Tesla introduced its vision of future transportation and robotics at the “We, Robot” event it held last week. The event, where ambitious projects such as the humanoid robot Optimus, Robovan with autonomous driving features and Robotaxi were introduced, attracted great attention with their designs that seemed to have come out of the world of science fiction. However, this interest soon gave way to debate.
Is Tesla Optimus a copy of the movie I, Robot?
Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, Robovan and Robotaxi products introduced at the “We, Robot” event last week created controversy with their similarity to the designs in the 2004 science fiction movie I, Robot. The fact that the name of the event refers to Isaac Asimov’s short story collection of the same name did not go unnoticed.
The striking similarity of the robots introduced by Tesla to the robots in the movie caused many social media users to compare the designs. In fact, because of the similarity, Alex Proyas, the director of the movie I, Robot, made various claims to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Alex Proyas expressed his reaction by saying, “Hey Elon, can I have my designs back please?” in his post. The film’s assistant director Matt Granger reacted with a harsher language, saying that Musk lacked creativity.
This situation, which has created controversy for Tesla and Musk, also strengthens the claims that the new robots are a copy of a 20-year-old movie. Although there has been no official statement from Tesla yet, criticisms on social media have cast a shadow over the company’s new robots.