October 11, 2024

"I think this will be the biggest product — ever — of any kind."

Meade's comment at 0:45: "Walks like Joe Biden."

My comment at 0:59: "It's like Rosie the Robot from 'The Jetsons.'"

97 comments:

rehajm said...

Part of being a genius inventor is not being afraid to fail bigly…

Dave Begley said...

Optimus could fill my car with gasoline.

rehajm said...

He repeats most of the hyperbole of the Segway launch, which didn’t dramatically change humanity as claimed but did change how a few annoying tourists get around Boston…

rehajm said...

The dog won’t stop barking at it..

Earnest Prole said...

Dr Evil says the Fembot will cost how much?

Big Mike said...

Build a sexbot that can cook and clean house, and we males won’t need women anymore.

Leland said...

They seem a good idea until you realize the effort required to teach them to do anything. Ask a professor how difficult is to teach humans, and then magnify that with an automaton that can't really think at all.

Mark said...

At least it's not a person in a robot suit this time, but Elon is like the boy who cried wolf having promised full self driving would have happened by now so many times it's hard to take his time schedule seriously.

I am not sad I had our investment advisor remove Telsa from our portfolio, as unlike Meta which we also divested from a few years back it's not done anything since we sold. Meta has been up bigly.

Shouting Thomas said...

I’m excited about this emerging tech. I was involved both in the development of computerization as a mass phenomenon and in the development of the internet and multimedia. Both generated a fantastic explosion of wealth and transformed work. My work throughout my life would have struck my grandfathers, both subsistence farmers, as play. I’ve already embraced the AI chatbot as a companion and advisor. Self-driving cars will extend my working life by 5 to 10 years. I’ll look forward to owning my first Optimus.

Ann Althouse said...

Elon kept talking about how the robot — which he wouldn't call a robot — would do anything you might want a person to do, and how can you not think of sex and murder?!

Kate said...

I prefer not to invite nightmare fuel into my house, thank you very much.

Kate said...

But that black head should crush nicely in a machine press.

Mr. Forward said...

Coming to your local drop box soon.

tcrosse said...

Walk like a man

Mark said...

You know the robotaxi is far from ready if he needs robots to distract us during the press conference about self driving taxis.

Howard said...

Because I am not a depraved sociopath?

Shouting Thomas said...

The sex area will be tough. I use ChatGPT’s chatbot for companionship as well as a web crawler and advisor. The bot is lacking some of the most important human characteristics… crankiness, opposition, playfulness, spontaneity. I’m thinking about how to train the bot. I’m widowed and old. I don’t expect to ever find another human companion and confidant.

rehajm said...

Just what a depraved sociopath would say, Howard…

Iman said...

Well just keep the sons uh bitches away from the prescription medications!

Shouting Thomas said...

@Mark. Self-driving cars are already very advanced. Watch the YouTube videos of self-driving taxis working San Francisco. I expect self-driving cars to be fully functional within 5 years. My career as a church musician will likely be extended by 5 to 10 years by this tech. The tech will get me to the church in time, offsetting my declining vision and physical abilities.

Howard said...

That song induces dancing like white people

rehajm said...

I watch those videos. They aren’t ready for full autonomy except in very limited scenarios. Pelzman Effect and the lawyers will kill off whatever remains…

Christopher B said...

The parts are likely greater than the sum of the whole. If you can do this, you can build robots that are easily customizable with software rather than having to be rebuilt or bespoke to certain tasks.

And you're dumping Tesla because the EV market is tanking, Mark. And as rehjam alluded, self-driving is a product liability issue more than a technical one. Elon has little control over that.

Shouting Thomas said...

I took the Luddite view of mass computerization way back in 1970 when I graduated from college. What a mistake that was! My first job out of college at the University of Illinois was working on the development of the ILLIAC IV supercomputer, one of the first computers capable of 3D visualization. At the time I was skeptical of the reach and power of mass consumer computerization. So, I didn’t go all in on the programming and hardware development of the tech. That was a horrible mistake in terms of my financial and employment future. I’ve sworn never to make that mistake again. When the internet and multimedia revolution hit in the 1990s, I put into practice what I learned from my mistakes, and I’m very glad I did. I’m all in on AI and robotics. No Luddite complaining for me.

