Elon Musk says Tesla’s AI robot Optimus will eventually ‘cost less than a car’ and could lead to a ‘future free of poverty’

• Elon Musk says that Tesla’s AI bot, launched at the company’s AI Day, could have a wide impact on society.
• “I would say that the potential of Optimus is appreciated by very few people,” Musk said.
• Musk told the crowd that he predicted Optimus robot will eventually cost less than $20,000.

Elon Musk has lofty goals for his company’s planned humanoid AI robot product.

A rough prototype of the bot, called Optimus, made its official debut Friday night at Tesla’s annual AI Day by dancing and waving for a crowd.

But Elon Musk predicts that as the bot’s technology improves, it could cause widespread dispersal to all civilizations.

“I would say that the potential of Optimus is appreciated by very few people,” Musk said.

He went on to say that the current economy is limited by people and productivity, but an AI bot like Tesla’s could change that. calculation.

Musk predicted that if Tesla’s Optimus could handle manual labor, “an economy would become virtually limitless.”

“This means a future of abundance. A future without poverty, where you can have whatever you want in terms of products and services. It’s truly a fundamental transformation. of civilization as we know it,” he said.

Last year, when Musk revealed his plans for the bot, he said it would be designed to do “boring, repetitive” work.

Although AI robotics appears to be in its early stages, with Tesla engineers only showing off a “rough prototype,” Musk told the crowd that he plans to build the robot in large numbers and at as low a cost as possible. the faster the better.

“Optimus is designed to be a very capable robot but is produced in very large numbers, possibly in the millions, and it is expected to cost much less than a car.” , Musk said.

“I would say maybe less than $20,000 would be my guess.”