While the Chinese have had butler bots for seemingly ages now, the Americans are giving them kadi takkar with the world’s richest billionaire on the forefront.

The term, which originated in Star Wars lore, has been co-opted by people frustrated with robots and artificial intelligence.

At a pre-launch event at Tesla’s new Hollywood diner on July 19 punters were served popcorn by a prototype model of Tesla’s vaunted ‘Optimus’ robot

The Department of Defense under Secretary Pete Hegseth has been fixated on buzzwords like “warfighting” and “warfighters,” and adopting new AI tools is part of that mission, according to leaders at the agency. And Monday’s press release was filled to the brim with similarly grandiose language.

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 ...