Tesla AI Day 2022: Elon Musk to unveil Optimus humanoid bot

Mr Musk says robot could eventually perform daily tasks around the house

Elon Musk said that in the future, the robots could be used for chores or even provide care for senior citizens. AFP

Tesla founder Elon Musk is expected to unveil the company's humanoid robot, Optimus, on Friday at Tesla's “AI Day”.

Tesla teased the highly anticipated robot demo on Thursday evening with a tweet showing two robotic hands coming together to form an image of a heart.

Optimus was first introduced during Tesla's inaugural AI Day last year. Mr Musk delayed this year's event from August to ensure the robot prototype would be operational.

“We may have an Optimus prototype working by then,” Mr Musk said in a tweet when announcing AI Day's postponement earlier this year.

Optimus initially would perform jobs such as moving parts around Tesla factories. Mr Musk, envisioning the robot as a benevolent creation, said that in the future, he hopes the robots could be used to perform daily chores at home and even care for senior citizens.

But Optimus will not be the only highlight of Tesla's AI show on Friday.

Mr Musk is also expected to address the company's self-driving technology in an event that the SpaceX chief executive says is geared towards recruiting AI and robotics engineer, “so [it] will be very technical”, he said in a tweet.

He previously said that the car maker would be “worth basically zero” without achieving full self-driving capability and even referred to the electric vehicles as robots on wheels.

He promised in 2019 to have one million robotaxis on the road by 2020, but has yet to produce the car.

Mr Musk said he expects to mass produce the vehicles with no steering wheel or pedal by 2024.

Reuters contributed to this report