What was claimed
Elon Musk plans to release “robot wives” later this year.
Our verdict
There is no evidence this is true, and the pictures used to show these so-called “robot wives” were generated using AI.
Pictures of Elon Musk's ‘robot wives’ are AI-generated
23 May 2023
Posts falsely claiming that billionaire Elon Musk plans to release “robot wives” for sale later this year have been shared thousands of times on Facebook.
The posts, which have also been shared on Twitter, claim that a company owned by Mr Musk intends to release the human-like robots in September 2023. They feature a number of pictures which appear to show the billionaire kissing and dancing with different “robot wives”.
One post claims: “According to reports, Elon Musk’s company plans to produce a ‘Robot Wife.’ The Robot Wives is expected to roll out Sept 2023.
“Robot Wife will use batteries that require charging for three full days and operate for a month. S3x with a Robot Wife will require a Password, Pattern, or Fingerprint to avoid tempering.
“The Robot will cost around For the amount in USD $3,144 depending on the specs. [sic]”
But there is no evidence for any of these claims, and the images used have all been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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Images of ‘robot wives’ created using AI
If you look closely at some of the pictures used in the posts, some irregularities in hands and facial features quickly become apparent—a common indicator that the images have been created using AI.
The pictures appear to have first been shared in early May by a digital artist, who also shared the highly specific prompts they used in order to create the images.
Full Fact has written before about other similarly misleading AI-generated posts, including viral pictures of Pope Francis wearing a white puffer coat, Julian Assange unwell in prison and pictures appearing to show Prince William and Prince Harry reuniting at King Charles’s recent coronation.
This type of artificially generated content can be very convincing and spread quickly online—we have also written a guide on how to spot it.
No evidence Mr Musk plans to release ‘robot wives’
Full Fact could find no evidence that Mr Musk plans to release “robot wives” as described in the social media posts later this year, or that such a product will be offered by any company linked to him.
But that’s not to say the entrepreneur is not looking to develop human-like robots in the near future. At a recent Tesla shareholder meeting, Mr Musk revealed the latest iteration of the humanoid Optimus robot, currently under development by the company.
An earlier prototype, which shares some AI software with the cars Tesla is more widely associated with, was displayed by Mr Musk in September 2022.
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Image courtesy of The Royal Society |
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the images used in the post are AI-generated and there is no evidence Mr Musk is planning to release “robot wives”