Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[heltok]

I was thinking about Robot on Mars.

It makes sense, why send humans to a dangerous place, when you can send robots. You can always have humans in a safe place controlling the robot. The only problem is latency. Having a human on Earth with some gloves and VR-headset or a neural link to the robot on Mars would probably be too much delay. Is there any clever solution to this? Build a space station around Mars and have some astronauts control the robots remotely? Make a space station in between Earth and Mars, is that an idea or just too much work? Or can you program the robot to autonomously perform tasks such as biological experiments with plants/animals, repair 3D printers, deploy and clean solar panels etc? Is a bipedal robot even good for Mars, I wonder what kind of animals would have evolved in lower gravity. Or just something like this:

 

[Electroman]

I like MKBHD videos and reviews. I like his review style. He really gets it as to why Tesla is adding Robots to its portfolio.

I can see his view point, that a specialized robot will always perform a function better than general purpose robots, not too dissimilar from general purpose chips vs. specialized AI chips. So he is not wrong in that sense.

But what he is missing is, a general purpose Humanoid shaped robot will be lot more useful for a variety of things - get the mails from mailbox, put the dishes in dishwasher, move the clothes from washer to dryer, clean the cobwebs on the ceiling, water my indoor potted plants. I simply cannot have multitude of robots roaming around me doing these things, although a single humanoid shaped robot can do all these, perhaps less efficiently, but I don't care as long as they are better than humans.

The daily chores of the world today is built for humans. So a human shaped robot will fit in that world better.

A car is a general purpose transportation device that can take me to a lot of places. A train and a plane are specific purpose transportation machines that does things very efficiently better than my car, but cannot replace my car.

 

[SOULPEDL]

I like MKBHD videos and reviews. I like his review style. He really gets it as to why Tesla is adding Robots to its portfolio.

I can see his view point, that a specialized robot will always perform a function better than general purpose robots, not too dissimilar from general purpose chips vs. specialized AI chips. So he is not wrong in that sense.

But what he is missing is, a general purpose Humanoid shaped robot will be lot more useful for a variety of things - get the mails from mailbox, put the dishes in dishwasher, move the clothes from washer to dryer, clean the cobwebs on the ceiling, water my indoor potted plants. I simply cannot have multitude of robots roaming around me doing these things, although a single humanoid shaped robot can do all these, perhaps less efficiently, but I don't care as long as they are better than humans.

The daily chores of the world today is built for humans. So a human shaped robot will fit in that world better.

A car is a general purpose transportation device that can take me to a lot of places. A train and a plane are specific purpose transportation machines that does things very efficiently better than my car, but cannot replace my car.

I think it will be right handed to further exploit our world. If the robot has a choice, the sissors work better in the right hand. It might get better at using that hand after a while. This coming from a lefty, I still think Primus would be a righty.

 

[Knightshade]

I think it will be right handed to further exploit our world. If the robot has a choice, the sissors work better in the right hand. It might get better at using that hand after a while. This coming from a lefty, I still think Primus would be a righty.

Not following you... why would it need to be either?

Should be able to use either hand just as well and pick hand to use based on task and available tools.

If it sees a pair of right handed scissors it'll use them properly, if it sees a pair of left handed ones it'd use those properly.

Favoring one hand or the other when there's no practical reason to would lead t uneven wear/tear.

 

[ByeByeJohnny]

My couch has more that Gary's fund.

Seriously. Was that list for real? I was dead broke three years ago and I have more in Tesla than his entire funds worth.

 

[Electroman]

I like MKBHD videos and reviews. I like his review style. He really gets it as to why Tesla is adding Robots to its portfolio.

I can see his view point, that a specialized robot will always perform a function better than general purpose robots, not too dissimilar from general purpose chips vs. specialized AI chips. So he is not wrong in that sense.

But what he is missing is, a general purpose Humanoid shaped robot will be lot more useful for a variety of things - get the mails from mailbox, put the dishes in dishwasher, move the clothes from washer to dryer, clean the cobwebs on the ceiling, water my indoor potted plants. I simply cannot have multitude of robots roaming around me doing these things, although a single humanoid shaped robot can do all these, perhaps less efficiently, but I don't care as long as they are better than humans.

The daily chores of the world today is built for humans. So a human shaped robot will fit in that world better.

A car is a general purpose transportation device that can take me to a lot of places. A train and a plane are specific purpose transportation machines that does things very efficiently better than my car, but cannot replace my car.

Thinking of humanoid robots.. I had a flash of brilliance yesterday night during my sleep

Why not have a humanoid robot drive a car. Hear me out here. The robot has the FSD computer and cameras.. and get this <drum roll>.. it can lean forward on unprotected left turns, and can look on both directions by turning the heads just like a human would do. So no more camera placement concerns that has been hogging TMC for over 30 years now. It can even go through manual tool booths, pick up tickets, give credit cards through the window on fast food drive throughs, get the fast food from the fast food employee. And more importantly .. <drum roll again>.. this humanoid can simply drive any car, Tesla or legacy gas cars. WOW !!

Just registered a patent on this. I am waiting for Mr. Musk to call me.

