During the recent Tesla Cyber Rodeo event, Elon Musk offered quick remarks:
"I think we have a shot at being in production for version 1 of Optimus hopefully next year..."
It will upend our idea of what the economy is… it will be able to do basically anything humans don’t want to do. It will do it. It’s going to bring an age of abundance. It may be hard to imagine it, but as you see Optimus develop, and we will make sure it’s safe, no Terminator stuff, it will transform the world to a degree even greater than the cars.
If Tesla introduces an actual robot with these specs in 2023 that actually walks and moves like the actor who portrayed the robot in their presentation, I will be the most astonished person in America. I'm assuming that this is an "aspirational product" that Musk uses to attract talent in artificial intelligence and robotics.
Science fiction writers (and readers!) love robots, so it's difficult to choose any particular technovelgy item. See R. Daneel Olivaw from Isaac Asimov's I, Robot series. Here's the movie version of these robots, from the movie.
Baley approached woodenly and said in a monotone, "I am Plainclothes Man Elijah Baley, Police Department, City of New York, Rating C-5."
He showed his credentials and went on, "I have been instructed to meet R. Daneel Olivaw at Spacetown Approachway." He looked at his watch. "I am a little early. May I request the announcement of my presence?"
He felt more than a little cold inside. He was used, after a fashion, to the Earth-model robots. The Spacer models would be different. He had never met one, but there was nothing more common on Earth than the horrid whispered stories about the tremendous and formidable robots that worked in superhuman fashion on the far-off, glittering Outer Worlds. He found himself gritting his teeth...
The Spacer said, "I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel Olivaw... I am a robot. Were you not told?"
The robot's hand closed on his with a smoothly increasing pressure that reached a comfortably friendly peak, then declined. "Yet I seem to detect disturbance. May I ask that you be frank with me? It is best to have as many relevant facts as possible in a relationship such as ours. And it is customary on my world for partners to call one another by the familiar name. I trust that that is not counter to your own customs."
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/7/2022)
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