Twitterati start meme fest as Elon Musk announces launch of Tesla Bot

In a big announcement on Saturday, Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk said that the electric automaker will probably launch a "Tesla Bot" humanoid robot prototype next year, designed for dangerous, repetitive, or boring work that people don't like to do.

Speaking at Tesla's AI Day event, Musk said the robot, which stands around five foot eight inches tall, would be able to handle jobs from attaching bolts to cars with a wrench or picking up groceries at stores.

He said it was important to make the machine not "super-expensive." The AI Day event came amid growing scrutiny over the safety and capability of Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" advanced driver assistant system.

On Thursday some questioned whether Musk, who has frequently touted technology advances at showpiece events only to scale plans down, later on, would be able to come good on his aims for the robot.

August 20, 2021

 August 20, 2021

"Is the 'Tesla Bot' the next dream shot to pump up the hype machine?" said Raj Rajkumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. "I can safely say that it will be much longer than 10 years before a humanoid bot from any company on the planet can go to the store and get groceries for you."

As soon as the announcement was made by Musk, the internet had mixed reactions to it. While some posted memes about 'The Terminator', others appreciated the technological leap attempted by Tesla.

August 20, 2021

 August 20, 2021

One user shared, "When I surprise my girlfriend at home and find Tesla Bot’s shoes outside", while another wrote, "This day goes down in history as when @elonmusk announced Tesla Bot at Tesla AI Day. We'll look back in 10 years and understand how significant today really was."