Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company’s Optimus robot could follow people around and prevent them from committing crimes.
“If you say, like, you now get a free Optimus and it’s just gonna follow you around and stop you from doing crime, but other than that you get to do anything. It’s just gonna stop you from committing crime, that’s really it,” Musk said on stage at the Tesla shareholder meeting on November 6.
Why It Matters
Musk’s comments reflect his growing vision for artificial intelligence and robotics to reshape society.
However, his suggestion that Optimus robots could one day prevent crime raises ethical and practical concerns, including questions about surveillance, personal freedom and how the robots would physically intervene against humans.
What To Know
Speaking to Tesla shareholders, Musk touted a range of tasks Optimus could undertake to benefit humans, including a “more humane form of containment of future crime.”
He said that by following humans around and preventing them from committing crimes, the bots could eliminate the need to put people in prison.
In order to successfully prevent humans from committing crime, Optimus would need to be extremely advanced in predicting human behavior. It is also not clear how the humanoid robot would intervene to prevent crime.
A prototype of Tesla’s humanoid robot was first unveiled in 2022. Optimus robots are designed to look and move like humans, standing about 5’8” tall, and are being developed to perform a wide variety of tasks.
Musk said that at Tesla’s Palo Alto office, Optimus robots are just “walking around the office 24/7 with no one minding them,” and that they even charge themselves.
The Tesla CEO even danced alongside one of the robots on stage at the shareholder event.
Despite Musk’s bold projections, the Optimus robot remains in an early testing stage.
Tesla has released only limited footage showing the robots performing basic factory tasks such as sorting parts and folding clothes, and analysts have cautioned that it is still far from the level of autonomy Musk describes.
What People Are Saying
Elon Musk predicted at the Tesla shareholder meeting that Optimus is going to be the “biggest product of all time so far, bigger than cell phones, bigger than anything.”
What Happens Next
Musk said in 2024 that he hoped Optimus would be used internally at Tesla by 2025, and in high production for other companies by 2026. Musk has not publicly updated this timeline, but also has not confirmed that Optimus is on track to meet those targets.
Independent reporting suggests Tesla is still facing technical challenges in developing Optimus.