Elon Musk says Tesla’s Optimus project will not become truly powerful until humanoid robots can learn the way children do.
In a new CNBC interview, Musk says the most important phase of development comes after basic motion training, when robots begin teaching themselves through unsupervised play, not scripts or pre-programmed routines.
“Then, where I think it gets very interesting and very much like humans is that you want the robot to self-play. So you say, how does a child learn? Well, a child has toys. And a child plays with the toys, plays with the blocks, at some point figures out how to put the triangle in the triangle hole and the circle in the circle hole by doing it over and over again.”
He says this approach could unlock rapid skill acquisition and general intelligence in physical environments.
“And it’s this self-play. Once you have a lot of robots, you can do this self-play, which is that you just put the robot in a room with toys and literally have the robot play with toys.”
Musk adds that the learning loop must include goals and feedback to mirror how children form understanding.
“And you have to have a reward function, say like, okay, the goal of the robot is to put, you know, that classic child’s toy, you put the circle in the circle hole, the square in the square hole, triangle in triangle hole, and keep doing it until it works, and the reward function is succeeding.”
For now, Musk says Optimus is still in the early stages of motor training.
“Right now we’re training Optimus in like primitive tasks where a human in a kind of what’s called a mocap suit… is moving in the way that the robot would move, [like] pick up an object or open a door or the basic tasks, throw a ball, dance.”
He believes the next leap is close enough to target.
“There are some advances needed, but I don’t think these are insurmountable. I think we can solve these things in the next few years.”
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