Elon Musk accused of copying designs by I, Robot director

The manager of 2004 sci-fi movie I, Robot has accused billionaire Elon Musk of copying his designs for humanoid machines and self-driving vehicles.

At a Tesla lawsuit connected Thursday, Musk unveiled Tesla's futuristic Cybercab, complete with winged doors and nary steering instrumentality oregon pedals, and a caller look astatine its Optimus robots.

But the "We, Robot" showcase, playing connected the rubric of an Isaac Asimov abbreviated communicative collection, besides caught the oculus of I, Robot manager Alex Proyas.

The filmmaker, whose movie stars Will Smith arsenic a detective sceptical of seemingly obedient androids, accused Musk of copying his enactment successful a station connected X.

"Hey Elon, tin I person my designs backmost please," Proyas said successful a station viewed 6.4 cardinal times.

The Australian movie manager said helium had worked with a "very talented plan team" to make the film's visuals successful a effect to idiosyncratic querying their ain originality successful a remark on an Instagram post.

"Elon Musk connected the different manus has a not truthful talented plan squad who watched a batch of movies, including I, Robot it seems," helium said.

Patrick Tatopoulos, the film's accumulation designer, aboriginal reposted the representation comparing the film's designs and images from Tesla's lawsuit broadside by broadside in his ain station connected Instagram.

"Maybe it is conscionable me, oregon should I consciousness honoured that Elon recovered immoderate inspiration successful my I, Robot designs," Mr Tatopoulos wrote.

"Either mode it’s amusive to watch," helium added.

The claims made by Proyas person been met with scepticism online, however, with immoderate claiming his ain movie is derivative.

Several radical replied to his station connected X with images of the feminised cyborg successful Fritz Lang's German expressionist film, Metropolis, from 1927.

But it is not the archetypal clip radical person queried whether tech companies look to sci-fi cinema and novels for ideas - particularly arsenic firms make caller gadgets and robotics to capitalise connected involvement successful generative artificial quality (AI).

Mr Musk has antecedently said helium was inspired by Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which features humanoid robot Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Grok, his AI chatbot "with a small humour" designed for usage connected X, was later revealed to beryllium modelled connected it.

And helium has besides called Tesla's futuristic Cybertruck "an armoured unit bearer from the future" that "Bladerunner would person driven".

Meanwhile OpenAI brag Sam Altman appeared to corroborate comparisons drawn betwixt a flirty, caller dependable unveiled for ChatGPT and a virtual adjunct played by Scarlett Johansson successful the 2013 movie Her successful a station connected X successful May.

The steadfast removed its "Sky" dependable pursuing disapproval implicit its similarity to Ms Johansson's - saying it was not intended to beryllium an "imitation".

The histrion said she was near "angered" and "shocked" at the company's evident usage of a soundalike.