“It’ll do anything you want,” boasts Musk about his human-like robot, Optimus. “But for a man whose timelines are about as stable as the weather on Mars, that is reassuring,” writes an editorial in Newsweek. “Elon Musk has been promising for years about mechanical assistants, space travel, and an economy freed from human toil that vanishes when light is shone on it.”
“Scaling to civilization transformation” and covering “from baby-sitting to brain uploading” but surely including it all in the latest series of announcements from Musk all of it can be included in what can be seen behind the hubris: missed deadlines are just that missed deadlines. Now, let us turn to the most outlandish and dubious of the project promises that Musk believes will be achieved by robots.
1. Mass Production on a Sci-Fi Scale
Musk believes that in 2029, Tesla will be producing millions of robots each year, and the low series starts in 2025. Then comes the output of 50,000 in 2026 and one million each year later. It comes in play when it comes to the Chinese humanoids known as Walker S2, which are still in the hundreds in relation to China and are meant for industry use only. Even that can’t be compared to the millions and millions that Tesla wants to produce.
2. Crime prevention by Robot Shadows
In the science fiction tradition of Philip K. Dick, Musk has hypothesized: “a much more humane response to the expected future of crime the use of a robot that would trail suspected wrongdoers in order to dissuade them from behaving foolishly.” From science fiction, Musk envisions this liberation. Alongside the morals that apply, such scenarios are impossible on any level of autonomy and understanding of human motivation.
3. Babysitting and Domestic Care
In Musk’s intended use of the robot, some of the tasks that can be performed by the Optimus include taking care of the kids, walking the dogs, and offering beverages. Though it can deadlift 150 pounds and carry 45 pounds at a speed of 5 mph, this is only excusable for some tasks, and the implications of such a fault-ridden device taking care of kids are immense. Most of the current uses of robotics in the medical and service sectors are continuously under observation for very obvious reasons such as machinery breakdowns and unpredictable software responses.
4. Factory Labor Savior
Tesla will also be utilizing thousands of its Optimus robots in the organization due to problems that may arise as a consequence of labor shortage. Based on theory, humanoids are capable of eliminating repetitive tasks performed in the assembly line, and this has partly reflected the organizational view of “ownable” labor that has been highlighted in some theory on economy. Based on history, it can be observed that some robots are better compared to humanoids in assembly line arrangements. Reconfiguring the assembly line for biped robots as opposed to the specific task becomes more difficult and expensive.
5. Mars Companion
Musk plans that when Starship goes to Mars and enters orbit, Optimus would be able to accompany it on this interplanetary travel, and only later would human travelers follow in 2029 or 2031. Based on the Starship Launch Failures and the viability assessment of the extreme Δv and weight requirement challenge, this robotic companion of science fiction borders on science fiction itself in including this in the passenger manifest for travel to Mars. Mars Survival Requirements include autonomy, ruggedness, and maintainability that Optimus still needs to demonstrate.
6. Heart Surgery Supremacy
“Maybe Optimus would be better than the best human surgeon,” suggested Musk. However, in point of fact, the state of the art in robotic surgery involvses highly specialized systems such as da Vinci, and this only happens under the supervision of licensed medical professionals. In current literature, it has been observed that, despite its accuracy and fast healing rates, “screw leader failure in the mechanical arm and arcing due to insulation breakdown” are some of the specific RO errors. It is too much to hope that generalized humanoids would be able to improve years of medical robotics excellence.
7. Economic Utopia without jobs
Still, the robot economy of Musk holds out promises of the possibility of generalized higher income and leisure due to the potential of optional work made possible because of the efficiency of the Optimus-controlled robots. However, predictions about human-form robots in numbers of 80 million in private households for the year 2050 are still nowhere near what it needs for disruption in labor markets. And, of course, tax treatments in relation to human income would need a total reset or else basic income alternatives would be challenging.
8. General Purpose
Optimus is meant to be a generalized robot capable of performing every task that needs to be performed, such as mower tasks and educating children back at school. In this manner, it can be noticed that it is easier to develop robots that can operate in one area in an intelligent manner, such as strawberry picking, instead of those that can operate in multiple areas. “Musk leverages Tesla car-related AI for navigation systems, which is very clever. And it still only one area of inventing that needs to be conquered.”
9. Immortality Through
And perhaps the most brazen of them: utilizing “Neuralink for human consciousness transference to Optimus.” “’The problem with this one: it depends on just two and only two areas of still unproven technology: Brain Computer Interfaces and Mind Transfer, and has yet to be accepted in any way, shape, or form in the scientific or philosophical communities. “What happens when you layer plausible industrial applications on top of science fiction fantasies that stretch the state of the art in ways that are only just about possible in the near-term? That’s the trick that makes Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s optimism about Optimus so fascinating. “Where the video demonstration meets autonomy is exactly where the story of Optimus is for techno-savvy cynics like me.”
