Tesla's Elon Musk has often boasted about his plan to sell millions of affordable robots to mark a "future of abundance." Critics think that future is still far off. An early prototype of Tesla Inc.'s Optimus humanoid awkwardly walked onto the stage on Friday, while a crowd — largely made up of Tesla employees — cheered and roared. The robot waved its hand and moved its hips, seemingly dancing to the music. An advanced version of the Optimus, said to be constructed with Tesla-made parts, had to be wheeled to the stage and carried to a small podium where it waved and thrust its knee. This limited activity disappointed several robot engineers, AI experts and tech enthusiasts hours later when the company's artificial intelligence event was streamed to the public. "The robot can actually do a lot more than we just showed you, we just didn't want it to fall on its face," Tesla Founder Elon Musk said at the event, justifying the caution and fuss. The tech billionaire disregarded robot demonstrations by other companies, saying that the problem with them is that the robots are "missing a brain" and hence the intelligence to navigate on their own. However, the event displayed little evidence that Tesla's Optimus was superior to its competitors.   Far from the goal Musk aims to build a robot that will eventually cost "probably less than $20,000" (about €20,400) and is designed to be replicated "millions of times over," he said at the event. In doing so, he said he wants to enable "a future of abundance" where Tesla robots mow the lawn, cook food and keep a watch on an aging relative. "Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quick as possible," the billionaire founder told the audience. "There is still a lot of work to be done." He said he expects the robots to take another three to five years to be ready.  The humanoid's AI stems from the same technology Tesla uses in its automated car systems, which depend on cameras, sensors and thousands of images to teach itself. The team has been working on the robots for six to eight months. The reliability of Tesla's autopilot systems has come under some question recently and is under investigation by US regulators. One US agency reported that AI errors have led to five deaths. Optimus is 'next level cringe-worthy' The demonstration did not impress many outside Tesla's own employees. AI researcher Filip Piekniewski called the robots "next level cringe-worthy" and a "complete and utter scam." He argued that a test fall would be good and necessary for a robot, considering it would likely fall a lot.  Other experts criticized Musk's decision to choose the humanoid would make the robot relatively more expensive and difficult to navigate. "When you're trying to develop a robot that is both affordable and useful, a humanoid kind of shape and size is not necessarily the best way," said Tom Ryden, executive director of the US-based nonprofit startup incubator Mass Robotics.

SpaceX made an early holiday delivery to the International Space Station on Sunday, dropping off super muscular "mighty mice," pest-killing worms and a smart, empathetic robot. The station commander, Italy's Luca Parmitano, used a large robot arm to grab onto the Dragon three days after its launch from Cape Canaveral. The two spacecraft soared 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the South Pacific at the time of capture. "Whenever we welcome a new vehicle on board, we take on board also a little bit of the soul of everybody that contributed to the project, so welcome on board," Parmitano told Mission Control. The capsule holds 3 tons (2,720 kilograms) of supplies, including 40 mice for a muscle and bone experiment. Eight of them are genetically engineered with twice the normal muscle mass — and so are considered "mighty mice."' There also are 120,000 roundworms, or nematodes of a beneficial variety that are part of an agricultural study aimed at controlling pests. The capsule also has a large, round robot head with artificial intelligence and the ability to sense astronauts' emotions. Named Cimon, it's an improved version of what flew up last year to be tested as an astronaut's helper. NASA has tucked some Christmas presents in the shipment for the station's six-person crew, as well. It's SpaceX's 19th delivery to the orbiting outpost for NASA over the past seven years. The astronauts have another delivery coming Monday — this one launched by Russia from Kazakhstan on Friday. Source: AP/UNB AH