Tesla shows off underwhelming human robot prototype at AI Day 2022

At today's "AI Day" event, Musk unveiled an early prototype of his robot, which emerged from behind a curtain, waved, and "raised the roof" with its hands.

It was a risk for the prototype to be revealed. The first time the robot operated without a tether was on stage. The stand on the stage that could not stand on its own was rolled by employees of the company. It lifted its legs after waving. It fell over while Musk spoke.

The live robot demonstration lasted seven minutes, and the firm played a video of the prototype picking up a box and putting it down, watering a plant, and moving metal parts in a factory-like setting. A 3D-rendered view of the world was shown in the video.

In August of last year, the company announced that it would build a humanoid robot. The press was skeptical of the human dressed as a robot and doing the Charleston on stage.

At the Artificial Intelligence event today, Musk and his team emphasized that the walking prototype was an early demo developed in roughly six months using "semi-off the shelf actuators," and that the sleeker model was much more similar to the "Version 1 unit" they wanted to ship. It would probably be able to walk in a few weeks, according to him.

High-volume production, low cost, and high-reliability are some of the goals of the project. Musk said that the Optimus robot should have the brains-on-board to work autonomously and that it was similar to the plans for existing humanoidrobots.

After Musk gave the stage to the engineers from the company, they gave an overview of the power systems, actuators, and joint mechanisms that would make the project a reality. One engineer said they carry over most of their design experience from the car to the robot, while another said they drew inspiration from human biology.

Musk said that they were having the event to convince some of the most talented people in the world to join the company. Musk said that if the public didn't like what the company was doing they could vote against it. He said that he could be fired if he went crazy.

After the two-and-a-half hour presentation, the team gathered on stage to answer questions for over an hour.

As new information comes in, this will be updated.