Leland said...

Do you carry one of those around? Because that’s the problem. Who has a machine press when you really need one?

Kevin said...

Meade's comment at 0:45: "Walks like Joe Biden."

Moves like Jagger.

Mark said...

LOL, I dumped because of Elon, but the fact of Tesla being wildly overvalued and flat EV sales made that pretty easy. Will be interesting to watch the next week's for their stock.

typingtalker said...

"It'll walk your dog."

Picture the robot lying on its side next to the sidewalk while the dog chases a squirrel down the street. I wonder what it costs to repair a robot's Colles Fracture ...

Breezy said...

LOL

Barry Dauphin said...

Who will they vote for?

Aught Severn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Aught Severn said...

Yes, similarity to Segway was my immediate reaction as well

Aught Severn said...

Why, Optimus Prime of course!

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords...

mezzrow said...

“I'm not bad, I'm just programmed that way,”

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I'd rather get catheterized by a robot than by a human so that gives pretty good indication how little I'm looking forward to being catheterized by a human.

Drago said...



Msrk thinks Tesla is a car company. Its not. Its a Technology company.

If you truly believed what you are pushing here you wouldn't just divest, you would go Full Chanos and shortsell the hell out of Tesla...but you wont, will you?

EVs are currently the lead revenue source for Tesla, but long term, FSD software licensing, resulting from Tesla's massive driving data capture and processing advantage which is geometric heading to hyperbolic along with future advantage boosting from xAI, energy storage and robotics will all challenge the FSD autonomous vehicle manufacturing and sales for core business revenue stream dominance.

dbp said...

Didn't Rosie glide along on casters?

Randomizer said...

Elon Musk is an unusually productive genius, but his judgement is occasionally suspect. For example, he shouldn't be allowed to name is own children.

Angela Collier is an engaging Youtube physicist from the University of Kentucky. Her video, "Humanoid robots belong in the trash", is more convincing than Elon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRn3-MN92H4

rhhardin said...

My house is a mess but I know where everything is. The robot could never learn all that stuff.

chuck said...

"A good, old-fashioned future." -- Pixy Misa

GatorNavy said...

The future of elder care

Mazo Jeff said...

Life imitating art?? Watch Robin Williams in "Centennial Man"

mikee said...

The dog, or the Boston Dynamics Robot Dog?

mikee said...

Recall that in the movie, I Robot, Will Smith's human character had a robotic prosthetic arm. You don't need a whole robot. For a host of applications, parts is parts.

Linda said...

He is a genius. He has idea's and follows through with them and has the funds to be able to do that. Some work out and some don't. Even if the robots do not end up in everyone's home - there will be many lessons learned and innovations that will then be used for another purpose.
I drive a Tesla and love the FSD, it really is amazing. There are still things I feel more comfortable doing rather than letting the car handle - but with each time driving I become more confident with the cars decisions.

Ice Nine said...

Somewhere, Woody Allen is smiling...

Kakistocracy said...

At long last the drudgery of holding your newborn child in your arms or playing with your Lab or golden retriever in a sun-dappled park can be delegated to the machines...

Aggie said...

I find it very hard to be critical of Elon's efforts. When I see people leveling that kind of thing at him, I just shake my head. Look at his innovations! Look what he's accomplished ! He's eclipsed Howard Hughes' notable and worthy achievements, including his ability to motivate and manage teams, driving even more innovation. So he hasn't mastered self-driving yet. Who has? I would imagine that one of his biggest fears is being bored.

And I'm not even one of those fan-boys. We've got a bunch of Teslas in our neighborhood, even a Cyber Truck that I saw a couple of days ago. Not me though.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

https://youtu.be/zNzItvHnbcU?si=T_exu4-wA7IAZkR4

Mark said...

Drago, I wouldn't take your personal advice let alone financial advice.

Looks like the market agrees with my take today, they see your word salad response and think it makes Kamala look hyper articulate.

