Elon Musk shows off a robot that can ‘raise the roof.’ And for now, that’s about all

Elon Musk wants autonomous androids to take over humans’ factory jobs. But on Friday night, the most they could do was gingerly walk across the stage and “raise the roof.” The Tesla chief executive unveiled his highly anticipated Optimus robot prototype at the company’s annual AI Day, showcasing its efforts in artificial intelligence and robotics. Musk said the robot would be internally tested at Tesla’s auto factory to see “how useful” it is. “It’s not clear what the limit actually is.” Musk said the Optimus bots would eventually be produced by the millions and would cost less than $20,000 apiece. “In some sense, it’s a throwback to what people imagined in the 1950s,” said Martin Ford, a futurist and author of “Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything.” “It could be a vision that comes to pass, though not in the same way he’s presenting it, and not within any immediate time frame.” It’s not hard to imagine that factories like Tesla’s auto plant could be completely automated at some point in the future, Ford said.