The robots are arriving! Why now?

This is a cliche; people have been saying that robots are coming for more than 30 years.

Now it can happen in 0-24 months, because:

The AI brain of the Tesla Optimus robot is trained differently from previous AIs.

The robots are designed for mass proqduction.

Tesla is already showing interim results of its Optimus robot.

What's different this time?

To explain, you need to understand the current way to train an artificial intelligence (AI) brain. This is done using a large language model (LLM) like OpenAI’s GPT-4.

How is such a network trained?

We haven't figured out how to train AI like a toddler.

A toddler can be told “don't touch that candle" a few times and understand. It may involve taking their hand away and looking them in the eyes, but the brain makes and reinforces the connection: touching a candle = be careful.

We used to have AIs with data and rules. Rules are like a recipe or logical instructions, programmed to, for example,drive on the right side of the road for the country.

The training method differs for Tesla and the "Full Self-Driving” version 12.3.x and up.

What's the difference?

This AI is trained only on video data from the Tesla fleet and its output is control outputs, like steering, accelerating, braking.

The AI has no rules built into it. Humans continuously improve the dataset for the new version, but there are no programmed rules. The AI figures it out based on the trainingdata.

The current Tesla FSD is at another level than its previous versions and shows promising human-like behavior on the road, even in complex situations.

Understand that all this training results in a very large AI, or a large neural net.

For non-technical people, it's like a huge Excel table.

The car does not need internet. It has a downloaded table and a local in-car computer that interprets the video world outside through the downloaded AI (inference hardware).

What's special about Optimus?

I have seen Boston Dynamics robots jump for years, nothing new, right? [3].

Reason 1. The difference is that these new AI's are trained only on data in and controls out. No rules programmed in anymore.

The new AIs are trained differently, allowing for new behavior possibilities and a limited understanding of theirenvironment.

See Optimus correcting itself at second 38! [1]

Tesla achieved this through training on human movement data (and possibly machine/simulated movement data).

At second 44, you see someone controlling a robot to create training data for the Optimus AI.

The training is movement in, controls for robot out.

Optimus can now perform useful tasks [1], depending on the data (other example: [6]).

Optimus also leverages the inference hardware (see arrow above) developed for the tesla car [7].

Reason 2.

The humanoid Robots, like Optimus, are designed for mass manufacture [4], Figure.ai , Sanctuari.ai also designs and builds a humanoid robot for mass manufacture, unlike most others recently.

Tesla has a track record of quickly scaling various factories. Examples include Model 3, Model Y, Cybertruck, battery lines, and SpaceX’s Raptor engines.

Safety

Safety needs to be a primary concern and given separate consideration. I want to emphasize that it wasn't forgotten oran afterthought. It needs to be designed in from the start.

Conclusion

For these two new reasons, we will see humanoid-like robots in industrial environments. When can it be expected? According to Tesla’s earnings call, in the next few months [5].

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Please comment, correct me and/or append your facts and opinions, highly appreciated !

Citations.

[1] Optimus demo picking and placing 4680 batteries: https://twitter.com/Tesla_Optimus/status/1787027808436330505

[2] Tesla “Full Self-Driving” supervised by human (FSD 12.x.x):

https://twitter.com/ByeonChansoo/status/1787297026742358513

[3] Boston Dynamics 2023: https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1615781862202572802 and 2024 (Atlas): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ECwExc-_M

[4] Figure.ai is also designed for mass manufacturing: https://twitter.com/search?q=optimus%20designed%20for%20mass%20manufacture&src=typed_query

[5] Tesla Earnings call 2024 Q1 Elon’s remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpADun_9RGs

[6] Deltaxrobots https://www.deltaxrobot.com

[7] Tesla inference hardware “slapped on” early Optimus https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1787747492328861770

[8] Sanctuary's Humanoid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69OmSuskv0U ( Accenture partners)