoiler: it did not.
Craptimus (Score:2)
Musk should be embarrassed.