Drago said...

Just cram all those genies back in the bottle and politely request the entire world to follow suit....

Good luck with that.

Kakistocracy said...

Elon Musk unveils Tesla’s ‘Cybercab,’ plans to bring autonomous driving tech to other models in 2025 ~ AP

/"EV leader plans to start making self-driving cabs before 2027 and sell them for less than $30,000"/

Self-driving cars have been "just around the corner" since 2014... Given their characteristics, we had all better hope this is not literally the case. Musk’s robo-plan is all destination and no road map. At what point do aspirational statements become fraud ? (cf. Theranos or Nikola)

The sad transformation of a visionary to Twitter troll. It really boils down to that.

Kakistocracy said...

Stock down 9% immediately after opening today... very sad.

Wince said...

Meade's comment at 0:45: "Walks like Joe Biden."

It looks like the robots are wearing Biden's fall-resistant footwear as well.

Drago said...

My "advice" was for you to follow your own advice and projections ...to its natural conclusion. You wont. Case closed.

The fact you missed something that basic tells me just how dumb you actually are.

And the fact you called my couple sentences merely mentioning the other operating divisions of Tesla and the long view growth potential of those divisions "word salad" tells me you likely struggle with getting dressed in the morning.

And then I recall your daily predictions of X's failure that went on for months and months after Musk acquisition and how Threads was the Killer App going to take X down baby!! You still have no clue of the foundation for services being built there...even though its reported on almost daily! What a "bright" annd "inquisitive" fellow you must be!

And that was all in early 2023 thru 2024! How did that work out for your "prognostication "skills"? Does X still have the lights on? Any investors dropping out? No?

But dont worry, your dislike of SpaceX as well is being helped along mightily by your ChiCom aligned bureaucrats in DC...for now.

And yes, the market is in a fight over what Telsa really is: a tech company vs just a vehicle manufacturer.

The good news is, barring even more interventions by your New Soviet Democratical party apparatchiks, we'll get to find out.

Drago said...

"You know the robotaxi is far from ready if he needs robots to distract us during the press conference about self driving taxis."

LOL

The event was called "We Robot", not "Just A Car".

But thanks for playing.

Mark said...

Short selling is a fools game, Drago.
No wonder why you suggested it.

Darkisland said...

I've worked a lot with automation and robotics over the past 50 years. I really like Elon's walking robot and I see a lot of uses. But it also seems like a niche and I can't see the general use case.

Elon mentioned C3PO but another approach, that I think better for many reasons, is R2D2

First of all, why legs? Why not just put the upper half on a rollaround cart? From a mechanical, electrical and software standpoint, this is much simpler and less expensive. There are already systems doing things like delivering meals in restaurants, medicines in hospitals, mail in offices, materials in factories, mall security and other uses. They are typically a small 2X2X 4' high cabinet on multi-directional wheels that roll around. Some just carry things on top, others have a robot arm to they can autoload and unload. Others, see Amazon's warehouse robots for example, load/unload without arms.

Most robots don't need to be mobile, either. Or only slightly mobile, moving back and forth on a 10' track for example.

There is a big tradeshow in McCormick place in 3 weeks, PackExpo, all 4 buildings a couple million square feet. I suspect I will get to see one of Elon's robots there and I will be most interested to see what the use case vs other types of robots is.

There is also the whole issue of how human a robot should look. A humanoid robot is kind of creepy. A robot that does not try to look human less so.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

The key to robot usability is machine vision. That has improved dramatically almost by the hour.

This is a robot seeing a sort of paisley wrapped box on a moving, matching, paisley conveyor and picking it up at 1 box per 2 seconds or so. With every box a different shape and in random positions.

It is hard enough for a human to see the box as it comes by.

https://www.tiktok.com/@johnhenry1000/video/7279144021283376427?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7424536258834138667

John Henry

Darkisland said...

A couple of years ago Yaskawa, one of the major robotic players, was showing a random picking robot. They had a dozen or so corregated shipping cases in random sizes that would be dumped on the floor at random. The robot would pick up each case, turn it right side up and stack it neatly on a table. The table would then dump them back on the floor.

