Updated December 12th, 2021 at 21:58 IST

Elon Musk reacts to video featuring human-like robot, says 'real androids are coming'

The video that Elon Musk replied to belongs to the UK’s Cornwall-based firm Engineered Arts, which is developing realistic and powerful humanoid robots.

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
Image: AP/YouTube/@EngineeredArts | Image:self
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The world isn’t far from the days when humanoid robots will be deeply integrated into our lives and will handle major tasks that we are fully capable of doing ourselves. However, some even fear a potential apocalypse courtesy of the same robots that are being developed using artificial intelligence (AI). Possibly supporting one of the two aforementioned possibilities, one of the world's richest men and tech mogul Elon Musk has given a heads up that the real androids are just years away from entering the human world. Replying to a Twitter video featuring a human-like robot, Musk wrote, "Real androids are coming", which might be a warning about the dominance robots might have on our lives in a few years.

Elon Musk's stance on AI

Considering Musk's previous statements on artificial intelligence, one can reckon that he believes that humans will be tamed by it one day. In one of his interviews with comedian and mixed martial artist Joe Rogan in 2018, Musk had said-

I've tried to convince people to slow down on AI, to regulate AI. This was futile, I've tried for years, nobody listened, nobody listened.

Some viewers of the interview even joked that Musk has been sent from the future since he was talking in past tense about his warning over the regulation of AI, while some said that he is creating 'Neuralink' to give humans a fighting chance against the robots. You can watch the AI bit below.

Project Mesmer: 'Breathing life into robots'

The video that Musk replied, belongs to the UK’s Cornwall-based firm Engineered Arts, which is developing realistic humanoid robots that are powerful, elegant and cost-effective under project Mesmer. The video features the head of a Mesmer robot that is undergoing a motion test and displaying different facial expressions. Talking about Mesmer robots, Engineered Arts says-

Expressive like nothing else, Mesmer can display a huge range of human emotion. Each Mesmer robot is designed and built from 3D in-house scans of real people, allowing us to imitate human bone structure, skin texture and expressions convincingly. 

The Mesmer robots run on the company's operating system named Tritium, which makes it programming easy and allows it to be controlled from remote locations. Interestingly, the robots are also fitted with a telepresence software named Tinman through which owners of the robot can interact with the people around the robot while being at a different location. The company says that it takes no technical expertise to operate a Mesmer robot as it can be logged in using a browser or any internet device. Recently, Engineered Arts had shared another video where it unveiled the robot 'Ameca' displaying the most accurate human facial expressions. Tap here to read more.

(Image: AP/YouTube/@EngineeredArts)

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Published December 12th, 2021 at 21:58 IST