By 2027, the future may be standing on two legs in your living room.
Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot is no longer just a science-fiction fantasy. Elon Musk has repeatedly pointed towards 2027 as a potential year for the robot to become available, although Tesla has not confirmed a guaranteed consumer launch date. If the project succeeds, Optimus could become one of the most disruptive machines ever built.
Standing roughly human-sized and designed to walk, see and manipulate objects, Optimus is intended to perform tasks that people currently carry out. Tesla has suggested everything from repetitive factory work to dangerous and physically demanding jobs. One day, a home version could potentially clean, carry shopping, perform chores or assist elderly and disabled people.
The promise is enormous. Robots could enter burning buildings, work with dangerous machinery or perform exhausting jobs without risking human lives. They would not need holidays, sleep or lunch breaks. In theory, they could make everyday life cheaper, safer and more convenient.
But there is a darker side to the dream.
What happens when a machine capable of lifting heavy objects is operating beside a child? What happens if its software fails? Could hackers take control? And if Optimus eventually becomes capable of doing the work of several humans, what happens to the people whose jobs disappear?
These questions are already fuelling fierce debate online. Tesla fans see Optimus as the beginning of a technological revolution. Sceptics argue that demonstrations are very different from creating a reliable robot capable of safely functioning in the unpredictable real world. Others worry about privacy, particularly if household robots constantly use cameras, microphones and artificial intelligence to understand their surroundings.
Hollywood has been warning us about this possibility for decades.
In iRobot, humanoid machines become an everyday part of society before artificial intelligence begins challenging humanity’s assumptions about control. The more recent film Subservience takes the domestic nightmare even further, imagining an AI-powered humanoid robot becoming dangerously attached to its owner.
Optimus is not evidence that either scenario is about to happen. The real danger may be much less cinematic, but potentially more serious: accidents, surveillance, hacking, dependence on AI and mass job displacement.
The extraordinary possibility is that Optimus could give humans more freedom.
The frightening possibility is that it could make some humans unnecessary.
And somewhere between those two futures lies the question we may soon have to answer: just because we can build human-like machines, should we really give them a place in our homes?