Hey Elon, can I have my designs back please?'

Aussie director slams tech giant's latest robot prototypes

Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the prototypes for the much-anticipated self-driving robotaxi (Cybercab), autonomous Robovan, and his Optimus robots. However, the protypes' similarity to the mechanics used in the Will Smith starrer I-Robot did not go unnoticed by the film's director, Alex Proyas. According to Deadline, the Australian filmmaker slammed Musk for copying his creations, heading over to Musk's own platform, X and tweeting, "Hey Elon, can I have my designs back please?"

As per the publication, Musk led Tesla's "We, Robot" event on Thursday in California, leading to Proyas penning his dig on social media. However, if the director was hoping to find like-minded individuals online as he sought validation, he was disappointed.

"Be honoured," tweeted one fan in response, rushing to Musk's defence. "What you did with CGI and green screen, Elon Musk did in reality."

Set in Chicago in 2035, the Oscar-nominated sci-fi blockbuster I, Robot delves into a world in which human-like androids fill public service positions, based on author Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics first coined in his story collection in the 1950s. A handful of users appeared to agree with Proyas, with one fan adding, "Elon and his ilk are primarily thieves and take credit for design and engineering work done by others." However, another user commented that if Musk had "stolen" from Proyas, then Proyas had also lifted his film from Asimov's stories.

"The film is basically a high-budget, CGI-loaded version of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, a collection of stories published in 1950," accused the follower. "What the movie does is cherry-pick a few key elements, like Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, and slap them into a standard Hollywood "robot-rebellion" action plot […] It's a flashy rehash of someone else's groundbreaking work, repackaged for summer popcorn audiences."