Hot off of proudly announcing that he had replaced 4,000 people with AI at his company, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff posted a video of Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, calling it a “productivity game-changer.”
However, going by the 52-second clip, the carmaker has a long way to go until it can successfully have AI-powered bipedal robots replace human jobs.
Is this really what will make up a whopping 80 percent of Tesla’s value, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised in a tweet earlier this week? In an apparent effort to shift the company’s priorities from slumping car sales, the mercurial entrepreneur has doubled down on AI and its humanoid robot in an apparent effort to stop investors from running for the hills.
But Benioff’s latest demo leaves a lot to be desired, suggesting the company is still a long way out from realizing Musk’s goal of having the robot catapult Tesla’s market value to a dubiously high $25 trillion, let alone complete the most basic of human tasks.
“Hey Optimus, do you know where I can get a Coke?” Benioff asked the golden, life-sized robot.
“Sorry, I don’t…” Optimus answered, before cutting itself off, “…have real-time info, but I can take you to the kitchen if you want to check for a Coke there.”
After the pair talked over each other for a bit, Optimus finally lurched into action, awkwardly waddling down the aisle of a nondescript office environment.
“I think we need to give it a bit more room,” Musk could be heard saying off-camera. “Right now, it’s kind of paranoid about space.”
“It’ll be able to walk a lot faster, too,” he added, in an apparent attempt to reassure Benioff as the robot slowly lumbered down the carpeted hallway.
Ahead of plunging sales and abysmal quarterly earnings, Musk promised in January that “things are really going to go ballistic next year,” promising to produce 100,000 Optimus robots a month by then.
But in July, The Information reported that the company had fallen far behind in its efforts to ramp up production, failing to keep up with its own stated goal of building 5,000 Optimus robots this year.
The company is also reportedly facing severe bottlenecks that are slowing down production, as well as technical problems related to Optimus’ hands.
In fact, the hands of the Optimus robot in Benioff’s video don’t appear to have any degree of dexterity, closely resembling the appendages of a mannequin.
In June, Milan Kovac, the head of engineering for the Optimus robot program, abruptly left the company, stating that he was looking to spend more time with his family.
As Tesla continues to struggle with its humanoid robot, the competition is heating up fast. Manufacturers, particularly in China, are figuratively and literally running circles around their US-based counterparts.
While Benioff suggests that an Optimus robot will cost anywhere up to half a million dollars, Chinese robot company Unitree is already selling a bipedal alternative for a mere $16,000 — which can do a lot more than vaguely pointing out where the kitchen is.
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