Elon Musk recently attended TED, announced the production schedule and estimated price of Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, and also talked about Optimus and humanoids Prospects of robots in the future society.
Musk estimates that Tesla will show an “interesting prototype” of the Optimus robot sometime this year, and that “there might be something useful” by 2023. He predicts that Tesla will see an expansion of its humanoid robot program within the next two years. Around 2025, Musk believes that the utility of Optimus Prime will increase rapidly year by year.
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During the conversation, Musk envisioned how robots could function in a home environment rather than a work environment. Moderator Anderson referred to Tesla’s humanoid robot as some kind of personal butler, and Musk described Optimus Prime as more of a companion robot with many useful applications and forms, including Catwoman.
As the useful functions of humanoid robots expand, Musk believes that Tesla will see costs come down while Tesla mass-produces Optimus robots. As for the price of the Optimus Prime robot, Elon Musk said this: “I don’t think the cost is actually ridiculously high, such as lower than a car.”
However, Musk did not say what kind of car, and Anderson expects it to be about $25,000. Anderson then raised a question that has been on the minds of quite a few people since Tesla released the Optimus Prime robot: how it will affect the job market. Musk has said several times that Optimus Prime will initially be built for dangerous, monotonous jobs.
However, as Tesla’s humanoid robot gains more advanced capabilities, some are wondering about its impact on the job market. Anderson believes that humanoid workers will be paid significantly less than human employees. Plus, human workers won’t be able to work as long as humanoid robots.
“I’m not going to worry about putting people out of work,” Musk replied, “I think we’re actually going to have and already have a massive labor shortage. So I don’t think we’re going to have people out of work, and actually, there will still be in the future. There is a labor shortage.”
Moreover, Musk has spoken in the past about a shortage of human workers. The shortage of human labor may be attributed to the decline in birth rates worldwide. Musk briefly touched on the declining birth rate in an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit.
Furthermore, Elon Musk also talked about the possible duality scenario of Optimus Prime. Before Tesla revealed plans to produce humanoid robots, Musk offered his views on the impact of artificial intelligence on human existence. Musk has previously issued cautious warnings about developing artificial intelligence, and he still stands by his beliefs today.
Musk mentioned that he had some safety protocols in place for Tesla’s humanoid robot, showing that he had anticipated a lot of Optimus Prime’s design, “I mean, obviously, we have to be careful not to let it get out of hand. I think one of the important things is to have a local ROM chip on the robot that cannot be OTA updated, and if it says ‘stop, stop,’ the robot will stop.”
