Tesla is building a humanoid robot to do manual labor and this is up there with his idiotic hyper loop projects in being a perfect example of his insane obsession with form over function because FuUTuRee.

Proposed tasks for the product are ones that are "dangerous, repetitive and boring", such as providing manufacturing assistance.

This week, Mr Musk told investors the humanoid robot's first application would be at a Tesla plant "moving parts around the factory, or something like that". But in the future, he sees it helping solve labour shortages.

Tesla Bot will measure 5'8" (173 cm) tall and weigh 125lbs (57 kg) [...] and have a carrying capacity of 45 lb (20 kg).

Elon thought to himself "wow wouldn't it be like really futuristic if we had humanoid robots working in our factories" and then decided that was a good idea. We have thousands, thousands of machines that can do repetitive, boring tasks like these better than any human ever could. There is literally no practical reason to confine your machine to human form, which is absolutely not optimal for pretty much anything.

2 legs are stupidly impractical, they make you slow and incredibly easy to push over compared to something with 4 legs, let alone something with wheels. Even just walking is a balancing act. 2 legs are the reason this billion-dollar-punchline can only carry a pathetic 20 kilograms.

The only, and I mean the only reason this is done is because it looks futuristic. In practice, it's a massive step backwards and it will make any work place perform worse than without them. Elon doesn't want "machines", those don't look like the future, he needs "robots". Robots which are, in practice, just humans but worse.

    • mr_world [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      This. When these things fail as factory workers he's going to spin it off into sex robots. There will be a culture around them like there is Tesla. Jordon Peterson will be there to expound the virtues of young men safely and morally work out their libidinal energies on the machines. They'll push it as a men's right issue to tap the incel bazingas directly.

      • Circra [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It's gonna be the whole Nazi Volkswagen idea but even sadder and smelling of crusted semen.

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]
          ·
          3 years ago

          :kombucha-disgust: jesus fucking christ step away from the lathe

          • Circra [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Nahhh no worries that ones far too out there to come true I think.

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          They will be branded as Volksroboter and have a vaguely Nazi-chic logo made up of the letters VR in a circle.

          • Circra [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            All gonna be fun and games till the battery fires start and chumps across the world wind up in A&E with that logo scorched into them.

          • Chapo0114 [comrade/them, he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I know Hitler had Volkswagen created by (Porche iirc) to be the people's vehicle in early Nazi germany. Folks needed something to drive on the autobahn and the slaves needed something to build.

            • kristina [she/her]
              ·
              3 years ago

              oh i know it just made it sound like the nazis made some leather pussies into the seats or some shit lmfao

              • Circra [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                I mean I bet there were plenty of fucked up incels in the party so maybe something like that.

    • Circra [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I hope the bot malfunctions and pinches his nob off at the base.

      But yeah thinking about it u r prob right.

    • Deadend [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      He will put cat ears on the robot. For the :reddit-logo: :brainworms:

      • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Robotic Arm the moves around: I can lift a ton and throw it a football field's length :swole-doge:

        Musk Sex Bot: I can lift 45 lbs :cheems:

        • NomadicWarMachine [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          The Virgin Musk Robot Worker: Can only lift 45lbs, clearly just created to get fucked by a creepy South African, can't go on strike

          VS.

          The CHAD Human Worker: Can lift hundreds of pounds with proper training, doesn't fuck creepy South Africans, capable of former a union

  • Circra [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Oh wow I thought the daft image of a humanoid bot was just promo bullshit, I didn't realise he wanted to create actual humanoid robots...

    What the fuck? Why would you do that? Like you point out, there are vastly more efficient designs for robots if you want to automate production.

    Surely it'd be far better to develop some sort of basic chassis with easily replaced modular bits depending on what job you needed it to do?

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      <5% chance he actually does anything, but I would imagine this design is just meant to appeal to the press and techbros, if it ever came into reality it would be a more appropriate design. Unlikely that even that happens.

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The design was done by a random 3D artist. Then a bunch of lazy journalists just used it as their image for the story.

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      musk usually just jerks off to weird scifi concepts he tells his team to make up and then does nothing with it

      • Circra [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah. For ages when he first really popped up in the media I kinda assumed he must have doctorates in engineering and physics and all that. It's amazing that someone who basically fires coked up brainfarts at people with actual talent (who get paid a fraction of what he is 'worth') is lauded as a genius.

    • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      because it looks like something you'd see in a sci-fi movie, that's literally the only reason

      big, clunky machines that can actually do things don't look as futuristic so they're of no use to elon

  • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This will never go beyond concept art. Not only is a human robot inefficient, but it's insanely hard to create. Walking on two legs is a delicate process of balance that took millions of years of trial-and-error through evolution to work out, and the only advantage was freeing up some legs for more delicate tool usage.

    It's muskrat grifting as usual, he won't even acknowledge mentioning this in 6 months.

    • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      and even then, it's still really damn hard for us

      human babies take over a year to learn to walk while animals with 4 legs can walk within hours, and even those who've done it for decades take weeks to relearn it after long hospital stays

    • comi [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Boston robots are working just fine, but on flat surface you need wheels :shrug-outta-hecks:

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      And all it does is replace an in-person operator with a remote operator, because you can't just magically automate human tasks without a human brain.

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    This literally is not even hubris or idiocy, this is just Musk attempting to find the limit to how easily grifted his moron fans and dumbass investors are.

  • chimp
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

  • FidelCashflow [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    He made a black face servant robot.

    Wonder where that south african man got the idea off that?

  • 6bicycles [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This week, Mr Musk told investors the humanoid robot’s first application would be at a Tesla plant “moving parts around the factory, or something like that”.

    As we all know the first step for a succesfull project is having no fucking clue what you're even trying to achieve

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      ok first step for this hypothetically cutting edge extremely expensive humanoid robot is to do the labor of our worst paid workers except worse and we don't even know if it'll do that

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    There is literally no practical reason to confine your machine to human form, which is absolutely not optimal for pretty much anything.

    The reason is stonks. The man is all about taking money from investors and artificially inflated valuations on aesthetics and selling a grand vision that will never be delivered.

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      What I don't get is are there actually investors too dumb to see that this is obviously a grift? Nobody with a brain sees this as something that Tesla is somehow uniquely poised to develop. And it obviously isn't even achievable. There's already all sorts of companies doing this kind of "kinematics" stuff.

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Investors know it's a grift, at least the big ones do.

        The rest are idiots strung along because they fuel the bubbles that occur along the way.

  • Alex_Jones [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    All about aesthetics and he can't even get it to look better than an Apple Real Doll.

    • raven [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Being bipedal is also much more energy efficient than being quadrupedal (but not more than wheels).

      Wheels are pretty picky about surfaces you can use them on, so being bipedal is a huge advantage in those scenarios. Assuming these would (hypothetically) be a drop in replacement for human workers, it makes sense that they would be able to handle the same terrain human workers are expected to, like stairs for example.

  • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    What Elon is actually saying is, "Oh, U.S. taxpayers spent billions of dollars helping researchers develop advanced robotics in places like Boston Dynamics? I think I see an opportunity to take that valuable, publicly funded research and privatize it, to make a massive profit." Same with SpaceX and Tesla: overpromise, under-deliver, and enclose the intellectual commons.

  • Owl [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    An industrial robot arm on a wheeled base can do anything this can do, using technology that actually exists.

    But we don't actually make those for anything but a small handful of niches like bomb diffusing robots, because autonomous robotics is incredibly hard, and they're insane safety hazards.

    • Circra [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Imagine wanting to be Tyrell from Blade Runner.