According to EuroWeekly News, Elon Musk announced he was in the process of making a robotic companion that could perform chores for you. This included mowing the lawn, watering the garden, babysitting the kids, and even being pregnant for you.
According to PolitiFact, however, this pregnancy robot claim stemmed from a running joke online that went too far. Musk did claim that “whatever you can think of, it will do” (PolitiFact). This statement made posters on social media start a meme trend, talking about what the robot could do for them, such as “make me a sandwich at 2am”, “fire up another round of pizza bites”, but some posters took it a step further by saying it could bear a couple's child. Meta, however, flagged those who posted about it as false news and removed them.
The BBC had similar facts that helped refute this claim, stating that the humanoid robots would be sold “in low production for Tesla”. They will not be offered to a large portion of the population, and those who would gain one would most likely be big commercial companies. It is also noted that the robots would be used for "repetitive or boring tasks”, making it seem like a low-functioning machine, compared to one that would have to be highly advanced to carry out a human being.
An article written by Snopes further explained how the rumor of the pregnancy robot came to fruition, explaining its origins, coming from TikTok. Snopes also confirms that there have been no credible news sources that have reported this claim. Furthermore, Scopes found the original poster of this meme and discovered they work with generative AI art, one of their pieces included the images used in their video to promote their joke.
