Rivian CEO takes different approach than Elon Musk for humanoid robots

PARK CITY, Utah — Rivian Automotive CEO RJ Scaringe envisions a day in the not-too-distant future when the electric vehicle maker’s production workers will have a new colleague: humanoid robots.

“There will be thousands of people collaborating with these robots. They’ll be taking pictures, saying, ‘Hey, check this out! My co-worker’s name is Phil and he’s a robot,'” Scaringe said during a media event for the launch of the Rivian R2 EV.

The 43-year-old automotive enthusiast and technology entrepreneur founded a robotics company called Mind Robotics last year. The company has raised more than $1 billion, according to Scaringe.

Humanoid robots are designed to shape and move like humans. Artificial intelligence algorithms are powering their capabilities as well as complex hardware like semiconductors. Supporters say they could be used in a variety of settings, from factories to hospitality and even homes, while others have expressed concerns about the devices replacing human jobs.

Scaringe said the company, in which Rivian is a major minority shareholder and launch customer, expects to launch its first product in less than a year. Mind currently has approximately 20 open positions, ranging from software and hardware engineers to data architects. according to the website.

Scaringe, Mind’s chairman and acting CEO, told CNBC that the plan is to keep the robotics company separate from Rivian, as opposed to the automaker’s move to partly build humanoid robots. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk does it with his company.

“We have a deep relationship and we actually structured it that way,” Scaringe said during an interview. “A big part of structuring the business was making sure I could make time for both.”

The robotics strategy reinforces the narrative that Scaringe does things differently than Musk, despite the obvious similarities in their companies. There have been enough comparisons that even Rivian has made it. Called “anti-Tesla” and Scaringe has been commemorated as: “Anti-Elon.”

“I would say there’s a lot of alignment there, and obviously that’s because I’m biased, but I think they’re right… I think autonomy is a very important technology,” Scaringe said of Tesla and Rivian. “But in many ways, in terms of products, they couldn’t be more different.”

So far Rivian and Mind are helping each other; just like Musk does during the development phases of his companies. These include Musk’s xAI company merging with SpaceX ahead of the company’s record-breaking initial public offering on Friday, and SpaceX buying vehicles from Tesla.

Scaringe said Rivian will be a “major beneficiary” of Mind, which uses Rivian’s data to train AI models. In addition to Rivian’s shares, the automaker will be Mind’s first customer for robots.

“We realized this was such a big opportunity that it deserved to be its own company,” Scaringe said. He said he believes there is a multitrillion-dollar total addressable market for industrial labor.

Scaringe became visibly excited when speaking to the media about the potential of artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics, calling it “perhaps one of the most exciting times in human history.”

“A hundred years from now, they will inherit the work we’ve done our whole lives, and that’s why I think we’re very lucky to have survived the dawn of artificial intelligence,” Scaringe said.

Despite the optimism for humanoid robots, Scaringe said he expects devices to work alongside humans rather than completely replacing them in the foreseeable future, and that it will be a “long time” before vehicle assembly plants become robots. so-called “dark factories” It can be managed almost entirely by robots.

“From what I see, the simplest tasks will be taken over by robots. More complex tasks will require higher levels of reasoning or more complex, more tactile-level dexterity tasks.” [will be done by humans]” he said.

Scaringe said manufacturers are facing “extreme labor shortages” from other automakers. Rivian currently has more than 30 manufacturing and engineering jobs open. company website.

Scaringe believes that the need for such workers, as well as the rapid development of artificial intelligence, will mean that human workers will be working alongside a robot named “Phil” much sooner than they expect.

“The rate at which this is progressing is much faster — like I said, much faster — than the average person in society can understand,” he said. “Getting the average person to realize how quickly models learn and how capable they are at doing almost anything will be a particularly big challenge in the short term.”

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.