Tesla Bot: MIT prof doubts general-purpose robot's usefulness

Is Tesla Bot more than vaporware? Will it be useful and effective in general tasks and duties?

Most robots are designed to do one thing or a small subset of things well. Tesla Bot and Xiaomi’s CyberOne robot seem to be attempts to create general purpose smart robots that can follow complex orders. Elon Musk, for instance, suggested that you could tell Tesla Bot go to a store and get you groceries, and that it will “replace people in repetitive, boring, and dangerous tasks.”

MIT professor Daniela Rus, however, has her doubts.

MIT is working on multiple types of reconfigurable robots, including ones made out of reformable smart sand, but making a humanoid general purpose robot is counterproductive because, as Rus says, " the more you generalize, the less you optimize."

In this TechFirst, we chat about the future of robotics and automation.

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