Elon Musk wants to transform civilization as we know it.
The richest man in the world wants to be remembered as a visionary and not as a simple entrepreneur who knew how to detect the direction of the wind of innovation.
The tech tycoon wants to differentiate himself from Steve Jobs, the revered founder of Apple (AAPL) who transformed everyday life by creating iconic products like the iPhone and the iPad to herald the age of technology.
Musk proposes a vision that goes beyond everyday life. He is, therefore, now trying to redefine Tesla (TSLA), the world leader in electric vehicles that he cofounded barely 20 years ago. The company is not just a manufacturer of electric vehicles but more a technology and energy group, according to him.
Tesla AI Day is thus an event which is part job fair, to recruit top talent, and part to showcase the progress Tesla is making in its mission to transform humanity and create a "future of abundance" with artificial intelligence, by producing a machine - Optimus, a humanoid robot - that can replace humans.
Musk's critics - there are many - are skeptical of this shift to robotics, but Musk owes his colossal success to lofty promises.
Here are excerpts from the ambitious statements made by the billionaire at the Palo Alto, Calif., event on Sept. 30, which help to better understand his vision.
Introduction
"I do want to set some expectations with respect to our Optimus robots," Musk said. "As you know last year [it] was just a person in a robot suit. But we've come a long way. Compared to that, it's going to be very impressive. We're going to talk a lot about our progress in AI Autopilot as well as progress with Dojo."
Autopilot is Tesla's driver assistance system. The owners of the brand's vehicles have the choice between three options, two of which are chargeable because they allow the vehicles to perform very advanced maneuvers on their own.
The systems include the standard Autopilot version, the middle version Enhanced Autopilot and the very advanced Full Self-Driving (FSD) option. Currently 160,000 Tesla customers in North America have the latest FSD update, allowing Tesla to collect data to continue improving the system.
Dojo is Tesla's super computer that FSD will use to improve the brains behind the company's driving systems by analyzing the massive data the automaker has garnered from volunteers.
Optimus, a prototype humanoid robot, shares the company's AI software and cameras with its cars' Autopilot.
Bumble C, a Deconstructed Optimus
"So what you saw was workable Bumble C. That's our rough development robot using semi-off-the-shelf actuators. But we actually have gone a step further than that already," Musk said.
"And we actually have an Optimus bot with fully Tesla designed and built actuators, battery pack, control system, everything. It wasn't quite ready to walk. But I think it will walk in a few weeks.
"But we wanted to show you the robot, something that's actually fairly close to what will go into production, and show you all the things that [it] can do. So let's bring it out," he said.
"So here you're seeing Optimus with the degrees of freedom that we expect to have in Optimus production unit one, which is the ability to move all the fingers independently, the thumb to have two degrees of freedom. So it has opposable thumbs, and both left and right hands so it's able to operate tools and do useful things.
How Much Will Optimus Cost and Will It Be Mass-Produced?
"Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible. We've also designed it using the same discipline that we use in designing the car, which is, to say, to design for manufacturing, such that it's possible to make the robot in high volume at low cost with high reliability," said Musk.
"Optimus is designed to be an extremely capable robot, but made in very high volume, probably ultimately millions of units, and it is expected to cost much less than a car. I would say probably less than $20,000 would be my guess.
"This means a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty, where people, you can have whatever you want, in terms of products and services. It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it," he said.
"It's very important that the corporate entity that makes this happen is something that the public can properly influence," Musk said. "So I think the Tesla structure is ideal for that."
The New Tesla
"We really wanted to show the depth and breadth of Tesla and artificial intelligence, computer hardware, robotics actuators and, and try to really shift the perception of the company away from you know...a lot of people think we're like, just a car company or we make cool cars, whatever," Musk said. "But most people have no idea that Tesla is arguably the leader in real world AI, hardware and software, and that we're building what is arguably the first, the most radical computer architecture since the Cray-1 supercomputer.
"And I think if you're interested in developing some of the most advanced technology in the world, that's going to really affect the world in a positive way, Tesla is the place to be," Musk said.