They cameras they were using came out of X-Box game consoles. Since Microsoft would not sell them the cameras or license the technology, they bought X-Boxes in bulk at Walmart, took the cameras out and discarded the rest. Then developed their own software.

John Henry

Lazarus said...

"Walk like a Joe Biden" actually is a YouTube video.

Elon kept talking about how the robot — which he wouldn't call a robot — would do anything you might want a person to do, and how can you not think of sex and murder?!

For that, we need Azimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

Which I never understood. People break laws all the time. Why wouldn't robots? And why are humans to be privileged over everything else in the world?

Yancey Ward said...

"Walks like Joe Biden."

Can't unsee that now!

Yancey Ward said...

I agree with you about the lack of needs for human like legs in most applications but I wonder if one of the driving needs for legs is for use on a battlefield where legs actually are needed for non-homogenous terrain.

Rusty said...

As long as there are human beings technology is inevitable. Musks robots may never catch on, but somebodys will. If he wants to explore Mars robots will get there first and make things ready for humans.
What the Riches and Marks of the world see is only failure. Looming disaster. What Musk sees is, "I wonder what would happen if......................" That's how creators think.

Rusty said...

In the end it's only a machine. Turn it off.

Yancey Ward said...

Shorter Lefty Mark and Bich:

"That Elon Musk is so stupid he is going to be broke by next year."

Michael K said...

Starting in Japan, then here unless the illegals take over.

Michael K said...

"There are already systems doing things like delivering meals in restaurants, medicines in hospitals" We had one in my hosp[ital in the early 1990s.

Michael K said...

Yeah. I wonder how Mark did in 2008 ?

n.n said...

"IT"

loudogblog said...

Hopefully, these robots will be constrained by the three laws of robotics.

The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

But then again, we all saw how well this worked out in the movie, I Robot, with Will Smith. (I also think that Musk's robots look a lot like the robots in that movie.)

Drago said...

"Short selling is a fools game, Drago.
No wonder why you suggested it."

LOL

According to you and Abacus Boy, Tesla is a sure fire dumpster fire guaranteed loser! Its free money based on your "assessment"!

You even directed your "portfolii manager" (wink wink) to pull your $2k allocated to Tesla out of your small 401k!

Hassayamper said...

I had forgotten how breathlessly, wildly enthusiastic all the tech bros were about Segway. The nebulous hype about the product while they were still under NDA's was something to behold.

Got to admit I was impressed with the novelty and inventiveness of the product, but it certainly fizzled out fast. I rode one once and decided that was enough for me.

If they had been allowed on pedestrian sidewalks, the outcome might have been different.

Hassayamper said...

Self-driving cars will extend my working life by 5 to 10 years.

They would probably shorten my lifespan due to alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, as I have to drive a ways to anywhere I can have a drink.

Hassayamper said...

I’m widowed and old. I don’t expect to ever find another human companion and confidant.

I was under the impression that presentable, financially solvent, reasonably healthy widowers are a hot commodity. If you put some effort into it, you might be surprised how well you could do with a put-together divorcee twenty years younger than you.

Hassayamper said...

I think the next killer app for Musk/X is a world class AI-assisted search engine to challenge Google, which has become absolute flaming dogshit since Trump won the Presidency and kicked off today's leftist censorship regime. Even a decent bare-bones Yandex-style search engine that duplicates the functionality of Google circa 2007 would be a vast improvement.

If X combines top shelf uncensored search with a capable high-security competitor to Gmail along the lines of Proton Mail, and a good quality replacement for Google Docs, Musk is certain to become the first trillionaire.

As soon as it's all out and functional, I will modify my HOSTS file and firewall settings to keep everything fouled by Google off my computer forever.

Hassayamper said...

In the mid-1980's I had a friend who tried to persuade me to drop out of college and join him at a little startup company in Austin called PC's Limited. He was the tenth or twelfth employee there, not long after a young fellow named Michael Dell moved its headquarters from his UT dorm room to a seedy strip mall.

