Tesla Bot
Sure, the Tesla Bot isn’t a real product yet (nor will it ever be), but Tesla CEO Elon Musk did announce it this year, so it definitely counts for the purposes of this list. Musk, Time magazine’s Person of the Year (sigh), took the wraps off his idea for a robot prototype he’s planning to build next year by hiring a real person to pretend to be a robot. Watch here.
It makes sense that Musk would want to replace human workers with robot ones. The company has a lengthy track record of complaints lobbied against it for its poor working conditions, workplace harassment, and even physical injuries. Why not replace your employees with robots who can’t feel, don’t complain, and won’t file an OSHA complaint about a work-related injury?
Of course, this is all just vaporware. But billionaires with bad ideas are still dangerous, even if their “robots” are just humans in skintight suits. —Florence Ion
