Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the company’s humanoid robot Optimus on a short walk, but not everyone seemed to be on board, some quipping to “kill it with fire.”
“Going for a walk with Optimus,” Musk posted on X Wednesday, updating the world on the bot’s progress in a 15-second clip.
The video shows the robot moving slowly around a room while a small group of people observe its movements.
The Tesla CEO has said in the past the goal is to create a robot “capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring.”
Musk had previously shared a video earlier this month of the humanoid robot showing off its new skill of folding shirts.
Though many are looking forward to a day when robots can help perform mindless and dangerous tasks for them, others don’t appear to be too keen on integrating them into society when the time comes.
“HAS NO ONE SEEN THE MOVIE IROBOT?!” one X user replied to Musk’s video.
“WE DO NOT NEED THESE THINGS,” another commented.
“Kill it with fire,” replied another.
Despite some people’s concerns about the robot, others found humor in how Optimus walked, with some jokingly comparing its movements to President Biden.
“Optimus already walks faster than the leader of the free world,” one user commented.
“Optimus walks better than Joe Biden,” another observed.
“Already outpaces Biden,” wrote another.
Musk first announced Tesla’s Optimus, also dubbed “The Tesla Bot,” at the company’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Day event in Aug. 2021.
The company recently revealed its latest robot, “Optimus Gen 2,” in December 2023.
Optimus Gen 2 stands at 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 121 lbs — 22 lbs lighter than the previous version — and can run at a speed of 5 mph, according to Fox News.
It has a more human-like appearance and movement due to its new hands, feet, neck, and body.
At an event in Oct. 2022, Musk said that he hoped to eventually make millions of the Optimus robots, which would carry an estimated $20,000 price tag per unit.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done to refine Optimus,” Musk said at the time. “I think Optimus is going to be incredible in five or 10 years.”
Understanding that making humanoid robots isn’t “directly in line with accelerating sustainable energy” as part of Tesla’s overarching goal, Musk said he thinks “the mission does somewhat broaden with the advent of Optimus to – you know, I don’t know: making the future awesome.”
Earlier this month, Musk took to social media to express his agreement with a fellow tech leader’s prediction that there will be about 1 billion humanoid robots on Earth in two decades.
“We should be expecting a billion humanoid robots on earth in the 2040s and a hundred billion (mostly alien) robots throughout the solar system in the 2060s,” David Holz, the founder of artificial intelligence (AI) research lab Midjourney, posted on X.
To which Musk replied, “Probably something like that, provided the foundations of civilization are stable.”
