Tesla had spiced up the first iteration of its AI Day event last year when it had dressed a person in a robot costume on stage, pledging to eventually reveal an actual prototype of the Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot. Well, as per the latest developments, the Tesla Bot has had its name changed to Optimus, with the AI Day 2022 event now pushed back to the 30th of September.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2022 During the last AI Day event back on the 19th of August 2021, Tesla had detailed its AI-focused ambitions. The star of the show was the D1 chip, built completely in-house using a 7nm architecture, which is expected to power the company’s Dojo supercomputer – the engine behind Tesla’s vast neural network training ambitions. Crucially, according to Elon Musk, the chip would eventually empower Dojo to process images around four times faster than other computing systems. During last year’s event, Tesla had also showcased the enhanced abilities of its Autopilot, a semi-autonomous driving system, while conceding that the FSD capability was being hampered by two factors: temporary blockage of the cameras’ field of view and faulty memory of road signs. To counteract these shortcomings, Tesla had announced that its engineers were utilizing a spatial recurring network video module to train the AI behind the Autopilot system to keep track of spatial as well as chronal queues. This time around, the focus is likely again to land on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software capabilities. Bear in mind that Tesla’s Autopilot has now abandoned radar in favor of eight high-resolution cameras. Tesla retails the FSD functionality of the Autopilot system as a separate add-on that can be purchased via a $10,000 lump-sum amount or $199 per month subscription. Of course, today’s development comes as Tesla shares continue to bleed amid the ongoing carnage in the wider market. The stock is down over 35 percent so far this year. Against this backdrop, the AI Day event might just provide enough stimulus for the battered stock to post a sustainable recovery.
