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As Tesla’s humanoid robot “Optimus” is about to be unveiled at the end of this month, the market‘s attention to this project is also increasing.

According to Tesla’s latest job postings, Tesla has been recruiting a large number of Optimus Prime-related positions, and its autonomous driving team has also participated. It is said that Tesla plans to deploy thousands of Optimus Primes at its Texas factory and eventually roll it out globally.

Musk plans to deploy thousands of Robots in factories

According to job postings, Musk is now working on ambitious plans to deploy thousands of Optimus Prime robots at his Texas factory, and eventually Tesla plans to deploy millions of Optimus Primes globally robot.

Tesla’s job posting says that Tesla is hiring a lot of staff about humanoid bipedal robots. Currently, there are about 20 vacancies on the Optimus Prime project, including those designing key Robotic components.

On Monday, Musk also revealed on Twitter that their self-driving team is also working on the Optimus Prime robot.

As Tesla has held more internal meetings about the robot, there has been more internal discussion about it, a person familiar with the matter said.

Optimus Prime prototype will be officially unveiled at the end of the month

On September 30, ET, on “artificial intelligence Day”, Tesla will be unveiling a prototype of its Optimus Prime project. Musk has previously revealed that production of the Optimus Prime could begin next year.

Earlier, Musk said in a TED talk that in the long run, robots could be used for households, cooking, mowing lawns and caring for the elderly, and even becoming human companions. According to Musk, the robotics business could eventually be worth more than Tesla’s car revenue.

Musk believes that Optimus will initially have boring or dangerous jobs, including moving parts around the factory. He believes that Tesla can use its expertise in artificial intelligence and key components to develop and produce smart but less expensive humanoid robots at scale.

　Some experts remain skeptical

However, on the eve of the official debut of “Optimus Prime”, many roboticists, investors and analysts did not hold much expectations.

The first point of questioning among experts is how Tesla can justify the cost of using “general-purpose” robots in factories, homes and elsewhere, given that there are already many specialized robots in use in the Industrial field. Second, experts predict that Musk’s robots may be able to demonstrate basic capabilities at events, but it’s difficult for these robots to truly be fully human-like.

Shaun Azimi, head of NASA’s Dexterous Robotics Team, said: “It turns out that self-driving cars are not as easy as anyone thought. To some extent This is especially true of humanoid robots. It is very difficult to be flexible and robust to these changes in the event of an unexpected event.”

Nancy Cooke, a professor of human systems engineering at Arizona State University, said that if Tesla wants to prove its progress, it needs to show that the robot can perform a variety of unscripted actions.

“If he just makes the robot walk around, or make the robot dance, that’s already implemented. It’s not a big deal,” she said.

Gene Munster, managing partner of venture capital firm Loup Ventures, also said: “Investors are not interested in Optimus Prime … The possibility of (Optimus Prime) large-scale application is very low, (this) Much harder than self-driving cars.”

At the 2019 “Autonomy” event, Musk promised to have 1 million robotaxis by 2020, but so far, the dream has not even taken the first step.