Elon Musk unveils Tesla Bot, a

humanoid robot that uses

vehicle AI
"It's intended to be friendly," the carmaker's CEO joked.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Thursday unveiled a humanoid robot

called the Tesla Bot that runs on the same AI used by Tesla's fleet
of autonomous vehicles. A functioning version of the robot didn't
make an appearance during Musk's reveal, though a slightly bizarre
dance by a performer dressed like a Tesla Bot did. 

The unexpected reveal came at the end of Tesla's AI

Day presentation, with Musk providing few details about the slightly
creepy, Slenderman-like robot beyond a few PowerPoint slides. The
5-foot-8-inch robot is expected to weigh in at 125 pounds and be
built from "lightweight materials," he said.

Its head will be kitted out with the autopilot cameras used by Tesla's
vehicles to sense the environment and will contain a screen to
display information. Internally, it will be operating via Tesla's Full
Self-Driving computer. 

"It's intended to be friendly," Musk joked, "and navigate through a

world built for humans."

The robot's appearance came after a 90-minute presentation

detailing some of the artificial intelligence upgrades driving Tesla's
electric vehicles, including the Dojo supercomputer, which helps
train cars to navigate city streets without human assistance. "It
makes sense to put that onto humanoid form," Musk said.

Three slides detailed the robot's proposed specifications, and Musk

made sure he pointed out that you could both outrun the Tesla Bot
and "overpower" it. He has, in the past, railed against the use of
robots as weapons and warned of the risks AI might pose -- once
calling it the "biggest risk we face as a civilization." I guess if
they're your incredibly slow, easy-to-overpower robots, the dangers
are reduced.

"We should be worried about AI," Musk reiterated during a

question-and-answer session after the presentation. "What we're
trying to do here at Tesla is make useful AI that people love and
is ... unequivocally good."

The bot would use Tesla's Autopilot software and have eight cameras to

feed into the neural network it's developed for its Full Self-Driving
software, Musk said.

The neural network is designed to help a Tesla vehicle analyse its

surroundings, identify routes and images, and determine what to do when
it encounters obstacles.

although the CEO didn’t go into detail about the potential of the tesla bot, he did
share some of its proposed specifications and suggested that the robot’s ultimate
goal is to eliminate ‘dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks’. the CEO also referenced
sending the bot to the store to fetch the groceries for you, as a simple example.
according to musk, the long-term vision of this endeavour is to replace manual labour,
with him mentioning that in the future, physical work will be a choice. ‘If you want to
do it, you can, but you won’t need to do it, ‘he added.