Tesla bot is coming + After throat cancer, hear Val Kilmer's voice re-created by AI

[C C]

(engineering) The Tesla Bot is coming
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22633...oid-ai-day
https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/19/musk-t...is-coming/

EXCERPTS: . . . Musk, who has spoken repeatedly about his fears of runaway artificial intelligence, said the Tesla Bot is “intended to be friendly,” but that the company is designing the machine at a “mechanical level” so that “you can run away from it, and most likely overpower it.” It will be five feet, eight inches tall, weigh 125 pounds, and have a screen for a face. The code name for the bot inside the company is “Optimus,” he said.

[...] Interestingly, Musk is imagining this as replacing much of the human drudge work that currently occupies so many people’s lives – not just labor but things like grocery shopping and other everyday tasks. He waxed about a future in which physical work would be a choice, with all the attendant implications that might mean for the economy. “In the long term I do think there needs to be universal basic income,” Musk said. “But not right now because the robot doesn’t work.”

[...] Tesla’s history is littered with fanciful ideas that never panned out — like a solar-powered Supercharger network, battery swapping, or robotic snake-style chargers — so it’s anyone’s guess as to whether a working Tesla Bot will ever see the light of day. But the company is where it is today because of Musk’s sheer will. Asked about the near-term economics of entering the robotics industry, though, Musk said “we will have to see.”

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/HUP6Z5voiS8

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(design) Hear Val Kilmer's voice, re-created by AI after throat cancer took it away
https://www.cnet.com/news/hear-val-kilme...k-it-away/

EXCERPT: . . . In 2020, Kilmer turned to British AI company Sonantic to create a model of his voice, basically a custom-built audio-only deepfake for the actor's personal use.

Sonantic creates voice models primarily for video games using actors who read hours worth of scripts. That audio is then fed into the company's voice engine to build a model that can say anything on demand. But Kilmer's case was trickier because there was little audio from his career available in a high-quality format and with minimal background noise.

A team cleaned up the available audio to remove as much noise as possible and attempted to build a model for Kilmer's voice with only about one-tenth of the audio normally required. When the results were subpar, Sonantic developed new algorithms to work with less data and wound up creating over 40 different models of Kilmer's voice. The team chose the best and most expressive one and now you can hear the results below.

Kilmer's voice can be controlled by a desktop application that allows him to type whatever he wants the model to say and then fine tune aspects of the delivery like pitch and pacing... (MORE - missing details)

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/OSMue60Gg6s

[stryder]

@Tesla Bot

I think 5' 8" is too tall for a bot, I wouldn't go over 5' 1" (Albeit I'd likely keep to about 4' 11") The main reason I say it's too tall is if people are truly going to be fearful of being overpowered, it's going to be it's overall size (and of course weight). If the global average female height is around 5' 3" then it should be smaller than that.

Reducing it's height by 7 inches is about a 8.75% reduction (if applied by linear scaling, it would be about 15lbs lighter) Smaller would reduce overall consumption in regards to resources, require less power etc, but would also require more miniturization.

The main concern people would have is that fact that such systems would be apart of a hivemind (The neural networkings learning and adaption would likely be shared will all other bots of the same type) Thats alot of private individuals information being in the hands of a corporation, which could itself be its own undoing.

Theres then the point as to whether a person would buy it, or whether it would be leased. Ideally in this day and age such companies should use a lease method. That way they get to keep it up to date, they define its shelf life and can recycle and replace it (while contracted). Ultimately, companies (in general) can become the responsible party they've currently shirked. If it's left to the average person to do those things, then we just have the potential of another broken nicknack filling up some quality space in a hoarders hallway.