It was no surprise that Tesla's AI 2022 event began with Optimus, the humanoid robot widely expected to be the event's main announcement. Unfortunately, there was no coordinated twerking with Elon Musk. However, much progress has been made since last year, and Elon Musk now promises to deliver a commercial product for less than $20,000.
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The Tesla robot demonstration in 2021 was simply a person dressed in a bot suit. The Optimus name hadn't even been thought of yet. In 2022, a prototype walked onto the stage, waved to the audience, and made a few other hand gestures. This was allegedly the first time the robot was shown walking without a tether. The robot was then seen carrying a box to an office desk, watering plants, and picking components at Tesla's Freemont factory.
However, this was not a production prototype, but rather a functional test mule known as "Bumble C." (Did you notice the "C" in Bumble Bee/C? Transformers, such as Optimus Prime?) When they did bring onstage the Optimus bot, which is being developed in parallel, it had to be wheeled in by helpers and could only wave. It also appeared to stop working when it was moved next to Elon Musk.
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A production Optimus is clearly some time away, and it is unlikely to be available in stores by next year, as Musk previously suggested in 2021. At this event, he made no promises about timing, only mentioning 3-5 years from now in the Q&A following the main session. He did, however, state that it would "cost less than a car" and "under $20,000," which is typically optimistic. The tech experts then described how they might accomplish this.
After explaining that humans consume approximately 100W at rest and 500W when walking briskly, one Tesla employee stated that they intended to drastically reduce the consumption of Optimus in comparison so that it could function all day using only a 2.3kWh Tesla battery pack and 52V subsystem. Given the cost and weight of batteries, this will keep the price low.
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Another way Tesla intends to keep Optimus costs low is to reduce functionality in comparison to people while maintaining a useful level of capability. The human body has 200 degrees of freedom, with the hand alone having 27. Tesla hopes to achieve human-like characteristics by giving Optimus 28 structural actuators and only 11 degrees of freedom in its hands.
Tesla will save money when full production begins by reducing the number of unique actuators required. Although it will use 28 of them, careful evaluation has reduced these to six distinct types that can be used to supply all 28 functions. This is the type of streamlining required in commercial manufacturing.
Technologies will also be shared with the Autopilot self-driving car program, including the use of the same System-on-Chip as Autopilot in Tesla vehicles, as well as much of the same navigation learning. However, GPS in cars does not work indoors, and there are no detailed maps of most buildings' furnished interiors. As a result, Optimus will have to create visual world models for himself. However, there are many similarities between a self-driving car (a robot on wheels) and a robot on legs.
Elon Musk continues to regard Optimus as a game-changing product. He claimed at AI Day 2022 that it could provide a doubling of economic output as well as a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it. But there are risks, and he admitted that Tesla "needs to do things carefully and safely," lest he "pave the road to hell with good intentions."
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That's a real threat, because once a low-cost, feature-rich humanoid robot becomes available, civilization could go in one of two directions. One will be utopian, in which no one needs to work so hard, all of our basic needs are met, and the poor's quality of life is raised to an acceptable level.
The other option is more dystopian, in which anyone with equal or less ability than Optimus will be unemployed, homeless, and surplus to requirements. In that scenario, the wealthier members of society may require modified weaponized bots to keep the displaced at bay.
Musk clearly recognizes this quandary and has previously discussed universal basic income, though it is still early days. Optimus Prime isn't much more capable than Sony's aibo robot dog toy right now. But, considering that Optimus was just a guy in a leotard a year ago, it can now walk, carry boxes, and water your garden. If Tesla can deliver a finished product for $20,000, it could truly be a revolution, possibly with even greater societal impact than the electric car.
At Tesla AI Day 2022, there was a lot more to see, including updates on the FSD program. A recording of the event is available on Tesla's website.
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