‘I, Robot’ Director Accuses Elon Musk of Taking His Ideas for New Tesla Robot, Van and More: ‘Hey Elon, Can I Have My Designs Back Please?’

On Thursday, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, unveiled a long-awaited glimpse into the future with models for their new self-driving prototypes: the cybercab and the robovan. Also at the celebration was the new Tesla robot optimus, serving up drinks and engaging with the crowds.

Whether or not the Optimus robot was actually fully autonomous or, rather, puppeteered from afar is (very) debatable.

However, one person who seemed pretty certain about the origin of these designs was “I, Robot” director Alex Proyas. The director posted his complaint directly to Muskc’s social media of choice, X, commenting, “Hey Elon, Can I have my designs back please?”

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Contained in the post were side-by-side images of “I, Robot’s” autonomous police force next to the optimus bot, transport in the 2004 film next to Tesla’s robovan, and a futuristic car from Proyas’ film next to the cybercab.

The 2004 film starring Will Smith is set in the future world of Chicago in 2035, inspired by the famous science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s 1950 short-story collection. The plot is centered around a detective (Smith) trying to unravel a confusing murder that may or may not have been caused by a member of the autonomous police force named Sonny (played by Alan Tudyk).

Such an action should be impossible as all the robots in the future are governed by the scifi trope, “the three laws of robotics.” Law number one, a robot may not injure a human being. Law number two, a robot must obey the orders given by humans unless it conflicts with the first law. conflict with the First Law. And law number three, a robot must protect itself if it doesn’t conflict with the first or second law. But here’s the twist: the detective hates robots and their silly laws, so it’s wild that he alone is tasked with cracking this case.

Best known for his work directing “The Crow” (the 1994 version) and the 1998 film “Dark City,” Proyas has been recently writing his thoughts on AI and the overall film industry for his Patreon account and is currently in production for another scifi film “R.U.R.”