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When we thought Tesla’s Optimus project was settling into a routine of shirt-folding chores and tasks, Elon Musk threw us a curveball. A new video, shared by the Tesla CEO on X(formerly Twitter), showcases Optimus in its new Gen 2 avatar in a state we haven’t seen before, walking but decidedly undressed.

But unlike the polished presentations we’ve seen before, this time, Optimus is bare-bones, revealing its intricate inner workings in all their unpolished glory.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who has an abysmal track record for making predictions — is predicting that we will achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) by 2026.

“If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest human, I think it’s probably next year, within two years,” he told Norway wealth fund CEO Nicolai Tangen during an interview this week, as quoted by Reuters.

The mercurial billionaire also attempted to explain why his own AI venture, xAI, has been falling behind the competition. According to Musk, a shortage of chips was hampering his startup’s efforts to come up with the successor of Grok, a foul-mouthed, dad joke-generating AI chatbot.

Herbert Ong Brighter with Herbert.

Tesla is the latest major company to lay off employees.

The company is eliminating “more than 10%” of staff globally, according to an internal memo sent by Elon Musk on Sunday, which was seen by Business Insider. The layoffs have come shortly after the carmaker posted lackluster delivery numbers.

Musk wrote in the email: “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth cycle.”

Generative AI is quite impressive and has been the common denominator (in most cases) when tapping into new opportunities and unlocking new heights in the tech landscape. Microsoft has significantly benefited from the technology and is currently ranking as the world’s most valuable company, ahead of Apple with over $3 trillion in market capitalization. Market analysts attribute part of this success to its early investment and adoption of AI across its products and services.

Still, AI encounters its fair share of setbacks coupled with controversies and rumors. Perhaps one of the main challenges facing the technology is the lack of elaborate measures and guardrails to prevent it from spiraling out of control.

While relevant parties continue to try to establish control over the technology, billionaire Elon Musk predicts AI will be more intelligent than humans by the end of 2026 (via Business Insider). Musk shared these sentiments in an interview with Norges Bank CEO Nicolai Tangen on X (formerly Twitter).

Elon Musk praises the Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system for its role in aiding a Tesla owner during a mild heart attack.

SpaceX’s upcoming Starship launch and Elon Musk’s ambitious plans for the rocket’s production and capabilities have generated excitement and anticipation among fans and industry observers Questions to inspire discussion What is SpaceX’s upcoming Starship launch? —The upcoming Starship launch refers to SpaceX’s ambitious plans for the rocket’s production and capabilities, generating excitement and anticipation among fans and industry observers.

Sanctuary AI announced that it will be delivering its humanoid robot to a Magna manufacturing facility. Based in Canada, with auto manufacturing facilities in Austria, Magna manufactures and assembles cars for a number of Europe’s top automakers, including Mercedes, Jaguar and BMW. As is often the nature of these deals, the parties have not disclosed how many of Sanctuary AI’s robots will be deployed.

The news follows similar deals announced by Figure and Apptronik, which are piloting their own humanoid systems with BMW and Mercedes, respectively. Agility also announced a deal with Ford at CES in January 2020, though that agreement found the American carmaker exploring the use of Digit units for last-mile deliveries. Agility has since put that functionality on the back burner, focusing on warehouse deployments through partners like Amazon.

For its part, Magna invested in Sanctuary AI back in 2021 — right around the time Elon Musk announced plans to build a humanoid robot to work in Tesla factories. The company would later dub the system “Optimus.” Vancouver-based Sanctuary unveiled its own system, Phoenix, back in May of last year. The system stands 5’7” (a pretty standard height for these machines) and weighs 155 pounds.

Synchron on Monday plans to launch an online…

WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) — Synchron Inc, a rival to Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain implant startup, is preparing to recruit patients for a large-scale clinical trial required to seek commercial approval for its device, the company’s chief executive told Reuters.

Synchron on Monday plans to launch an online registry for patients interested in joining the trial meant to include dozens of participants, and has received interest from about 120 clinical trial centers to help run the study, CEO Thomas Oxley said in an interview.

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