Tesla’s second AI day is being held today, and you can watch it right here. Stay tuned for the livestream, which is embedded below, and is set to start at 9:15 p.m. EST (6:15 p.m. PST).
We know from previous tweets by CEO Elon Musk that Tesla’s AI team has been on tight deadlines, tasked with finishing new smart summon and autopark features before the end of the month. Announcements surrounding Autopilot may also be announced at the event.
The marquee update for the event will assuredly be the unveiling Optimus. First announced at the automaker’s AI Day 1 in 2021, the concept raised eyebrows for the unusual and seeming pie-in-the-sky nature of the idea.
Musk has since doubled down on the notion and promised that a prototype of the humanoid robot would be presented at this event. The product is intended to handle “dangerous, menial, or boring” tasks, according to the company.
Optimus is expected to stand at 5 ft 8-inches tall (1.75 m) and to tip the scales at 125 lbs (57 kg). The company claims it will be able to pick up 45 lbs (20.4 kg) with its hands. Musk said previously that a bipedal robot was ideal for a world created for human bodies.
According to a job listing on its website, Tesla was looking for programmers to work on the robot quite recently. In the posting, the automaker said that it planned to use “thousands of Humanoid Robots” in its production facilities.
The wider robotics community is, however, bracing itself for more Muskian antics. Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University recently told Reuters that “If [Musk] just gets the robot to walk around… or he gets the robot to dance, that’s already been done. That’s not that impressive.”
Musk, a fan of showmanship, has already presented one version of the robot, which was simply a person in a robot costume. He has also previously shown off the supposedly unbreakable glass on the Cybertruck and launched the Tesla Roadster into space. Despite that, neither vehicle can actually be bought and neither has even gone into production. That may explain, then, why Musk wants the help of robots in Tesla factories.