 

[StealthP3D]

Seriously. Was that list for real? I was dead broke three years ago and I have more in Tesla than his entire funds worth.

I assumed it was in thousands of dollars. It seems like it's become fashionable to not label data anymore. Just let people assume.

 

[Hock1]

He has said both things, but 9.2 is the version the wider test fleet currently has.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1429903213726093315

https://twitter.com/x/status/1430038942909272071

Maybe "FSD Beta 9.2 is not great, Imo" is the 2021 version of "the stock is too high, Imo".

 

[Blue horseshoe]

Seriously. Was that list for real? I was dead broke three years ago and I have more in Tesla than his entire funds worth.

What is this, a fund for ants? Net assets are $500k.

 

[SOULPEDL]

Not following you... why would it need to be either?

Should be able to use either hand just as well and pick hand to use based on task and available tools.

If it sees a pair of right handed scissors it'll use them properly, if it sees a pair of left handed ones it'd use those properly.

Favoring one hand or the other when there's no practical reason to would lead t uneven wear/tear.

Try and find left handed sissors. So it will be using mostly the right hand and wearing out the right side basically as you say. It's interesting to consider the learning aspect and whether left handed products will be also sought by owners of their robots... if anything just to even out robot wear as you mention.

But I was touching on the learning process. With perfect symetry, you'd think AI would just mirror the task. But is it really just that simple? Why do I have trouble with right handed products all the time? You'd think I could just flip the action in my head, but motor memory says otherwise. On the surface, the computer wouldn't seem to have this issue, but maybe this depends on how it learns. It's not going to be programmed, it will learn by trial, error, feedback.

I'm not ready to completely dismiss the question as silly, but maybe we should move closer to topic and consider this a possibility in the future.

 

[Nocturnal]

Tesla should add V2G access directly to Powerwalls. They are already connected to the grid/home, and have the necessary inverters etc. already built in. The car battery would be acting like an add-on module to the PW system. This would also encourage more Tesla owners to buy home solar/PW. This setup would reduce the costs to add V2G to your home and mostly optimize the use of batteries.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Prob not gonna get the MYP today since they have not assigned a VIN yet

 

[joh01652]

Hopefully when the FSD NN's replace the current algorithm-based NoA, we'll have the car be able to recognize the curve is coming up and slow preemptively instead of just flying into the curve and then reactively slamming on the brakes after entering into the maneuver.

I used to be in the Early Access Program with my 2019 M3 SR+. In 2019 I gave frequent feedback to Tesla on the problem you described above. I sent pictures to Tesla of the corners where the car would be alerting loudly to take over while at the same time maintaining a dangerous speed into the curve. I stressed how this made no sense and wasn't safe, and asked Tesla multiple times to at least slow the car down significantly when the car comes to a corner it can't negotiate. They listened and FSD has improved greatly.

I've since upgraded to a 2020 MY with HW 3.0 FSD. Now the car does in fact slow down and anticipate curves very well, I believe it may even read the suggested speed limit signs for tight corners, as well as the directional arrows we use here in the U.S. to indicate sharp turns. For example, I just drove from South Lake Tahoe, CA, to Fort Bragg, CA on California State Route 20, a quite curvy, hilly, undivided 55mph highway. The car performed nearly flawlessly over the entire 6.5 hour trip, slowing down smoothly and with control at tight curves, maintaining appropriate speed in the turn, and exiting back up to 55-60mph in a human-like manner. It can be a bit jerky and hesitant at times, but nevertheless I would describe the trip as nearly fully autonomous, one just has to be on the lookout for road debris and potholes. When one comes to a stop sign one has to disengage FSD and make the turn themselves before re-engaging FSD, that's about the only input I have.

I see a variety of descriptions here on TMC regarding FSD performance. I think it has to do with what FSD hardware one uses (if they have FSD at all, sometimes I question whether the poster even has FSD the way they describe their vehicle behavior), where they are driving the vehicle, how clean the cameras/sensors are, climate, road conditions, etc. I drive 99% of the time on dry, sunny, well-marked highways in Arizona, Nevada and California, where (presumably) Tesla gathers most of its data and does much of its testing. And I can say with conviction FSD on highways has improved immensely over the past two years. I'm still astounded at how well the car does on road trips, and I can't describe it to someone, one just has to experience it for themselves.

Anyway, my Tesla has for some time been able to recognize upcoming curves on undivided highways, slow down preemptively, and negotiate them in a human-like manner. The only curves it still can't do is hairpin turns and roundabouts, but it appears FSD Beta is making good progress on this front. An additional very positive safety development is that my car also slows down in areas where I, too, would naturally slow down, like with pedestrians or cyclists close to the side of the highway, anywhere where there is congestion and uncertain conditions where a reduction in speed is warranted. Again, perhaps this has to do with where I live and drive, but my point is that Tesla is making significant progress even without Dojo neural nets or whatever machine-learning technique(s) they are developing.

