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Could Elon Musk tweet for all of eternity? Digital avatar technology could make it happen
Digital avatars are a blend of science fiction and our current reality, but where is that line drawn, really? Imagine the current minds behind today’s most promising technologies and businesses leaving electronic copies of themselves so that, rather than just existing in nostalgic memories, they could continue contributing to the global conversation for all of digital eternity.
That’s right. The tweets of Elon Musk wouldn’t just be archived for historic perusal. He’d still be tweeting (or opining on a similar platform) long after his great-great-great-grandchildren were graduating from high school on Mars.
Of course, that particular goal could likely be achieved with minimal coding effort utilizing a dataset of his public comments, but that’s not all digital avatar technology is proposing. Imagine being able to approach Elon for personalized business advice, his opinion on a proposed carbon regulation, or thoughts on the name of an off-planet colony, all without the real magnate (magnet?) being directly involved in the conversation – or even alive, for that matter.
MIT Technology Review recently published an article featuring Augmented Eternity, a company developing an application which will host digital personas based on its customers that can be interacted with posthumously. For example, a customer’s business persona could give advice on a corporate deal, and a private persona could be involved with family matters. Utilizing personal data analyzed by artificial intelligence to achieve its goals, Augmented Eternity isn’t the only business on the market for this kind of digital interactivity.
Eternime wants you to live forever as a digital version of your after you die. [Credit: Eterni.me]
The company Eterni.me describes its services as a collection of “your thoughts, stories and memories, curate[d] [into] an intelligent avatar that looks like you…[because]…we all pass away, sooner or later…eventually, we are all forgotten.” Another company with a focus on the living over the dead, ObEN, describes its product as “Personal Artificial Intelligence (PAI)” comprising “personalized digital avatars [that] look, sound, sing, and behave like you…capable of performing a variety of useful tasks.” With its product being a “verified intelligent 3D avatar…perform[ing] activities on your behalf”, ObEN takes direct aim at increasing present day productivity, i.e., benefitting the customer while they are alive.
Admittedly, the idea of storing personal data for use in an artificial intelligence environment isn’t a new one. The concept of creating an avatar embodying the personality of any person has at least been floating around since science fiction envisioned separating human minds from their bodies. One of the notable recent imaginings in entertainment of this concept was seen in the episode, “Be Right Back” from the British science fiction series, “Black Mirror”. In the episode, a widow is able to recreate her dead partner, first as a type of chat box, then a telephone personality, and finally a corporeal being, all by using data obtained via his public electronic records.
Another recent and compelling imagining of this scenario is found in the series, “Caprica”, wherein a teenage girl’s father uploads a sentient avatar of his dead daughter into an advanced robot. The sentience, perhaps, is the factor that makes the software most dangerous, and the avatar’s actions throughout the series confirm this concern. Danger and advanced artificial intelligence are two concepts that seem to come wrapped up in one another, and here we come full circle back to Elon Musk.
When asked what he sees about AI that others with less concern about its future do, Elon replied, “Smart people…define themselves by their intelligence and…they don’t like the idea that a machine could be way smarter than them, so they discount the idea…it’s the wishful thinking situation.” Having also posited that AI is more dangerous than nuclear warheads, there’s no mistaking his position that more care is needed towards the safety of its advancement.
Another major concern of Elon’s, however, is an extinction-level event which will end humanity, and this concern is part of what drives his and SpaceX’s mission towards colonization of Mars. Could digital avatars be a place where concerns and prospects find common ground? Aside from physically relocating part of humanity to another planet to ensure its long-term survival, encapsulating humanity in digital (smarter?) form as proposed by avatar companies might be another way to ensure the legacy of the species, not just individual customers.
Then again, if we’re all living in a simulation to begin with, digitizing our personas may just be completing the predicted circle of life. Stay tuned – the future of tech moves fast.
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla has officially launched public Robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, without a Safety Monitor in the vehicle, marking the first time the company has removed anyone from the vehicle other than the rider.
The Safety Monitor has been present in Tesla Robotaxis in Austin since its launch last June, maintaining safety for passengers and other vehicles, and was placed in the passenger’s seat.
Tesla planned to remove the Safety Monitor at the end of 2025, but it was not quite ready to do so. Now, in January, riders are officially reporting that they are able to hail a ride from a Model Y Robotaxi without anyone in the vehicle:
I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor pic.twitter.com/fzHu385oIb
— TSLA99T (@Tsla99T) January 22, 2026
Tesla started testing this internally late last year and had several employees show that they were riding in the vehicle without anyone else there to intervene in case of an emergency.
Tesla has now expanded that program to the public. It is not active in the entire fleet, but there are a “few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors,” Ashok Elluswamy said:
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time. https://t.co/ShMpZjefwB
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) January 22, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi program also operates in the California Bay Area, where the fleet is much larger, but Safety Monitors are placed in the driver’s seat and utilize Full Self-Driving, so it is essentially the same as an Uber driver using a Tesla with FSD.
In Austin, the removal of Safety Monitors marks a substantial achievement for Tesla moving forward. Now that it has enough confidence to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis altogether, there are nearly unlimited options for the company in terms of expansion.
While it is hoping to launch the ride-hailing service in more cities across the U.S. this year, this is a much larger development than expansion, at least for now, as it is the first time it is performing driverless rides in Robotaxi anywhere in the world for the public to enjoy.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Tesla begins Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
