AI is fueling a lot of wild ideas for our tech-driven future. If everything pans out, we won’t have to write our own essays, take our own notes, drive our own cars — hell, we might not even have to make our own art. That’s a tall order, obviously, but with AI’s rapid growth it’s hard not to give at least some of those lofty visions credence; even the most sci-fi ones; even — hear me out — freakin’ Star Wars-level humanoid robots. A glut of humanoid robots was not on my 2024 bingo, but here we are. Every time I scroll through X, there’s something — for instance, a new partnership, an exciting demo, or whatever this is. There are a lot of humanoid bots now and a lot more seemingly on the way — Figure’s AI robot, Unitree’s speed demon, Agility’s workhorse — but arguably most important of all is Tesla’s Optimus. I don’t mean that Optimus is necessarily more advanced than the rest of the aforementioned — in fact, Tesla’s competition is pretty fierce right now — but Optimus has something that the other robots don’t: clout. As some of you may already know, Elon Musk, despite Optimus’ nascency, has been bullish on the robot’s future. In fact, this year, Musk went as far as to suggest that Optimus could make Tesla a $25 trillion company. I know, I know… If you’re rolling your eyes, you’re justified. Musk is often (and not infrequently wrongly) optimistic about future technologies. But his carnival barking is a huge asset, not just for Tesla, but for the prospects of functional, real-world humanoid robots writ large. What I mean is that, for better or worse, since Tesla awkwardly introduced Optimus on stage last year with a weird interpretive dance, a lot has happened. When Tesla and Musk talk, people, regardless of their opinion of the pair, listen. If Musk says robots are on the way, maybe they actually are, and that added confidence gives other non-Tesla upstarts more opportunities as well. While Musk and Tesla have paved the way with their own fuel to the humanoid robot fire, AI is an equally powerful hype train that is doing the same thing concurrently.
Full opinion : How the progress in artificial intelligence is fueling a robots and humanoid race.