 

[Krugerrand]

Thinking of humanoid robots.. I had a flash of brilliance yesterday night during my sleep

Why not have a humanoid robot drive a car. Hear me out here. The robot has the FSD computer and cameras.. and get this <drum roll>.. it can lean forward on unprotected left turns, and can look on both directions by turning the heads just like a human would do. So no more camera placement concerns that has been hogging TMC for over 30 years now. It can even go through manual tool booths, pick up tickets, give credit cards through the window on fast food drive throughs, get the fast food from the fast food employee. And more importantly .. <drum roll again>.. this humanoid can simply drive any car, Tesla or legacy gas cars. WOW !!

Just registered a patent on this. I am waiting for Mr. Musk to call me.

Maybe go back to sleep but don’t use any Ambient to help you.

 

[JRP3]

Or just something like this

That was always unrealistically portrayed as being able to cross surfaces which it never could in reality.

 

[Paul_SF]

OT:

I didn’t mean to start a whole debate about what MKBHD understands or what he’s doing.

He didn’t get an AI invitation, but obviously he needed to put something out.

I do believe that everyone should keep in mind that they are a whole media company with employees and everything else, and they showed its all business, with the paid commercials they did for other companies. And that’s completely fine and some of his followers probably understand that.

It’s just good business practice to not be too fanboyish and to extract some ad money from ICE companies that anyway have no way of competing, by making it look like they are not fanboys of everything Elon. Let them spend more money on ads!

Being controversial like that makes people click the play button and keeps the ad revenue coming and the payroll running.

He/they know exactly what they are doing. They are providing content that brings revenue. It’s all business and probably he won’t get another interview with Elon in the the new Austin complex anyway. That will probably be done by Rob from Tesla Daily.

But yeah, he’s completely missing the point of a humanoid robot, like the majority of the people. Even long time believers in Elon are doubting the necessity. Ha.

People again though Elon was joking when he said “life is going to get weird” at the Neuralink presentation. It’s just not overnight. It will take some time, around “2 weeks”.

Don’t bet against Elon’s teams.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

CT definitely gonna be Elon's first disaster and failure, which is why this is happening:

 

[capster]

I sincerely hope that no one here is truly unaware of what Elon is referring to.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

To bring it full circle:

Tolkien’s grandson on how WW1 inspired The Lord of the Rings

For the 125th anniversary of his birth, Simon Tolkien describes how the Great War lives on in his grandfather JRR Tolkien's stories.

www.bbc.com

"There is a sense too that the world has been fundamentally changed by Sauron even though he has been defeated. Innocence and magic are disappearing from Middle Earth as the elves leave, departing into the West. And I think that my grandfather must have felt the same about Europe in the aftermath of the Great War: how terrible it must have been to fight ‘the war to end all wars’ only to have to send your sons to fight in another war 20 years later."

 

[dhanson865]

I thought MKBHD's hangup on the robot was about training (chicken and egg).

He didn't think there were any out there collecting data and sending a robot out that doesn't know how to do anything at all won't collect data.

I heard that and thought it was silly because you can just strap 8 cameras on a human and have your data collection without even building the robots.

Then build the robots later after you get a rudimentary NN ready for the human form.

Google did this, surely Tesla can do something even better.

 

[Knightshade]

Try and find left handed sissors.

Left-Handed Scissors

Lefty's SF offers the world's largest selection of true left-handed scissors and left-handed shears for every purpose, including left-handed kids' scissors, kitchen and sewing scissors, general purpose, manicure, and professional scissors.

www.leftyslefthanded.com

So it will be using mostly the right hand and wearing out the right side basically as you say.

I mean.... if it's mostly only using scissors, sure.

I can't actually think of too many things in my home other than scissors that are specifically right-handed in a way a robot would care about though.

Could be I'm not thinking of enough things that are "handed" but could also be some of the ones you think of as handed wouldn't need to be for a robot who can use either hand equally well.

It's interesting to consider the learning aspect

Given it's based on FSD car HW, it wouldn't be learning at all. No learning happens in the car.

The net is trained back at HQ, then uploaded to the entire fleet at once.

Individual units learning individually would be a nightmare for troubleshooting (not to mention the vast differences in needed onboard compute and design)

But I was touching on the learning process. With perfect symetry, you'd think AI would just mirror the task. But is it really just that simple? Why do I have trouble with right handed products all the time? You'd think I could just flip the action in my head, but motor memory says otherwise. On the surface, the computer wouldn't seem to have this issue, but maybe this depends on how it learns. It's not going to be programmed, it will learn by trial, error, feedback.

Nope.

It'll learn the same way the cars do. NNs trained on Dojo then pushed out fleet-wide.

I suppose there might be task-specific modules where you can customize your bot.... like ALL bots can do basic stuff like walk, operate doors, etc.... but then you can select specific skills based on how complex they are or what modules you bought that it also knows how to do.

But it'd still be running the fleet-wide version of that module, not one specific to THAT robot who learned things individually.



Now, how they collect the data, given the bots are not otherwise human-operated like cars for data collection is a good question but yeah better moved elsewhere.


Investor-wise though the "buy/rent a specific skill" thing has a lot of appeal.

Like you need to "rent" the "gardener bot" for a month in the spring and a month in the fall, no need to pay year round.... while you might want to BUY the general housecleaning module so it keeps up with that all year.