<\/p>\n
San Francisco \u2013 Elon Musk recently showed off the latest version of a humanoid robot that the world\u2019s richest man said could one day eliminate poverty.<\/p>\n
An Optimus prototype wheeled on stage during an annual Tesla AI Day presentation was mounted to a small platform. The robot, which remains a work in progress, waved to the audience and raised its knees.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quick as possible,\u201d the billionaire tech pioneer told the audience at the event in Silicon Valley on Friday, September 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still a lot of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Tesla was adapting its autonomous car technology to give Optimus capabilities such as walking safely or working on a factory floor, company engineers said during the presentation.<\/p>\n
Another version of the robot, built with off-the-shelf components rather than Tesla-made parts like Optimus, walked slowly on to the stage, pumped its fists and thrust its hips briefly in time to music as if dancing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe robot can actually do a lot more than we just showed you, we just didn\u2019t want it to fall on its face,\u201d Musk quipped.<\/p>\n Tesla is designing Optimus robots to be produced at high rates, pushing the price perhaps lower than $20\u00a0000 (about R360\u00a0000), Musk said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis means a future of abundance; a future where there is no poverty, a future where you can have what you want in terms of products and services,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really is a fundamental transformation of civilisation as we know it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Musk, who once warned of artificial intelligence being a threat to humanity, said Tesla wanted to make sure that the transition to a society in which robots did the work and people reaped the benefits was a safe one.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always want to be careful we don\u2019t go down the \u2018Terminator\u2019 path,\u201d he cautioned, referring to the blockbuster film about a killer cyborg. He said Tesla was building in safeguards including a stop button that couldn\u2019t be tampered with.<\/p>\n He said Tesla would begin testing Optimus on factory floors, doing simple tasks like carrying parts, and that the public should be able to buy the robots in three to five years.<\/p>\n Musk contended that Tesla, as a publicly traded company, would be held accountable by its shareholders if they thought it wasn\u2019t being socially responsible.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very important that I can\u2019t just do what I want. Tesla\u2019s structure is ideal for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk was reprimanded by the Securities and Exchange Commission after posting a tweet in 2018, in which he said he had acquired funding to take Tesla private, but did not provide proof or file paperwork with the SEC.<\/p>\n Musk is now is locked in a court battle with Twitter over his effort to terminate a $44\u00a0billion deal he made to take the messaging platform private.<\/p>\n