Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said on Friday that he hopes to make millions of machines and sell to consumers with a $20,000 price tag.
Musk had the robot walk on stage and wave at the crowd, but withheld it from doing more complicated tasks because he didn't want it to fall on its face. A video of the robot showed that it could handle more complicated tasks like carrying boxes and placing a metal bar into what appeared to be a factory machine.
Onlookers were apparently underwhelmed by the machine Musk suggested would be mind blowing. Cynthia Yeung, a robotics expert, said that none of this is cutting edge. You can hire some PhDs and go to some robotics conferences. AI researcher Filip Piekniewski was unimpressed and tweeted that the exhibit was next level cringeworthy and a complete and utter scam. The AI researcher said it would be good to test falling, as this thing will be falling a lot. Musk tried to temper expectations and told onlookers that there's still a lot of work to be done to improve Optimus. He said that Optimus is going to be incredible in five or 10 years.
Musk said that the humanoid robot is missing a brain and is unable to problem-solve on its own.
Musk hopes to have the robot hit the market in three to five years and said when ready it will be an extremely capable machine.
The robot's appeal is intended to help streamline factory work and possibly fill roles that human employees find less desirable.
The production of humanoids will apparently deviate from Tesla's original mission to speed up the transition to sustainable energy. Musk said that Optimus is not directly in line with accelerating sustainable energy. I think the mission does somewhat broaden with the advent of Optimus to make the future awesome.