Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk has just announced his latest attempt to drag his company and by extension everyone else into a future that previously only lived in movies with the preview of… the Tesla Bot.
Yes, we are at the stage of humanoid robots. If you haven’t watched I, Robot then by all means do so because the prototype is eerily familiar. Whether the plot reflects fiction is a different nightmare!
[ED: OK, so this may be a slightly tenuous article for a website like Visordown but the combination of those tenuous links and the startling implications it could have on the human race generally are credential enough for it to qualify here.]
So, back to the Tesla Bot.
It is being readied for a Tesla AI Event, which should have all the razmatazz, fanfare and palpable cultish idolising vibe akin to an Apple phone launch event and this robot is being developed to be multi-functional and even fairly independent.
Let me just check it isn’t April 1st for you (it isn’t) but these robots could be put to use in Tesla’s car factories with enough intelligence programmed in to handle and use tools. Being cynical for a moment, one can imagine manufacturers around the world no doubt eyeing up a mechanical workforce you don’t need to pay an annual salary.
Perhaps even more eye-opening is the prospect of bumping into one in Tesco as it completes the weekly shop, or knocks on your door to deliver your Amazon parcel.
The mechanics behind the face are based on Tesla’s pioneering - but controversial - Autopilot autonomous technology, using eight cameras to recognise its surroundings and adapt.
However, it’s a feature that has drawn criticism from some quarters for lulling drivers into false senses of security when selecting it to engage, while autonomous vehicle testing has revealed they don’t have a good enough success rate with spotting motorcyclists around them when executing manoeuvres.
Then again, in this scenario the only crash would be if it stepped out into the road… and frankly, if it isn’t programmed for staring at a mobile phone while dropping off the kerb and into the path of traffic, perhaps this is a future I can live with.
