Will Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot Clean Your Cat’s Litter Box Or Walk Your Dog?

Elon Musk has displayed a rather strong commitment and hardcore dedication towards fearless innovation. From the SpaceX next-generation space-flight capabilities to Tesla’s cutting-edge electric vehicles to Neuralink’s critical brain-machine interfaces, Musk’s companies have made some unbelievable accomplishments in the past few years. These are just a few accomplishments of the lot.

The latest announcement Musk made on behalf of Tesla was yet another major contribution to fearless innovation. The 19th of August, 2021, will probably go down as a day in history. During Tesla’s event “AI Day,” Musk announced yet another work in progress that will completely revolutionize the world: the Tesla Bot. 

Tesla describes the Tesla Bot as a “general-purpose, humanoid robot capable of performing tasks and chores that are repetitive, unsafe, or boring.”

The presentation included a human dressed as the machine making robotic gestures and dancing on stage, conceivably trying to demonstrate the range of motions that Tesla hopes the bot to achieve.

Considering that this will be one of the biggest, most prominent innovations, you’re probably thinking about how the Bot will help you. Will it clean your cat’s litterbox? Will it walk your dog? Will it do other menial pet-related that you oh-so dread?

Well, let’s have a look at what the hype around the Tesla Bot is all about and how it might help you care for your pets.

What Musk Has to Say

The concept of the robot was presented at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif., factory, where it was called the “Tesla Bot” and “Optimus.” Tesla has promised to show a prototype of this innovation next year.

Musk explained that Tesla is the world’s biggest robots company that produces smart cars. He described these cars as “semi-sentient robots on wheels.” With components, such as an ever-evolving inference engine, a complete self-driving computer, and Dojo, the Tesla car has a rather good understanding of how to navigate the world. Given this, Musk suggests that it makes sense to put this idea in a humanoid form.

According to Musk, the Tesla Bot is intended to be friendly, besides being able to navigate a world built for humans, eliminating boring and repetitive tasks. He further explained that a useful humanoid robot should have the capacity to navigate everything without being rigorously trained step-by-step. Instead, it should perform advanced tasks by having the cognitive understanding of simple directives, such as “pick up groceries.”

This humanoid robot will be equipped to perform basic tasks, such as making grocery runs or wrenching cars. The Tesla Bot is part of the company’s expansive ambitions in automation.

What Can We Expect From a True Humanoid Robot?

Let’s face it: developing a robot that not only looks somewhat like a human but also behaves as them comes with its own set of programming challenges. It makes you wonder if the Tesla bot will be able to do the two-legged walking that humans have perfected over millions of years. Or will the robot be able to dance like the human in the Tesla Robot suit at Tesla AI Day during the bot announcement?

Well, it’s important to note that humans are sophisticated beings that operate in a complex way. For instance, a baby spends many years learning movements, among other things. It’s the things that babies can do that are hard for robots.

Musk suggests that the Tesla bot will be able to conduct mundane and boring tasks, such as screwing in bolts or running to the supermarket for items – both of which require quite a bit of specialized and adaptive programming. Although these tasks appear to be quite simple, for an AI invention, such as a robot, it can be quite challenging, mainly because the robot will have to change and respond on the spur of the moment. For instance, what if a product you wanted is sold out at the store? Or what if the robot has the wrong size bolts? So, while the robot will be able to follow your verbal instructions, it will also need to fulfill the requirement of the natural language process.

What Do We Think Tesla Bot Will Do?

As per Musk’s description of the robot, it seems like the Tesla bot will be somewhat like the human workers at an Amazon warehouse. They will reach for and grab various items for a diverse range of products or maybe even throw away a rotten fruit. Although this is often termed as “unskilled labor,” quite a lot of multilayered caution and judgment goes into doing and completing these tasks.

If you’re looking to automate things people do, you will have to revamp the entire setting of the area. For instance, if you want the Tesla bot to pick things off the shelf in a warehouse, you will have to change the entire environment of the place, including adding barcodes, boxing things differently, placing the racks in a specific manner. The point of making all these adaptations is to make the world safe for robots and the tasks as uniform and streamlined as possible, so that they can be handled by programming.

Will the Tesla Bot Care for My Pet?

The purpose of the Tesla Bot is to be able to eliminate boring, repetitive, and unsafe tasks for humans. The bot will be built to have a proper cognitive understanding of basic commands and directives. As per Musk, the Tesla Bot will make grocery runs or fix your car.

In fact, the potential applications of this bot extend far beyond everyday tasks. The company also suggests that this technology may play a critical role in healthcare. For instance, although the bot can’t replace a trained medical professional, it may be able to care for critically ill patients that require healthcare at home. There is scope that this cognitively advanced robotic companion may be able to help with basic tasks or alert the appropriate authorities in case of emergencies.

Considering the fact that the Tesla Bot will be equipped to perform such advanced tasks, it is quite safe to say that this robot will be able to do pet-related tasks, including walking your dog or cleaning your cat’s litter box. However, since it functions solely on commands, you will probably have to provide the bot with proper directives as to how you want the task accomplished.

Additionally, you have to note that robot hands are typically rigid and have limited dexterity. In fact, most robots have only three fingers. Human hands, on the other hand, are unbelievably complex, and so it would take many motors to create a robotic hand that can perform all the same tasks as a human hand. So, if you’re expecting that the Tesla bot will pet your cat or dog as well as you, that’s probably not going to be the case.

Wrapping Up

The bottom line is that we can make all the conclusions about what the Tesla bot can and can’t do, but the only way to see what this bot can really do is to wait and see Tesla delivers on what’s been promised.