Tesla finally revealed its robotaxi last week, much to the disappointment of credulous rubes like Wedbush’s Dan Ives, who actually swallowed Musk’s autonomy bullshit hook, line and sinker. Why such gullible morons get paid the big bucks, but Merrill Lynch has yet to approach me with a job offer, I have no idea, but the beer-serving robot? Controlled by humans. The robotaxis? Also possibly remote-controlled. Also, according to Alex Proyas, the director of “I, Robot,” the designs seemed ripped straight out of his 2004 movie.
On Twitter, Proyas pointed out the similarities between the humanoid robots in the film and Musk’s so-called Optimus robots, as well as how much the robotaxi and robovan look like vehicles that were also featured in the movie. He’s also not wrong that if you use just the graphic he shared, it really does look like Musk just copied “I, Robot.” The fact that he called the event “We, Robot,” certainly didn’t help. Of course, people were going to make those comparisons.
Did Musk sit down, watch “I, Robot” and decide to copy its aesthetic? It’s possible, but what seems much more likely is that he’s simply been exposed to so much science fiction over the years that he’s just stuck with an incredibly derivative vision of the future. He’s already made it clear he didn’t know what he was talking about when he said the Cybertruck is “what Bladerunner would have driven” and completely missed the point of the phrase, “War never changes” from the Fallout franchise of video games. The man consumes media entirely on the surface level, so of course the only thing he would take away from sci-fi is aesthetics and a whole lot of confusion over why the good guy is actually the bad guy.
Also, let’s not pretend like humanoid robots, a cab-over van design with some aero optimization and a coupe with billionaire doors are original designs. The car in “I, Robot” was Audi product placement and that general van shape is just an efficient use of space. Do I think Elon set out to copy “I, Robot?” Not really. I just don’t see enough evidence to suggest he’s creative enough to imagine a future that doesn’t still look a lot like “I, Robot.”