Tesla's Robot Revolution

Humanoid robots have been in popular culture from the very beginning, and while robotics have come a long way, we still don't have the humanoid, walking, general purpose robots of our sci-fi imaginations. But some companies, including Tesla, claim to be on the verge of finally making it a reality. But how likely is it, really?

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TIMESTAMPS -
0:00 - Robots In Pop Culture
3:00 - Why Humanoid Robots?
5:14 - Boston Dynamics
6:04 - Tangent Cam
6:52 - Humanoids Are Personable
8:48 - Uncanny Valley
10:30 - Tesla Bot
11:43 - Where Are We Now?
13:18 - Balance
14:25 - Articulation
15:26 - Vision
16:37 - Battery Life
18:54 - Will They Take Our Jobs?
20:45 - Looking To The Future
21:28 - Sponsor - Henson Shaving

[zinck]

At the hospital I work at in Norway, we already use automated robots to move stuff like clothes and bed sheets etc between different wings and floors of the building. Those jerks hijack the elevators all the time

[kevinfoster]

When Joe was talking about the robots battery I immediately associated it with my childhood remote control car 15 minutes of play time 2 hours of charge time it was on the charger far more than being played with.

[hazevthewolf]

I'm elderly, almost 70 yo, and I'm developing mobility issues. I may be naive, but I dare say that an intelligent, agile robot would be a godsend to me and be preferable to a human assistant. I live in terror of my bathroom and once a week or so, I manage to bathe myself with the help of a hand rail and chair that sits in the tub. Fortunately for me, I don't perspire much or go out much more than once every four or five days. A robot wouldn't have any emotional reaction to the horror show of my naked body. Getting out of bed can be a challenge for me, but a chair that I've placed by my bed helps me roll out of bed using gravity to get myself up into a vertical position.

A robot could help me get in and out of my bathtub/shower combo, fetch my mail, help me up the steps to my door (my house is on a raised 3 foot foundation), clean my cats' litter box (if I lower myself to the floor, getting up may be a considerable undertaking), carry heavy stuff, or help me to my feet, if I fall. By now, you can see where this is going.

I like technology. I'm a retired engineering electronics technician.

As to the robot's appearance, I'd accept many different forms. A cartoonish face would amuse me (Marvin the Martian? Some anime face?), but I think that I'd really like my putative robo-assistant to look like a handsome young guy in his late twenties.

I know, I'm only dreaming, but I hope that someone like myself, ten or twenty years down the line, can realise my dream.

[woodrobin]

Just a nitpick: The robot Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still didn't rebel against its creators. It was designed (along with its siblings) to enforce peace among the worlds in the interstellar coalition. Any world that threatened to make war on other worlds would be obliterated by these robots, thus ensuring that no interstellar war could be carried out. They protected the coalition from threats to peace both internal and external. The humanoid that came along with the robot was a diplomat assigned to let humanity know its options, now that it had developed the capacity for nuclear weaponry *and* space travel: either put aside those technologies, put aside war, or be exterminated. Klaatu did exactly what he was designed to do. He couldn't rebel against humanity, because he was always a weapon of mass destruction pointed *at* humanity.

[heinrichwonders]

Actually, the human body is quite unparalleled when it comes to a few things: Long distance running and throwing objects, for example.
Our long legs, upright gait and bare skin enable us to outrun even horses, if only the distances get long enough. And our particularly mobile shoulder joints allow us to hurl objects with deadly accuracy like no other animal can.

[iainballas]

With those videos of Atlas robot falling down, my first thought was "It... really looks like a human with how it flails around on the way down"

Now if they can get it to walk into a room, scratch it's head, and walk back out to ask what it was doing, we'll all be replaceable.

[AngeloXification]

When I was 13 years old, I wanted to build a robot that could learn. I drew up silly plans for how it could "gather information" from the world using cameras and microphones etc... I wrote a letter to Microsoft asking them to sponsor me. Obviously I never got any sort of response but I've always wanted to make that dream a reality.

Now, 18 years later its interesting seeing things like this in the news.

[ElTurfStuff]

Well, after seeing the prototype they announced and showcased, I would say the Tesla Optimus robot is well ahead of everyones expectations.

[creech]

One of my favorite Robot movies is "Robot and Frank" which is a really well done. (Spoiler Alert) The grandfather is sidelined by his children who are just too busy to deal with him, so they get him a personal assistant robot. Frank apparently though was a bank robber in his days of misspent youth and decides his robot buddy might make the perfect crime sidekick. It's handled so well though, it's not played for laughs, it's very heartfelt, with this forgotten older man trying to find some way to feel alive and connect with someone, even if it's just a robot. There are those really sort of scary ads about these new robot assistants that are sort of just glorified Siri interfaces. They remind you when to exercise, take your medicine, even do trivia to keep people's minds engaged. But when the senior citizens start talking about how these things are their "friends" it gets sort of creepy. I almost seems like they're designed more to make families feel better about having put grandma into some crappy rest home.

[robertoaguiar]

Personally, I think a robot similar to Auto from the wall-e movie, moving through the house in similar passages that once existed in old houses, and was always connected to electricity with no need to recharge is possibly the best short-term solution to fold your clothes and do other house-keeping tasks.

[roryreddog]

They actually are calling it:
“Optimus Sub-Prime” 😂

[scotttaylor]

Joe, you are one of my favorite YouTubers. Your videos are always packed with details and information, but you never lose the funny, and that's why I watch you all the time.

My biggest question, is did you find Polar Express as creepy as I did?

[speedralph]

I'm only 9 minutes in, and I already love this video. Thanks, Joe. Smashing the top-quality content... again!

[DanyF]

8:33 You're right, building robots to look cool in their own way is the way to go, not human like. They made the same decisions for the Hero Arms (by the awesome robotic prosthetic company open bionics) and the result is that kids get to show off their "cool mechanical arm" instead of the "weird thing that tries to look human."

[TheBsss]

I think the problems the Boston dynamics robot has shows how unlikely it is Tesla has that figured out out of nowhere

[scratchy]

The '80s are from the future. Even the synthwave music still sounds futuristic.

[BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

I feel like the TeslaBot was a distraction from some labour controversy but I can't remember which one it was.

[papibasic]

The idea of intelligent and capable robots with kevlar vitals scares me.

[defeatSpace]

I think a huge part of making general purpose household robots successful includes having features that allow users to teach robots how to do things the way the user likes them done.

[MrVinniboy]

I remember another "Robot" series from my youth, it was a UK TV series called "Metal Mickey" ran from 1980-1983 (39 episodes)