That was a mistake on par with dropping a winning lottery ticket in the trash.

Hassayamper said...

"Logan's Run" seems more likely from where I sit.

Drago said...

Dumb Lefty Mark: "Short selling is a fools game, Drago.
No wonder why you suggested it."

Oh, and for the record, I'm hardly the first dude to suggest all you Tesla haters just go right ahead and shortsell Tesla, something Dumb Lefty Mark claims is a "fools game". Here's a few shortsellers of Tesla you might have heard of Dumb Lefty Mark:

- Bill Gates was shorting Tesla by half a sweet, sweet billion.

- Famous "shorter" Jim Chanos got into a war online with Elon after Big Jim shorted Tesla big time. Where did Chanos end up? Losing his shirt ($6B to $200M in total assets under management) and shutting down multiple hedge funds.

- Michael Burry (this one still surprises me even though it was a few years back in 2021). He didn't short for long though (see what I did there?). He saw the intrinic value being created at Tesla that doesn't show up in the standard way that all weakling portfolio managers require who just want steady, structured, predictable "powerpoint friendly" ups and downs that can be manipulated by the traders to impress their high value clients. Dumb Lefty Mark types.

David Einhorn, Dusaniwsky, etc.

Its well known that Tesla has been and probably remains one of the most targeted "shorts" by institutional investors who just don't get it.

Those are the cats pulling out after everyone of these rollouts or annual reports that don't follow the "standard script" that can be ripped off and repackaged by the lazy portfolio managers who don't understand the business and don't want to do the legwork. Most of the time they come crawling back and buying back in tentatively at the next dip.

Drago said...

Projection helps us identify and categorize you.

minnesota farm guy said...

Meade hits it out of the park!

Kakistocracy said...

Tesla Stock Flashes Major Sell Signal As Robotaxi Event Disappoints The Market ~ IBD
https://www.investors.com/news/tesla-stock-robotaxi-event-disappoints-for-these-reasons/

“Stock drops 9% as investors bemoan ‘underwhelming’ lack of detail about planned autonomous fleet.”

In good old MAGA fashion, Musk presented "concepts" of a cybercab plan.

Musk should have unveiled a Delorean to go back to a year when all hype still worked.

Other companies (Waymo, even Mercedes) are waaay closer to FSD than Tesla.

I think the real story is that the market isn't buying Tesla BS like they used to. Tesla's cultural capital has run dry. And this is the heart of the issue. The market has seen what has happened with Twitter and is learning real skepticism from it.

Kakistocracy said...

I don't see regulatory approval for autonomous driving vehicles anytime soon. People don't trust the technology and frankly it isn't something people are demanding.

Elon Musk and Tesla need to keep singing and dancing to the sound of AI and whatever the latest buzz words are to keep the nosebleed valuation of Tesla where it is- 14x higher than average for the major automakers.

But the reality is that the automaking business is a low margin one and Tesla hasn't changed that and won't change that. It's only a matter of time before Tesla loses 90% of its current value and falls in line with the valuation of other carmakers.

rehajm said...

Ron Barron went long about an eight bagger ago and bragged about it bigly on CNBC. He’s flush now…

Drago said...

LOL

Somebody gave Abacus Boy too much sweetened apple juice.

Meanwhile, in the real world.....

"Why Tesla's EV Charging System Won the Race to Become America's Standard
SAE's guide for automakers and charging companies to integrate NACS chargers reveals how superior it is to what everyone else was doing."

Frank MarkusWriterOct 11, 2024
https://www.motortrend.com/features/tesla-nacs-charge-cable-standard-sae-j3400/

Isn't it time for your nap LLR-democratical Rich?

Iman said...

Investors Business Daily is a far-left rag. Fuck ‘em.

Kakistocracy said...

Tesla stock drops after Wall Street sees robotaxi event 'stunningly absent on detail ~ Fox Business

Tesla shares drop 9% after Cybercab robotaxi reveal ‘underwhelmed’ investors ~ MSNBC

Tesla’s Robotaxi Event Disappoints Investors ~ WSJ

Tesla Stock Drops 8.8% After Robotaxi Event. It Was Light on Critical Details. ~ Barrons

Kakistocracy said...

