Is Elon Musk totally full of it? Or is he a genius that, quite simply, is "the smartest person in any room he enters"? The answer depends upon who you speak to.
There is no doubt that Musk has his detractors. Many feel he is full of it and just says things without thinking. Anyone who saw his Tweets over the years certainly could buy into this idea.
However, while he was hammered publicly for more than a decade, there is little doubt that he took apart the entire automobile industry. At present, everyone is trying to play catch up to Tesla. Again, depending upon who you believe, Tesla is anywhere from 3-7 years ahead of the competition with EVs, most notably because of their advancements in battery technology.
That said, many feel we are at the point where Musk and Tesla is going to be put to the test. The competition is coming and those company who know how to make cars are starting to focus upon EVs. Of course, we heard the "competition" argument for more than 5 years. It seems they are still trying to arrive, at least from the legacy firms. The Chinese companies are Tesla's biggest competitor at the moment and most of them start just entering the industry.
In spite of all this, Musk decided to take Tesla down another path. It was recently announced the company was going to make the Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot that could take over many of the jobs that people do not want to do.
Many want to call Tesla a car company since, after all, that is where the overwhelming majority of their revenues come from. However, Musk is framing the firm as an AI company. That is the primary focus when you get to the core of things. The cars are just a means to deliver that.
So far, the attention is on the self driving capabilities of Tesla. Once more, depending upon who you talk to, this is another area that some experts believe Tesla is way ahead of the competition.
Musk recently appeared on Lex Fridman's podcast and discussed what Tesla is doing. To start, Musk claimed that Tesla might reach level 4 autonomy with their self driving next year. Here is where we have to be careful. Musk is known for being a couple years early with his predictions. Nevertheless, of late, he is a bit more tempered with his declarations.
He also stated that we could see a prototype of the Tesla Bot by the end of 2022.
During the podcast, him and Fridman, also an AI expert, went through the details of how Tesla has the basis for a humanoid due to how they are accumulating and processing the data for the self driving. In short, it is all general knowledge thus, the only difference is to change the data collected.
We also must remember that Tesla is in the process of building Dojo. This is going to be an exascale AI super computer. That means it will be one of the fastest computers in the world but will be using specially designed processors to run AI neural networks.
How many other car companies are working on a computer like this? Exactly.
Is it possible that Tesla rolls out hundreds of millions of these humanoid robots at some point?
Fridman asked him about that. The goal, according to Musk, is to produce 20 million cars a year by 2030. Fridman asked if the Tesla Bot could eventually surpass the car production. Musk was not totally committal but he did not rebuke Fridman when he threw out hundreds of millions.
The question is what does this do for the workforce if successful? Of course, we have to keep in mind that Tesla is not the only company working on this. There are many others which are seeking to do something similar. So, whether it is Tesla, someone else, or a combination, what does the world look like when hundreds of millions of these robots are out there with the ability to handle most jobs? Granted, this is not going to appear within the next 5 years but this could be our plight as we travel deeper into the 2030s.
We already know software is putting enormous strain on the white collar sector. This makes sense since robotics is much harder than software. The former has to not only deal with the AI aspect but needs to solve dexterity problems. Personally, this might be where Musk is underestimating the magnitude of what he is trying to accomplish. He will likely have an easier time with the AI than the robotics.
If we see a prototype in the next couple years, this could be something that starts to enter production by around 2030. Giving it a few years to scale and we could see the number enter the tens of millions. Again, how does that alter the workforce?
Musk believes that eventually, UBI is going to have to be the solution. The companies with the robots will be able to control the production process. Humans will become obsolete, at least to a degree. The majority of the workforce will face decline due to this.
Is this far out and sound like Science Fiction? Right now, it is. However, we have to consider that within 5 years, this might not be an outlandish idea. One of the issues is that we know, once there is a breakthrough, the pace only accelerates. Thus, if the humanoid becomes feasible, we could see the production ramp up very quickly.
Try to push your mind out to 2040. How many of these robots might be out in the workplace? 500 million? A billion? Is it possible that, within 20 years, we could see a majority of the work being handled in this manner?
Think ramping up might be a challenge. We also have to believe that the first few robots will be employed working the lines to build more robots.
Machines building machines is long a tenet of Musk's manufacturing beliefs.
Perhaps this is how he plans on achieving that end.
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