Comment by joakleaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joakleaf | Hacker News Reader

If Musk was really serious about this, he would start with smaller steps:

0) Finish the tentacle charging robot they demoed in 2015 (roll out to superchargers)

1) Build delivery robot on wheels using FSD (like the Starship Technology's robots). These could be used on hospitals, possibly warehouses, pizza delivery, cleaning streets, painting lanes on roads, ...

2) Build dog-like robot, like Boston Dynamics's spot with a "hand".

...

3+n) Try to build humanoid robot.

Each smaller step would provide Tesla with the experiences needed to take the next step, as well as an actual sellable product.

This is what a sane CEO would do.

I get that Honda and Boston Dynamics have humanoid robots, but they've worked on them for 30 years, and they are not talking about selling them as a generic product.

Musk is not serious about this. Just like the boring company (see Las Vegas Loop as example), he is selling a _sci-fi dream_ to people either as a distraction, to pump the share price, to attract new talent, or to brand himself, Tesla and the other Musk-companies.

As a shareholder, this actually makes me quite concerned about the sanity of the leadership, the distraction it will cause internally in Tesla, and about the fact that they are starting R&D into something new, while there is still plenty of other more reachable products, they have presented but still haven't delivered. Tesla is a vulnerable company, and they are losing focus.

The worst part is, I suspect that he will (need to) present an even more impossible thing in 2022/2023 to keep the hype-train rolling.

Now, where is that charging robot that actually looked like it worked in 2015?

I disagree.

> Musk is not serious about this. Just like the boring company

Quite the claim. As usual we have the 'look at the very first prototype' its not actually perfect therefore its fake and nothing but marketing.

The Boring company is series and they are doing all kinds of things. Saying they are not series is disrespectful to the engineers that work on those machines.

I'm a shareholder and spending some resources figuring out something like humanoid robot to me is useful R&D if its a product or not.

There is no evidence that this is a significant enough distraction to be worried about leadership. They are doing exactly what they should, expanding production, working FSD and battery production working towards releasing Cybertruck and Semi.

> he is selling a _sci-fi dream_

At this stage this is a fever dream. They can get a car autodrive on highways but somehow they will build a bipedal robot that will navigate spaces.

I don't see many wanting a tentacle arm, that's a waste of resources.

I'm also heavily invested in Tesla, have been for years I like this alot, it's an exciting future to work towards. Will it take longer than elon says? Probably. But as long as you're moving towards the goal, it's great, one day you'll be there.

I also think building a humanoid robot can interest a lot of talent, and while building this robot they'll learn a lot that can be applied elsewhere.

There's way too much negativity here and way too few exciting product announcements these days, so I loved every part of this.

We are negative, because it seems either Musk doesn't seem to fully respect and appreciate the difficulty and the steps required to build a humanoid robot, or he is lying about what he thinks is possible at the expense of customers, shareholders, and employees.

I honestly don't understand why they don't use their FSD+electic motors+battery tech and create a bunch of products on wheels; farming equipment, robotic lawnmowers, robotic vacuum cleaners, street cleaners, etc.

I think there is so much potential in autonomous farming equipment, and even the robotic cleaners could be an order of magnitude better than current products, if the FSD logic works. But maybe electric farming equipment is less feasible than a humanoid, and, obviously, cleaners are less cool.

It seems like much more feasible, useful, and lower hanging fruit with the tech they already have, compared to this. It could also create confidence in the autonomous capabilities of Tesla's FSD, and it would lead to sellable products within years instead of decades or more.

Good idea with autonomous farming equipment. Although doesn't really sound like it's aligned with Tesla's mission, so maybe some other company could license Tesla's tech and do it. Because it sounds like it should be done!

Mars has a lot of soil-building to do, but unfortunately robots are no good at producing manure.

If anything it gives scope for smart and talented people to work on something that if fails they can easily spin multiple startups from in various attempts to find a route to success.

This happens all over the place and we should be thankful people are either dumb/smart enough to take these risks on big ideas.

> but they've worked on them for 30 years

Yes and Boeing worked on rockets for 50+ years, General motors worked on cars for 50+ years and so on. I don't get why people seem to have such a limited memory of the past.

Flipped around, but potentially the same takeaways:

Turns out building a true FSD car is almost as hard as a humanoid robot. They've already got a Boston Dynamic's-like robot dog internally, but it sucks at getting around a parking lot.

i.e. set your expectations of the arrival of true FSD on the car to whenever you think Tesla can actually deliver this robot.

I think you are right. The gating part in both applications is, whether you can create an AI which is "good enough" to get a real understanding of the environment.

I think their trained data and current models for navigating are almost completely useless for a humanoid robot. They might have the awareness tracking for a certain "scale" of objects but a humanoid robot can trip on a half inch ledge a car can ignore and roll over. Let alone all the control systems for making the legs do leg stuff.

Boston Dynamics is already using modern AI technics and that shows on the huge advancements they had in recent years which, being revolutionary robots, are still kinda useless compared to "traditional" industrial automation costs and applicability.

Tesla is as close to being BD as it is close to being Apple and launching the next iPhone killer.

“to attract new talent”

I think it’s primarily this, and it’s not a bad strategy.

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