There’s something oddly familiar about Tesla‘s new Cybercab and Optimus humanoid robot designs — especially to Alex Proyas.
The director of “The Crow” and “Dark City” pointed out via X the striking similarities to his 2004 film “I, Robot.” The choice of platform had to sting Elon Musk, who owns both the former Twitter and Tesla.
Proyas tweeted, “Hey Elon, Can I have my designs back please?”
The filmmaker shared three pairs of side-by-side images: On the left, pictures from “I, Robot,” and on the right, Tesla’s recent prototypes. Tesla’s Optimus, a prototype of a Tesla Bot, is a sleek, standing, walking robot that shares some of the same features and build as the ones that stood opposite Will Smith in the 20-year-old film.
There’s also have the Robovan, a bulky, Art Deco-looking vehicle envisioned to carry up to 20 people. It looks an awful lot like an “I, Robot” van. And finally there is the Cybercab Robotaxi, a slick coupe with a door that opens vertically, exactly like Audi’s RSQ concept car designed for the Proyas movie. Artificial life is imitating art.
The name Optimus is of course a “Transformers” reference but looks nothing like Optimus Prime and much more like the NS5 robots in Proyas’ film. But it sure sounds like Tesla itself noticed the similarities, dubbing the reveal event from last week “We, Robot.” Others made similar side-by-side memes after the event, and Matt Granger, a former assistant to Proyas who worked on “I, Robot,” really didn’t mince words.
“I too wish to offer my full-fingered ‘fuck you’ to Elon and his utter lack of creativity,” Granger wrote in a now deleted post.
So he really hates it.
It wouldn’t be the first time that tech companies tried to emulate science fiction. Some companies like OpenAI have done so almost blatantly; the AI company created a voice assistant that sounded just like Scarlett Johansson from “Her.” OpenAI paused use of the voice for its model Sky but denied it intentionally mimicked Johansson — who claimed she was approached by OpenAI to be a voice model for the AI tool — but that it was the “natural speaking voice” of another compensated voice talent.
“I, Robot” is set in 2035. When Tesla’s new toys will be released is TBD.