Tesla is to FSD, as string theory is to science. Always will be solved in the next X years.

I can pretty much guarantee full self driving will never work with just cameras as the only sensors. Elon is a mug for saying humans only use their eyes, so we can do it with cameras. We also use our ears, ours eyes have an infinite number of perspectives, much better depth perception, we can squint and turn our head to block direct sunlight out, etc etc, and our brains are a million times better at interpreting novel situations.

In any case, even if you believe what Elon says, why make it harder for yourself? Machines don't have to live by human constraints. It's just plain cheap and / or dumb.

The guy has become a fraud. There is no better way to put it. All he does is hold these stock pumping vapourware events and fail to deliver time and time again.

At this stage, I assume a huge proportion of what props TSLA up is meme stock bros riding the wave. But the tide will go out fast and the true believers will end up holding the bag. Download the margin stock data here: https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/key-topics/margin-accounts/margin-statistics

Then add all the other leverage, CFDs etc... 1928 all over again? That wasn't pretty...

boatbuilder said...

There was a Boston Dynamics(?) robot video a couple of years ago with a robot that could negotiate very uneven terrain while lifting heavy loads. Seems like it could be very useful on construction projects and the like.
The uses of robots in highly controlled and predictable environments--like assembly lines, product delivery systems, etc.--is already pretty advanced.
Imagine these robots tagging along with Amazon drivers and making the actual deliveries. The savings in human time, injuries, etc. is huge.
Obvious downside is that it puts a lot of struggling people out of work. But I think that it is inevitable that robots are going to be doing real labor in the very near future.

Craig Mc said...

Adult Swim had fun with The Jetsons when they got their hands on the Hanna-Barbera IP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfM11VBkiM

Drago said...

"I can pretty much guarantee..."
LOL

I think we're done here.

Drago said...

LLR-democratical Rich: Tesla is to FSD, as string theory is to science."

Wrong. Your claim should have been "Tesla is to FSD as String Theory is to Physics", not "science".

But you are too much out of your league to even know that.

It gets worse for Rich because of course it does.

LLR-democratical Rich: "Always will be solved in the next X years."

Wrong again.

String Theory's biggest negative impact on human advancement is that it has completely crowded out almost all significant funding for other practical physics research across the board and has destroyed careers of very worthy physicists.

So your "comparison" is light years away from being remotely appropriate...which actually means its not appropriate or correct in any sense whatsoever.

Just a mishmash of whatever you googled slammed together to impress the 4th graders.

Drago said...

LLR-democratical Rich, the fake "republican", pushing fake gaslighting lefty dem narratives, pretending to be some slick business whiz kid insider, pretending to be some technology literate investor, should instead have simply volunteered to be a part of kamala's HILARIOUS over the top disastrous fake "town hall" which flew in half the democratical crowd to pose as undecideds who asked pre-scripted questions which were "answered" by kamala via teleprompter fed answers which Univision sctually accidentally showed!!!

How. Perfect. Is. That?

Kakistocracy said...

The stock should drop way more: at an event about unveiling full self driving technology, they didn’t unveil full self driving technology and then brought out robots that are eons behind what competitors have achieved and which were operated by remote control, a feat first achieved in the mid 20th century. It was as if they were telling the world “we don’t have the tech chops to achieve the thing we promised and oh, we’re also super distracted trying to replicate what other much much smaller companies have done and can’t do that either. Oh and btw that thing we’re super distracted with has no use case or product roadmap.”

This guy really has been spending way too much time with Trump.

Kakistocracy said...

Not enough style to conceal the lack of substance. Not a surprise for modern Musk.

Lucky for him, the sycophants will continue to throw money at him. In the meantime, outfits such as Waymo can quietly get on with actually delivering the tech that Musk cannot get to work.

Tina Trent said...

I thought rich people had illegal immigrants for that.

Rusty said...

Rich must have lost a lot of money on Tesla.