Invasion of the Tesla Bots: A Special Episode of the Joel Beasley Show

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're bringing you a special episode of the podcast. Joel recently created a new YouTube channel where he discusses big ideas in tech, dissects them from a societal perspective, and generally delves into anything he's curious about. This episode is a version of his content specifically edited to be a podcast. If you'd like to see the whole thing, search Joel Beasley Show on YouTube or click the link in the show notes. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:34) This is the unveiling of Elon Musk Optimus bipedal robot. Is that correct?

(Isaac at 00:00:41) Yeah, but it's their second version. And I don't remember what the first version was. I think it was something goofy.

(Isaac at 00:00:47) It was like a spoof, and then this is the second one. It's actually a robot this time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:53) Alright, let's take a look. That's it? That's the whole video?

(Isaac at 00:00:58) That's it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:59) You know, I did hear that there was a study done about the current generation of people that are in college for robotics and artificial intelligence, and the number one place they want to work is Tesla or SpaceX.

(Isaac at 00:01:12) Yeah, and here it is. This is literally the opportunities. This is their job application site.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:19) Okay, that's what they're doing.

(Isaac at 00:01:21) And look at all these jobs available just for developing this Tesla robot.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:25) This is hilarious because you hire all these people to develop this, and then the bot will eventually get smart enough to develop itself, and then all the people are out of jobs.

(Isaac at 00:01:34) True. Because I mean, the majority of jobs is, right, how it says here, performing unsafe, repetitive, or boring tasks. Maybe not unsafe, but repetitive and boring tasks. That's most work. Most jobs are just work.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:50) That is most work.

(Isaac at 00:01:51) Yeah, and jobs have been being replaced by robotics for the last fifty years.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:58) That's been literally the thing robotics does. That's the only thing a robot does—it's a preprogrammed series of maneuvers that replaces what a human can do.

(Isaac at 00:02:07) Yeah, so I don't know how revolutionary this is going to be because what this is trying to create is a general purpose bipedal autonomous humanoid robot. What most robots are as of now is very specifically tasked to do something super specific.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:26) But so are humans, though.

(Isaac at 00:02:28) I would say humans are pretty general purpose.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:31) Not in industry. Not at work.

(Isaac at 00:02:36) Well, it depends on the job.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:37) No. Almost all the work is highly specialized. If you look at the outcome, there's a bunch of specializations within the outcome, and one person knows the specialization. When you're a home builder, you have to choose the resolution at which you specialize. You specialize in the overall process, or you could specialize in the actual building the retaining walls or whatever it is, or the tile or the drywall or the paint or the landscaping. There's all these specialists involved. The compounding nature of AI says we can learn each one of those individual things, train it in the most perfect way possible, and then put it into a robot, and that robot can just switch models as needed. So you just get a hundred robots that show up at your house and then do everything with perfection, and you just start consolidating years and years and years of individuals' experiences.

(Isaac at 00:03:32) Yeah, and that is the one advantage to a robot, because basically, everything that they're trying to do with this robot is make a replacement for a human. But what a robot can do that a human can't do is completely switch its programming. As a human, we spend our entire lives programming our own brains to do very specific things. This robot can just switch programming. One day it's a burger flipper, and the next day it's a tax filing system.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:59) And not just those things, but the best of those in the world. It could take the collective knowledge of the top twenty burger flippers in the world, aggregate it, come up with an abstraction on top of that, and now it can be the best burger flipper in the entire world. And then you have autonomous McDonald's, which you already have.

(Isaac at 00:04:21) So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:22) So, basically, you see all these companies. They're innovating with technology, which is great. You're getting the burger flippers. You're getting the garage door openers. You're getting all these very specific niche use cases that are very simplistic. The moment you get a bot that has movement and fingertips and can learn and all of that, the moment it can do what a human does, it will be able to do what a human does far better. Mentally, it's already there, basically. Right? Because you're not going to find a generalist that knows how to do all the different specific things, because there's only a few humans that know how to do very specific things.

