Tesla has presented an updated version of its humanoid robot — Optimus Gen 2, its technical characteristics and abilities are significantly better than previous prototypes . In a few years, Tesla intends to launch its robot into mass production and make it an accessible assistant for everyone, in everyday life and at work.
Tesla and Elon Musk personally announced a humanoid robot project in the summer of 2021, within the company, this project is called Tesla Bot, and Optimus is the commercial name with which Musk expects the robot assistant to enter the market this decade and become a source of super-profits for Tesla. According to Musk, the potential global demand for humanoid robot assistants is in the tens of billions of units; the retail price of a standard model should be around $20,000.
Last year, as part of the Tesla AI Day 2022 event, Elon Musk's comrades showed the first working prototype of the Optimus robot, and today Tesla Optimus Gen 2, that is, a second-generation prototype, improved and expanded, was presented at a video presentation.
Optimus Gen 2 looks more elegant than its predecessors, the outer skin is already quite commercial, all that remains is to cover the hip joint with something. The robot still doesn’t have a face, but this is also fixable. The main thing is that the robot, equipped with a bunch of sensors and actuators, has become more agile. Walking speed has increased by 30%, but Optimus still looks rather slow and is not yet ready for fast dancing. The weight has decreased by 10 kg due to design optimization, but Tesla does not say exactly how much kilogram Optimus now weighs.
Optimus's coordination of movements has been noticeably improved, he can squat and stand on one leg, his fingers have become more mobile and sensitive: Optimus now slowly but confidently takes eggs from the tray, transfers them from one hand to the other and places them in a bowl for cooking.
In general, the hardware has been comprehensively improved, weighs less and works better. But the main thing about Optimus is AI (artificial intelligence). In terms of operating algorithms, Optimus' AI is very close to the Tesla FSD autopilot AI: the main source of information for the robot is cameras, the images from which are passed through a neural network, recognized and classified, after which the AI decides how to interact with recognized objects in accordance with the assigned tasks .
In test mode, Tesla is already using prototypes of its robots in production to perform simple operations such as carrying and sorting objects. The goal for the future is to rid humanity of burdensome routine work and give everyone a relatively simple household assistant. Taking into account how rapidly AI is developing now, it is not difficult to imagine that Optimus and similar machines will not only do simple housework and go grocery shopping, but also entertain their owners with games, jokes, dancing, etc., and spend time with them. therapeutic conversations, brighten up the loneliness of the elderly.
The main problem with the mass launch of such robots among the people — the lack of generally accepted safety standards for such equipment and legal mechanisms for its certification; their development may take much more time than the development of the robots themselves. The same Tesla FSD autopilot, from a legal point of view, is not an autopilot and requires constant monitoring by the driver.