(Isaac at 00:04:58) Yeah. Would you have an AI-powered robot in your house?

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:06) Yeah, we already do. I mean, we have our phones.

(Isaac at 00:05:10) No, I mean a robot that can lift twice your weight—a bipedal walking around humanoid robot that can lift twice your weight. It can think faster than you, smarter than you, has its own brain that makes decisions. Would you have that walking around your house with your kids and your dog and just like that?

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:35) It depends. It really does depend. I would want to buy a version that's weak. Alright? It depends on what I want to use it for. I don't mind buying a version of it that was kind of weak. I would not buy the version that could crush a cinder block in its hand. I'm not interested in that version. I would also want a hardware kill switch. So that's something very, very specific. I'd want the hardware kill switch. And I think with those two things—I don't want it to be too strong. I want to be able to kick it over. You know? Doesn't matter how much self-balancing it has. If it's light enough and weak enough, I could kick it over. Right? So I basically want to be able to beat it up. That's for right now—I want to be able to beat up the robot. If I could beat it up, then I'm good.

(Isaac at 00:06:24) Gotcha.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:25) It's scary though because, dude, the humans are going to pull these into their homes and pull these into their cities and use it to replace everything so fast because it's so convenient. We are suckers for convenience and cheap. Cheap convenience is the human addiction. And so if we can get these things, I can say, "Hey, for $200 a month, you could have someone come in and just keep your house clean all the time." I mean, that's cheaper than what you can get a maid service to do, and it just sits in the corner like a Roomba and goes and cleans up. I mean, that is addictive. Right?

(Isaac at 00:07:00) And the thing about it—there are cleaning robots like Roombas and then a washing machine is technically a cleaning robot. But a one single robot that can transfer between all of those stations walking around can sweep, it can vacuum, it can dust the ceiling, it can do the dishes, like all that stuff. As soon as that is available and accessible, game over. It's in everybody's house.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:28) I do trust Elon Musk to be the one that installs the most fail-safes. That doesn't mean that they will be successful. I just think with his intention that it'll be designed with the most fail-safes. So that's the Tesla bot. Wow. I want to see a Tesla bot riding a Boston Dynamics dog. That's what I want to see. Just, right into battle. Yeah, that'd be great.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:56) I don't know what to do existentially, Isaac, actually, about these Tesla bots because they are coming. They are going to be cheaper and more convenient. They are going to replace humans, and they're going to be inside of our houses. And then our employers are going to be like, "Hey, look. We just don't need you anymore because we can do these bots." You know? And then the question's going to be, are there going to be riots in the streets? Right? Because honestly, I think—I don't think, I know—one of the ways that you quell riots in developing nations is by giving them more money. You're like, mass protests? Oh yeah. Yeah, man. Dude, if you've got three square meals a day and you're chill and you're taken care of, you've got your food, you've got your water, you've got your electricity, throw a little entertainment there, you're calm. You rub that belly relaxing. Right? But if I make it so you can't feed your family, now you're in the streets with weapons. I don't know. I'm going to say—I'm going to put it out there, my ass Nostradamus section—I'm going to say five years until we start seeing these things out. Till you see the cat lady driving around with one as her passenger because she's lonely type deal.

(Isaac at 00:09:04) Yeah, and I bet you, I think it's going to be kind of like an iPhone where everyone's going to have one. It's going to be your iPhone, essentially, because...

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:16) It's going to walk around with you. Yeah. Oh, and that's going to be a status of wealth, how many of these bots you've got.

(Isaac at 00:09:23) Or well, no, because you don't have a ton of iPhones. Right? You have one iPhone, but you have the latest iPhone.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:30) Oh, that's right. I still want two. I've got two phones. I have two phones. I've got a personal one and a work one.

(Isaac at 00:09:37) Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:38) Alright, well, that's a Tesla bot video if I've ever seen one. Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.